As I’ve said here before, the Lovely Laura Lee told me her grandfather kept a daily journal and each grandchild could go back and read about the day he or she was born. So now, by tradition, I make a little blog entry for each of my grandchildren. And today, we’re happy to welcome our third grandchild, Parker Adele Tatum into the world.
Parker is the first child of my daughter Suzanne and her husband Bryant Tatum. She was born at 3:11 pm today, June 9, 2011. She is 20 inches tall and weighed in at six pounds, 10 ounces. All of her grandparents and several other family members were there at East Georgia Medical Center to greet her. Her Uncle Daniel drove over from Birmingham arriving just in time to be one of the first visitors.
She was not an easy delivery. Suzanne had wanted to go through “natural childbirth”, but after spending all night Wednesday in the hospital and being in labor most of the day today, the pain got exhausting and unbearable and she reluctantly agreed to use epidural anesthesia. When I saw her after the delivery, she was tired and sore, but very, very happy. Bryant, the new father, seemed somewhat in a daze. He described the whole thing as the most amazing experience of his life, and he’s right.
Parker’s new doctor came in to check her out while we were there and announced that she is in fine health. After some prodding from me, she agreed that this is the most perfect baby she has ever examined.
Parker came into the world on a beautiful day in East Georgia. We’ve had some record-breaking heat over the past few weeks for this early in the summer, but it has gotten back to normal now with cool evening lows around 68 degrees and high temperatures around 90.
So what’s going on in this world that Parker’s been born into? Like her first cousins Stella and Pierce, Parker was born into tough economic times in our country. When Stella was born on August 22, 2008, I wrote that the economy was the worst I had seen in my lifetime. By the time Pierce showed up on November 11, 2009, I wrote that we were just beginning to see signs of recovery. Well, the recovery has been very slow. While we are technically no longer in a recession, unemployment is very high and there are no signs at all that housing prices are recovering. Too many people have lost jobs and houses. But Parker will be fine. Her parents both have good jobs, and she has about a million relatives hovering around that will always take good care of her.
Our country is still at war. Although we have gradually wound down our military presence in Iraq, we are still actively fighting in Afghanistan against terrorist groups. Let us hope for a more peaceful future for Parker.
Suzanne and Bryant will be great parents. I’m sure they’re both a little intimidated right now, but they will adjust quickly and do a fine job raising this beautiful little girl. And there is a huge crowd of us waiting to spoil her. So here’s to you Parker Adele. Welcome to the world. We love you already, and we’re looking forward to getting to know you better.
And just so you’ll have all the important news of the day, here’s a copy of today’s New York Times:
