winner of the "Guess Stuff About the Baby Contest"

Before Zoralee was born, I held a "Guess Stuff About the Baby" contest. In the 9 weeks since her birth, I've been getting emails by droves of people experiencing anxiety attacks over who the winner is. Yuckity yuck yuck. In truth, no emails. This may be because a) people have lives, b) no one was a strikingly accurate guesser and therefore didn't think about claiming a prize, c) the prize was brazenly slated to be practically worthless monetarily. Otherwise, you've got to admit: this was a kick-pants contest!!

Anyway, because no guesses were dead on, and because I hadn't figured out which features of the guess would hold more weight and which less, this took some serious calculating. In the end, it was a VERY CLOSE match between Autumn and Laura, who both guessed "girl." Neither guessed the exact right date and time, but Autumn's guess was 35.25 hours past when Zoralee was born and Laura's was 34.5 hours before; score one for Laura. Autumn's weight guess was 2 ounces too light, while Laura's was 3; score one for Autumn. Finally, Autumn's guess for length was 2 inches over and Laura's was only .5 inches; score another for Laura. Do you see what I mean? They don't teach you this kind of practical life stuff in school; that's for sure.

So, without further ado, I hereby declare the winner as......LAURA!! Laura was a co-worker of mine at the University in Anchorage. Our cubicle land made it seem like children wrote the script for the show, "The Office;" we have an arsenal of bizarre memories. I never laughed very heartily at Dilbert jokes until I worked at UAA. One lady, named (to us) Fern, sprayed her ferns daily with a very loud squirt bottle that resonated through the office. Another lady walked her rounds holding THE EXACT SAME CONVERSATION with people every day. One guy stood by your desk eyeing your snack food until you offered him a bite. I love people, but I don't love offices; offices pull the weird out of people, turn it into downright cooky, and put it back in. All of that to say, "Way to go, Laura, who now lives back in her home state of North Carolina!"

Also, for our runner up, Autumn: she and Dan just received recent news that their long-awaited adoption of sweet Mezmur from Ethiopia went through, so I feel a little ridiculous saying, "No, I will not send a prize to you, even though your guess was only 1/2 hour different than Laura's and only .5 units off from Laura's when you add the height and weight together," as I think any contest officiant would agree. So, there's a chance they'll get a little prize too. I think Autumn could use something knitted....let me think....