Et tu, Charlie...

Charlie, a.k.a. "Squeaky McWhimper" is seven-and-a-half hours old, and somewhat less shiny than he was in the previous picture, but still pretty cute:

Charlie, Take 1

No one looks great right after they're just born.  But Charlie gave it a pretty good shot:

Heeere's...

Charlie Joel Teich, born 2:41 a.m., Sunday, May 11, 2008.

7 lbs., 10 1/2 oz., 19 1/2 inches.  

Mom & Charlie doing great!

2:00

Holding pattern here on Labor & Delivery.  Gretchen got a little midnight epidural, and she's squeezing in a little rest before it's officially showtime.  I've been alternating between a coffee that's gone cold and a Coke that's gone warm and a packet of Cool Ranch Doritos, which seem completely inappropriate while the nurse is in the room checking vital signs.  I also managed to pull off a shower, partly because I felt disgusting, and partly because I didn't necessarily need Baby Boy Teich's first impression of his dad to be, Geez, doesn't this guy bathe?  And what's up with the hat-head?

But before things get too crazy, we took a hospital self-portrait:

The 11:30 CT Update

We're watching "Bowfinger."  K.I.T. = "Keep it together."  A good lesson for all of us, brought to you by Eddie Murphy.

And now, a message from Dairy Queen

While we have a few spare moments (see previous post), a quick word about the miraculous work performed by the simple banana milk shake:

June 9th, 2004:  My wife and I head out to Dairy Queen on Flagstaff's west side, as she is - at 35 weeks pregnant, craving a banana shake.  We come home and her water breaks.  Sylvi is born June 10th.

May 9, 2008:  We've held out on Dairy Queen until Gretchen's 38th week, but finally decide it's worth trying to introduce a control group to the experiment.  This time, it takes about 22 hours for Gretchen's water to break.  The delay, we believe (not really), was linked to Milwaukee's lower elevation (630 feet) than Flagstaff's (7000 feet).

The labor of blogging

19 Minutes is live from Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, this evening, as my wife is ready to, um, give birth.

It's an amazing and awe-inspiring time for both of us - though things are pretty slow at this moment, so mostly I'm amazed that there is wi-fi on the Labor & Delivery floor.  

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Notes from Red Sox Nation, Wauwatosa bureau

I'm writing.  Not surprising, because that's how a blog post is brought into the world.  But I'm writing at a coffee shop (also not surprising) in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.  The place is full; probably sixty-five or seventy people are drinking coffee and using yellow highlighters or texting whoever they text from a coffee shop on a Saturday afternoon.

There are three of us in the place with baseball caps - at least baseball caps that represent a baseball team.  They're all Red Sox caps, which strikes me as a little odd, since we're all of a ten-minute drive from Miller Park, which drew more than three million fans last year to watch the Brewers.  

But more than casting doubt on the depth of Brewers fandom in suburban Milwaukee, it causes me concern that my Red Sox cap has become iconic, more than a Red Sox beacon in the Central Time Zone, like a Michael Jordan shirt in a remote Guatemalan village, or a Brett Favre jersey in Warsaw.  Maybe the other people in the Tosa Alterra saw Tony Conigliaro play DH at Fenway Park in his short-lived comeback attempt in 1975.  Maybe they pulled half their hair out every time Bob Stanley came into a game in the mid '80s.  Maybe they know that before there was a Jacoby Ellsbury, there was a Steve Ellsworth, and before that, a Dick Ellsworth.  But alas, I'm guessing not.

On the other hand, I've purchased two Red Sox caps in the past five years, and each time, the Red Sox won a World Series.  I believe there's a direct cause-and-effect relationship there, but in case I'm not the factor at work, I urge everyone else to stop by their closest hat shop.

Admit it. You were wondering why I hadn't posted.

It's been a good six months since the last activity on the 19 Minutes front. I had a variety of stories I'd concocted as to why we've been offline for so long.

But the truth is, I'd been stunned. Stunned... to read the fine print on this flyer, advertising today's now-imminent 31-cent scoop day at Baskin-Robbins, which informs me:

Limit ten scoops per person, per purchase. Really? My wife, daughter, and I are limited to only 30 scoops between us? Unless of course, we come back to the counter and make another purchase.

So we're back at work, here at the 19 Minutes World Media Headquarters. After we take a Lactaid, anyway, and dig into our first ten scoops.

Let the good tidings begin, whatever they are

The building managers in the mall above 19 Minutes World Media Heaquarters put up the garland and Christmas lights on November 2nd this year.

It snowed, a beautiful, light, fluffy cotton candy snow, across the upper Midwest, Wednesday morning and afternoon.

My wife and I found ourselves at the Mall of America yesterday, Black Friday. We have Chanukah and Christmas presents in place.

Yet, I was having a hard time reconciling all of this with the notion that the holiday season is beginning.

I'm currently at the Caribou Coffee in Eagan, Minnesota. Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime" is playing on the sound system here. That is, perhaps, the worst holiday song ever written.

Now it feels like the holiday season.

Bill of Writes

Right. I’m still out here, even though this space has been dark for some time. Much of my spare time has been consumed with writing. And as an author I know pointed out to me, “You can either write about writing, or you can just write.”

I’m just writing.

But there will be more.

Harumph.

It's taken us three days, but we've finally been able to figure out what was causing all the strange characters to show up in our most recent blog post. Which is no longer our most recent blog post, since I've written this.