My child arrived just the other day

On a bookcase in the front room of my parents' old house, a pair of books stood side by side.

One white and one light blue, they were a pair of baby books.

You know the sort, it has a place to put the clipping from your birth announcement, a place for your family tree, your baby stats, first word, date of first steps and dozens of pictures.

While Mom, God rest her soul, wasn't exactly fastidious about the upkeep of either book, I remember getting offended as an 11- or 12-year-old that my book contained even fewer details than my brother's.

Mom, ever the straight shooter, didn't pull any punches. She told me she was 10 years older and busier when I was a baby and it just didn't happen.

While this did little for my adolescent self-esteem, I still appreciate her honesty.

I had also hoped to avoid the same pitfalls.

Alas, here we are some 22 years later and I'm in roughly the same boat. My daughter was born a week ago and I've yet to write a word, either in the paper or on my blog, about it.

It was different with my son.

Nearly every blog, every column was about the pregnancy, the approaching birth and finally the wondrous new baby.

I made my son something of a local celebrity, about whom people still ask, "How's that baby?"

That answer is that the "baby" is almost five. But he remains awesome.

I worry that my daughter won't have the same kind of reception, what with Dad not serving as her advance hype man for nine months.

So let me start now.

At 5:35 p.m. on Tuesday, March 31, Hannah Elizabeth Jernagan was born at St. Vincent Fishers Hospital. She weighed seven pounds, 14 ounces and measured 20-1/4 inches long.

That's the short version, but there's a lot more to it.

I'll spare you the blow by blow account, but it involved an induction that never fully got off the ground, 32 hours of labor and an emergency C-section that took three hours and involved four surgeons.

While listening to "Cat's in the Cradle" today, I realized I envy Harry Chapin, or at least the narrator of that No. 1 song.

I don't envy him for being a distracted father whose kid grows up too fast. I'm already living that.

No, I envy him in that when his "child arrived just the other day, it came to the world in the usual way."

Oh, that a Jernagan child could come in "the usual way." After watching Nicole endure something like 65 hours of labor to bear our two children, I'm not sure what "usual" means.

But I shouldn't complain too much. There's been another common trait in these two children, one I almost don't want to write, lest the universe discover the error and correct it.

They've both been really good babies.

I'm talking very little fussing, waking just once in the night for a quick meal and a diaper change, content most of the time.

In Hannah's case (at least one week in), she spits up even less than Miles did. A champion burper, this one.

We figured the tables would turn and we'd have a hell-raiser this time around.

So, here we are, a happy, complete little family.

Mom is healing nicely and feeling much better.

Baby has been doing wonderfully from the word go. She looks so much like her brother, only with more pinchable cheeks than he ever had.

Big Brother is helpful and loving -- possibly a bit overzealous. And that's OK.

As for Dad? He's enjoying this family time and not being at the office for a couple of weeks.

I'm told by more experienced parents to soak it all in and don't take this time for granted.

All I can say is I'm doing the best I can. I don't want to miss this.

... and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ...