Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys

Whether this kid grows up to be a vaquero remains to be seen, of course, but judging by his birth weight, I don't believe he'll grow up to wear the silver star on his helmet.

John David Baker was born last night, January 22, 2007, at 8:47 p.m., coming in at a hefty 6 pounds 11 ounces, at just under 20 inches long (19 and 3/4 to be exact, though he was squirming so much it was hard to be certain), 18 hours after Jessica's bag of waters broke. Jessica birthed him at the Maternity Center ("that hippy place" according to Uncle Josh) drug-free, and she did an amazing job. I can't say enough how proud I am of her. I'll let her tell the whole birth story, and I'm sure I'll add more about my perspective, but I wanted to put it up there for people to see. We already have like 30 pictures of the kid and eventually I'll get them loaded on the computer and uploaded to the website. He has nice dark hair and I think Jessica's chin, but beyond that we're not sure who he looks like.

For those of you who don't know, the name comes from both sides of the family. Jessica has an uncle John whose birthday was last week, and I have a great-uncle John who passed away a few weeks ago; our boy is named after both. As for the David, that was my father's name (God rest his soul) and my middle name, and is also my father-in-law's middle name. We're not sure yet if we're going to call him John David or John or David or Jack or Dave or J.D. or Poncho or whatever - we figure we'll let it work itself out.

Well gotta go - Jess's parents are here now and we're about to go to Reagan to pick up my mom - just the three of us are going. Hopefully by the next time I post I'll be able to find the words to explain how awesome it is to watch your son be born. I just can't get enough of this kid - last night after he was put on the boob and fed and we were all resting before we were sent home, I sat there for 45 minutes staring at him, and I didn't get bored, not a bit.

Miracle of Life? Understatement.