Wednesday, January 23rd, 2013: 11:59pm

The details:

8lb 9oz / 19 inches long

I’ve honestly never understood why people announce this information. Sure, we measure kids’ heights as they grow older, but the length and weight of a newborn baby seem like the most irrelevant pieces of information in the world. If someone tells me they just had a baby, my response is probably “Congratulations, get off my lawn.” But if I’m interested, I really only have three questions:

• Is it alive?

• What’s it’s name?

Ok, two questions. And the first one is irrelevant because most people aren’t going to talk about it if it’s not alive.

The only reason I can surmise that people like talking about the weight and length is for bragging rights, like you might brag about a particularly impressive dump you took. I assume when ex-pregnant women go to the restroom to do lines of cocaine or whatever it is they do in there that they use the weight of their newborns to try and one-up each other. “Oh yeah? 9 pounds six ounces, I bet you couldn’t push THAT out of your vagina!”

I’ve also been informed that apparently it’s a girl, not a boy, and they’re naming her Galadriel Lily. I tried to explain that Lars Ulrich can be a girl’s name as well, but they didn’t seem particularly interested in my views. The next time I do a live blog of a neighbor’s birth I’m going to negotiate a contract that includes naming rights.

For the uninitiated, Galadriel is from Lord of the Rings, and Lily is Harry Potter’s mom. I think this will be terribly confusing. You never want to cross genres like that, it’s like naming your son Obi-Wan Spock. You just don’t do it.

Oh, and here’s a picture of her:

Anyway, that about wraps things up.  Now to print this up and stuff it in a time capsule for the next sixteen years or so until she’s a horribly awkward teenager and then give it to her – or, better yet, give it to her and all of her friends simultaneously.

In closing, I’d like to thank Jennifer and Cliff for being ridiculously good sports about all of this. When I mentioned that I was planning on liveblogging the entire event I was half expecting to be served with a restraining order, but they have both been remarkably open and willing to share vital and hilarious details.

If you would like me to liveblog your birth, my services can be purchased for a reasonable fee. No subject is off-limits. kawnliee@gmail.com

And now if you’ll excuse me, I need to clean some Hefty bags out of the backseat of my car.