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Even though it seems Justin was just born a few weeks ago he is now somehow old enough to be in preschool, which he started back in September. He seems to have made the adjustment well, starting with just two days a week while Susan was still on maternity leave, then going full time once she went back to work in October. He’s already got a stable of friends that he plays with every day and he recites their names when I ask him whom he played with that day. His school is really good and he likes the two teachers, who seem to love what they’re doing and are great with the kids.

The biggest problem so far, other than Justin getting bitten by a girl who’s a serial biter (which I won’t get into!), is that for the first time Justin is having separation issues when we drop him off. I don’t think he ever cried when getting dropped off at daycare, though when he started he was too young to understand what was happening. Now I have to deal with the heart-rending cries as I’m scurrying off to the car after plopping him down in his classroom every morning. It was worse in the beginning but soon got better once he got used to the routine.

But then on Halloween there was a costume parade at lunchtime which parents were encouraged to attend. Susan had some meetings that day so I worked from home and went over to the school just before lunchtime with Justin’s Thomas the Train costume in tow. He immediately ran over to me: “Daddy! Daddy!” Then, for the duration of the parade and subsequent lunch he clung to my side, demanding that I walk in the parade with him and hold his hand. He was the only kid who required a chaperone, and he wouldn’t leave my side to be in any of the group pictures with the other kids. There were even two other Thomas the Trains there and he refused to pose for a picture with them!

When everything was done I had to sneak out of the classroom while he was distracted by his second helping of pasta at lunch. I still don’t know if he cried once he realized I was gone. It seems clear that my presence during the lunch hour threw off his mojo and for the next few drop-offs the trauma of the first couple of weeks returned. So sad! But according to his teachers he does calm down soon after I leave each morning and then proceeds to have a grand old time.

There are two particularly funny stories to share about his first two months of preschool. The first one won’t surprise anyone who’s been around Justin during mealtime. Every day his teachers fill out a “report card” for him listing whom he played with, what activities he participated in, whether and how long he napped, when he went potty, what he had for lunch, and lastly, how much he ate. For the last one there are three options on the sheet: none, a little, and a lot. Can you guess which one has been circled on EVERY ONE of Justin’s report cards? I joked to Susan that they should make a separate master copy for Justin with “A lot” pre-circled to save time! And one time they even wrote in the margin “Justin was REALLY hungry today!” Crazy kid. That’s why I was smiling so much when I witnessed him having a second serving on Halloween.

The other funny story involves our first parent-teacher conference, which Susan attended. There we were given a more in-depth written report of Justin’s developmental progress to date. I think I laughed out loud multiple times while reading it that evening. Here are just a few of the gems:

Justin shows a lot independence in class. He represents himself as a “big boy”. He helps others to do things and meet their needs. He also tries to use some type of leadership to meet his goals.

He loves to ask questions: “But why?”

He communicates at all times with his peers.

Situations or experiences that cause distress: When a teacher redirects him.

So let’s summarize: Justin is a ringleader/social organizer, he doesn’t just accept a statement, he needs to know why, he never stops talking, and he doesn’t like other people telling him what to do. I feel sorry for his future boss! But seriously, we see all these traits exhibited at home so it made us smile seeing them highlighted by his teachers, though it’s humorous to hear words like “independence” and “leadership” used to describe a boy who likes to drink bath water and who still can’t eat a meal without some portion of it ending up on the floor, in his hair, or smeared on his hands and face.

So overall we’re very happy with his school and the transition he’s made. Little does he know he’s got at least twenty more years of education ahead of him just so can spend the rest of his life working for the man! ☺

(Note: most of this post was written 35,000 feet over Greenland on my way home from Europe and I was hoping to actually publish a blog post from a plane someday but stupid Boeing recently pulled the plug on their in-flight wifi service that I used on previous flights from Europe. Somebody needs to figure this out. They can put a man on the moon…)

During our recent trip to southern California Justin took up a new hobby: photography. On the first day of the trip, at a rest stop overlooking the ocean between Orange County and San Diego, he got hold of my camera and against my better judgment I did not immediately take it away from him. Inexplicably I even pointed out the shutter release button and soon he was happily shooting away.

The problem is that the camera is a bulky SLR that’s both too heavy and too big for his little toddler hands so he struggles to hold it up high enough to point at his subject. The result is lots of pictures of people’s midsections, if he even manages to get a person in the frame at all. More likely the photos are of concrete or carpet or grass or bushes or sky. And one if his favorite subjects is his own feet, often accompanied by the camera strap hanging down between them.

If he’s taking a picture of you the only way your head will actually be in the photo is if you follow where he’s aiming the lens and try to keep in front of it until the moment he manages to press the button. It’s quite a comical exercise. And since focusing is out of the question any photos that do end up focused are only so because the subject was at the same distance as the last photo that I took with the camera.

But of course none of this matters to those who appreciate true art. Justin clearly has an eye for the abstract and through his work masterfully depicts the human condition in all its frailty and wonder while eschewing outdated photographic conventions like framing and focus. But seriously, Justin loved playing with the camera. When I was a kid my parents got me a cheap 110 camera from Kmart and for years I took loads of terrible equally out-of-focus photos, most of which I still have. The difference of course is that my parents had to pay for film and developing while we can let Justin play around with the digital camera at no cost, right? That would be true except for the fact that the camera coincidentally broke five days into the trip. The autofocus stopped working so the pictures from the second half of the trip were pretty bad and most of them had to be deleted. A few days after we got home the problem got worse: it takes photos that are 80% black with just a small strip of the image across the top. The camera is now officially worthless. We never actually saw Justin drop the camera but I’d be pretty surprised if our little Ansel Adams didn’t have at least something to do with the premature demise of my trusty Rebel. But it will all be worth it when we collect the proceeds from his first gallery opening.

I have since figured out exactly what part broke but don’t think I have the skill or patience to attempt the repair. In the meantime I have already ordered a replacement camera – I was planning to upgrade at some point anyway but now this makes two very expensive camera replacements in a span of four months. But with two kids growing like weeds a couple of weeks without a camera means a huge of chunk of their lives un-photographed, disqualifying them from membership in the “most-photographed generation” and we simply can’t have that!

Susan’s Grandmother (Halmoni) passed away yesterday, July 13 at age 97.  She was truly an amazing woman - it’s hard to fathom how much she saw and experienced during her life.  I feel fortunate to have known her and she will be dearly missed.  May she rest in peace. 

Jaundice is a common condition for newborns — Justin had it and now Chelsea has it too, though hers is a bit more serious than his was. Justin blew a 16 on the Jaundice-alyzer while Chelsea hit 18, well above the legal limit in California. Her skin does look a bit yellow but not any more yellow than Justin’s did at one week.

In most cases Jaundice goes away naturally after a week or two with exposure to sunlight but Chelsea’s pediatrician decided to err on the side of caution and prescribe a phototherapy “bili blanket” in order to speed up the process. A bili blanket is a device that looks and sounds just like a portable video projector. It has a thick fiber optic cable protruding from it which is connected at the other end to a thin flexible mat with a web of fiber optic cables criss-crossing it. The fibers emit a very bright blue light and when the mat is placed against the baby’s skin the light helps speed the breakdown of bilirubin in the body, which is the cause of Jaundice.

On Monday night a medical courier delivered the bili blanket to us and gave us a quick tutorial. Later that night we wrapped it around Chelsea and and then wrapped her up in her trusty Miracle Blanket. When we fired up the machine Chelsea looked like a neon-blue glow worm! It was both cute and sad, though she didn’t seem to be in any discomfort. While she was receiving her treatment I looked through the user manual to see how long we were supposed to use it each time but of course it only said to check with your doctor, which we couldn’t do because it was 9:00 pm. So I guessed that 25 minutes was a good amount of time. It was only when Susan called the doctor the next day that we learned we were supposed to use it 24/7!

So she’s been a little glow worm ever since. As I write she sleeps peacefully in her bassinet surrounded by an ethereal blue light while the phototherapy unit gently hums on the floor below her. We had a pediatrician appointment today and were told we still need to continue the treatment. They took another blood sample at the lab and we got the results earlier tonight: her level is now down to 12 so clearly things have improved. We’ll be talking to the pediatrician again tomorrow morning and hopefully she’ll say we can retire the glow worm machine post haste.

So Jaundice is not terribly serious but not much fun either. I mean, you wouldn’t want to name your kid Jaundice or anything right? Well, believe it or not, for one unfortunate little girl, that’s exactly the name she was given. Many years ago my sister-in-law Loraine was teaching first grade in a low-income school district in Hayward, California. The company I was working for was replacing some PCs and I convinced them to donate the old computers to Loraine’s school. I dropped the computers off one afternoon and as I was transferring them into her classroom I stopped to look at some of the students’ artwork which was posted on the walls. While looking at one particular finger painting I happened to catch the student’s name scrawled in the corner. Not quite believing that I’d read it correctly, I asked Loraine “does this really say Jaundice?” Amazingly, some extremely ignorant or misguided parents had really named their daughter Jaundice. Unfortunately, Loraine left teaching not long after this so she never got a chance to meet Jaundice’s younger siblings, Anemia and Rickets.

So thankfully Chelsea just has a temporary yellowing of the skin which she will never remember, as opposed to being afflicted with the name of her condition for the rest of her life. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

So the first week as a four-person family has gone reasonably well. One of our biggest concerns was how Justin would react to Chelsea’s arrival but so far so good. Having said that, with all four of us home, things did get a bit crazy a few times this past week. Justin has recently started rebelling against napping, even proclaiming yesterday “no more naps for Justin!” (Needless to say we are not on the same page as our 26-month-old on this issue.) He also can’t sit still, can’t stop talking, regularly climbs out of his crib, refuses to let us brush his teeth, etc., etc. I’m certainly not complaining, he’s a fantastic kid (he’s practically potty-trained after all!) but I think the combination of being at home rather than daycare, plus the new baby, has got him a little out of sorts.

So it was good timing when our friend Victoria offered us a couple of tickets to yesterday’s A’s game. The weather was great and it was a perfect excuse for father and son to get out of the house and leave Mom and baby with some (relative) peace and quiet. Justin is already a veteran of 4 or 5 A’s games when he was just a few months old. Those were the days when I could drop him into a sling and he’d sleep blissfully for hours while I watched the game with Mark or Brad or both. But once he got a bit older it just wasn’t feasible. In a related story, the 2007 season is two months old and I hadn’t been to a game yet before this one.

So yesterday was Justin’s first game in almost two years. We packed sandwiches for lunch, some chips, Goldfish, and Gatorade. And sunblock. Before leaving I searched high and low for his sun hat, which has a baseball-type brim and flaps to cover his neck and ears. I couldn’t find it anywhere so I tried his old baby A’s cap but it no longer fits his huge head. We were running late so we left with no hat for Justin, despite the warm sunny day and seats right behind the A’s dugout, with full sun exposure.

So imagine my delight after passing through the Coliseum turnstiles when I was handed a very sharp looking green and white A’s cap! What made this even funnier was when I asked for a second hat for Justin but was told that he already had his — it was ME who wasn’t getting one because it was only for the first 10,000 fans 14 and under. The serendipity was amazing, and Justin loves his new A’s lid!

Once we got to our seats we lathered on the sun block and Justin proceeded to walk up and down our row (we had some empty seats next to us) and make friends with the people sitting around us. When one woman asked him his name he said “Baby Chelsea!” which confused the woman but had me cracking up. It quickly became clear that he wasn’t going to have much interest in the game, despite the fact that Johan Santana was pitching for the Twins and Chad Gaudin was going for the A’s (2nd best ERA in the AL after Dan Haren). Justin’s frame of mind at the time could best be described as “when are we eating?”

I only managed to delay lunch until the 2nd inning. I didn’t want to eat too early because then I’d have nothing to distract him with for the rest of the game. But when he started getting restless right away I had no choice. He ate half of his PB & J and I ate my turkey sandwich. Then he had some Goldfish until he saw my salt and vinegar kettle chips, and everyone knows that whatever someone else is eating is better than what you’re eating. We washed it down with some Gatorade, a large amount of which he spilled down his A’s jersey leaving a nice red stain.

So lunch took about an inning and half, it was now the 3rd inning and he was clearly not going to last 6 innings, let alone 9. Over the next few innings we took some photos, had a bathroom break, ate some more Goldfish and a box drink, and managed to watch a bit of baseball. By the 5th inning Justin was really melting down, thumb in his mouth (meaning he’s ready to go to sleep), sitting down on the filthy floor under his seat, slumping in my lap, etc. It was hopeless. I called Susan to let her know we were coming home.

The A’s were up 4-2 when we left and went on to win by that score so we didn’t miss much. We ended up watching the rest of the game in HD later in the afternoon, after he had climbed out of his crib several times without ever napping. Just to recap, he basically sabotaged the game by practically falling asleep on the floor of the stadium, even telling me how tired he was on the way to the car, and then he refused to nap once we got home. Gotta love kids!

So it was a fun day despite being cut short. It’s better than not going at all and Susan at least had a couple of hours without the boys, but I think it’ll be another 6-8 months before Justin can appreciate going to a game. He’s already got a ball and a glove, thanks to Uncle Jimmy, and he definitely likes to play catch, and he does like to watch a game on TV once in a while, so it’s just a matter of time before he’s an A’s fan like his Dad.

Big thanks to Victoria for the tickets, we had a great time!

OK, so if the birth of my daughter isn’t enough to spur me to write a blog post I might as well give up and shut this thing down right now. So here goes. After writing in my most recent post that I would be posting more often, and then not posting anything for 11 months, I am finally putting fingers to keyboard again. And the reason is Chelsea Naomi Cole. She was born on Memorial Day, May 28, at exactly 3:30 in the afternoon. She could not have chosen a more convenient date and time. Susan’s parents own a small grocery store in San Francisco and they are closed about 8 days of the year, Memorial Day being one of them. So Susan’s Mom was able to meet us at the hospital right as the labor was ramping up. And because of the holiday we were able to initiate Plan A for taking care of Justin during the birth, which was Uncle JJ, who had the day off work. (Plan B was to drop Justin off on Telegraph Avenue on the way to the hospital with $10 and a sippy cup of milk.)

Susan’s water broke at about 2:30 in the morning and 15 minutes later Susan is kicking me. But not to tell me her water had broken. Justin had climbed out of his crib and was standing in the hallway outside our bedroom door. (Did he somehow sense that the baby was coming?) Susan was awake because she was enjoying a pleasant soak in amniotic fluid, so she heard Justin open his door, and since I am the official “put Justin back to bed when he climbs out of his crib” parent she woke me up so I would handle it. Apparently I wasn’t too happy about being woken up and in my comatose state I told her to “stop it” and “leave me alone”. Once I figured out what was going on I took care of J-Bug and came back to bed. That’s when Susan told me that she “thinks” her water had broken. Not very interested, I went back to sleep.

Fast forward to 7:00 am, I wake up and Susan is breathing heavily. “Are you having contractions?” “Yes, quiet, don’t talk to me!” OK, it’s go time! Time to mobilize! Email to Jason telling him to call me as soon as he wakes up. Email to work saying I ain’t coming in this week. Phone call to the doula telling her to cancel her Memorial Day plans. Emails to family letting everyone know today is the day.

It turns out Susan never went back to sleep after the water broke, even though the contractions didn’t start until around 4:30. She was too excited and not terribly comfortable. But she let me sleep while she was starting to labor. If the roles were reversed I’m sure I would have kicked her and/or moaned loud enough to wake the neighbors, while screaming “Help me! I’m dying!” Thankfully, unlike me, Susan is not a complete coward.

Anywho, Jason calls at 7:40 after getting my email. He has inexplicably woken up early after a long day at Sam’s in Tiburon and a late night out in SF. Needless to say, babysitting a 2 year old all day is not on anyone’s short list of favorite hangover remedies, but Jason valiantly arrived by 10:00 to whisk Justin away. Justin was already getting anxious seeing Susan in pain during the contractions so we were happy to know he’d be blissfully unaware of the day’s events while enjoying a fun day with Uncle JJ. They ended up going on a hike in the Oakland Hills and enjoying a pediatrician-recommended lunch of Nation’s cheeseburgers, fries, and a milkshake. Thanks Jase!

Our awesome doula Virginia arrived shortly after Jason left, which meant that I was suddenly good for nothing other than making sure all our stuff was in the car. I had been timing the contractions and by that point they were pretty consistently 5 minutes apart and getting stronger. Virginia was here for less than half an hour before we decided we had better head for the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital around 11:00 am and by the time we were through triage and in the delivery room it was 11:45. The labor was obviously difficult and painful for Susan, seemingly more so than with Justin, possibly because it was much shorter and therefore more concentrated, but like with Justin Susan again did it without an epidural or any medication at all for that matter. It’s tough to see your wife in extreme pain but we had the same team in place as with Justin (sans Auntie Loraine) and I knew we were going to get it done and I knew Susan was going to do it completely naturally again, despite the one moment when she looked right in my eye and said “I need help, I can’t do it, I want an epidural.” I asked her if she would regret it later and she said yes, and then I joked that if she really wanted help we could wheel her right down to the OR for a C-Section. At that point Jeri the midwife was not in the room and we had to frantically track her down in order to get the ball rolling on the epidural, but by the time she returned that particularly bad contraction was over and Jeri’s presence and confidence-instilling coaching was enough to get Susan back down off the ledge. We continued without drugs. And I’m pretty sure my C-section crack did nothing to help the situation.

So there was some more pain, more contractions, a long hot shower, some pushing, some screaming, more pushing, more pain, the appearance of some baby hair, more pushing, excruciating pain, then a head, then one last big push (and scream) to get the shoulders out, and finally a slimy Crisco-covered blob lying on Susan’s chest. Hours of intense pain were instantly wiped away and replaced with a huge smile and tears of joy. We had a daughter!

As with Justin I cut the cord, gave her her first bath, put her on the scale, and put her first diaper on. She weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 inches long, the IDENTICAL measurements as Justin two years previous. They were also both born on minor holidays (Justin on St. Patrick’s Day) and Chelsea looks a lot like Justin did at birth, but with less hair. (Although it’s fairly universally agreed that Chelsea is cuter than Justin was at birth. )

If you’re having a baby and are on the fence about hiring a doula, let’s just say that hospital food sucks and after a long day (or night) of birthing a baby everyone will be very hungry, and guess who volunteered to run over to Whole Foods to pick up a bunch of deli sandwiches and salads for everyone? Thank you Virginia!

And of course between the doula and me, about 400 pictures were taken. Check the Chelsea gallery link at the top of the page, and don’t worry I’m not posting any of the nasty ones, though I did get some nice ones of the midwife holding up the placenta if anyone wants to order an 8 x 10. Mmmmmm, yummy!

So just another day at the office for the Cole family. We’ll remember Memorial Day 2007 forever. Big thanks to Virginia, Jeri, Grandma Park, Uncle JJ, and all the nursing staff at Alta Bates in Berkeley who helped us bring this baby home. Susan and Chelsea stayed two nights at the hospital and now we’re all home and the baby is eating and sleeping very well.

And Chelsea, welcome to this crazy thing called life. Susan, Justin and I will do everything we can to help you through it and make it fun and fulfilling. We are so glad you’ve joined us.

Justin’s grandmother, Susan’s Mom, certainly is great, but in this case I’m talking about Justin’s literal Great Grandmothers. Until recently both were still alive, though he never met Granny, my grandma, and unfortunately he will never get the chance. Anna Katri Aalto passed away on February 3, 2006, in her hometown of Mikkeli, Finland, the same little town she was born in on the 4th of July, 1917, nearly 89 years go. Though she had been ill and her passing was not a surprise, for me it was quite a shock to lose her, especially since she was so far away and I was unable to see her one last time and say goodbye. I am very thankful though that we did get to see her fairly recently, in 2002, at my cousin Jenni’s wedding in Germany. There Granny got the chance to meet Susan, and we spent a wonderful week in the Black Forest with lots of family around, some of whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years. Here are a couple of pictures from that great week, and if you ever plan to visit the Black Forest do yourself a favor and stay a few days at the Berggasthof Linde, which is owned and operated by my cousins Kati and Jenni, their husbands, and their families. (Hi Kati, Jenni, Klaus, and Jürgen!)

Susan and I had been hoping that Granny would recover and hang on through the summer so that we could visit Finland with Justin and see her again, but it was not to be. I’d still like to make my first trip to Finland since the late 70’s, I think it was, but my Uncle Kimmo and Aunts Kaija and Eeva are visiting this summer so we’ll wait a bit, maybe until Justin is old enough to remember a trip like that. We shall see.

In remembrance of Granny I’ve combed through the Colevault photo archives for a few classic pictures. Since we’ve always lived a continent apart all my memories of her are necessarily confined to vacations, either us visiting her in Finland or her visiting us in California or Texas. My parents took me to Finland during the Summer of ‘69 (cue the Bryan Adams!) when I was roughly 9 months old and we were living in Amsterdam, and I have some great photos of me with Granny, my uncles Kimmo and Antti, and my 27-year-old parents. (27?? What the hell was I doing at 27? Nothing noteworthy, I can assure you!)

I also saw Granny during the Spring of 1981 when she visited us in Houston, soon after we’d moved back there after a short stint in Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis. According to the photographic evidence available to me right now we did the following during her stay: visited Johnson Space Center (where Jason and I climbed all over the displays), celebrated Jason’s 11th birthday, swam in our pool, had a big party on our patio (featuring plenty of drinking and smoking! Mmm… second-hand smoke!), went to the beach, washed the cars, and took a day trip somewhere, possibly San Marcos, with my old friends the Hafners. We also took a road trip back to Illinois for my Mom’s graduation from SIU Edwardsville, where she completed her journalism degree just prior to us moving back to Houston. During that trip we visited some Civil War monuments, which Jason and I climbed all over. Without supporting photographs I would not remember anything about any of this. The whole camera thing was a pretty good invention. Anyway, I have scanned many photos from these two trips and you can find them in the Misc album in the gallery.

Note: during the late 70’s, I’m going to guess it was 1979 (cue the Smashing Pumpkins!), the family took a trip to Finland but I can’t seem to locate photos or negatives from that trip. All I remember is eating Granny’s homemade apple sauce and fresh raspberries that we picked ourselves and playing soccer with some local kids outside Granny’s apartment building, despite a significant language barrier. That event is marked by me running full speed, presumably after the ball, not looking where I was going, and slamming my head into some sort of construction barrier that was blocking off part of the field. My forehead swelled up with fluid to the point that it looked like I’d had a water balloon implanted there. I think I blacked out too. Oh, and let’s not forget Jason and I traipsing through a bramble of nettles, not having any idea what they were, and spending the next several days in agony nursing painful sores all over are legs and arms, our only medicine being fresh apple sauce and raspberries. The above-referenced Wikipedia article says that nettle stings “are rarely seriously harmful” while earlier mentioning that a New Zealand variety of nettle has “been known to kill horses, dogs, and at least one human.” Let me assure you, though it may be lesser known, the mutant Finnish strain of nettle eats New Zealand nettles for breakfast. I don’t know how many dogs and horses have succumbed to the dreaded Finnish Nettle, but Jason and I were THIS CLOSE to becoming its first human victims. (Isn’t it interesting that the only clear memories I have of this trip involve serious bodily injury?)

These are just a few of my memories of my grandmother, Anna Aalto, better known as Granny. May she rest in peace.

On the other side of Justin’s family is Susan’s Grandmother, remarkably still going strong and celebrating her 97th (!) birthday today. It’s easy to remember her birthday as it’s always tax day - almost as easy to remember as Granny’s 4th of July birthday. Halmoni (the Korean word for grandmother, pronounced HAR-MU-NEE) is truly a GREAT Grandmother, still mobile and lucid and feisty, and not in the least bit shy about voicing her opinions. I’ll always remember that she was nice to me from the day Susan introduced me to her extended family back in ‘97, when Grandma was a spritely 88 year old. Justin is her third great grandchild, after Emily and Lauren, the daughters of Susan’s cousin Henry and his wife Kathy. She has two more coming too, as Susan’s other cousin Yun and his wife Jinhee are expecting twin boys soon. (Yikes! Good luck with that, guys!)

Tonight there will be another in a long line of giant Park family dinners to celebrate Halmoni’s birthday, at a Korean restaurant in The City that we’ve eaten at about 300 times. Everyone will eat way too much kalbi and kimchi tchigae and naeng myun and Susan’s eldest uncle will give a speech about Halmoni and the noble and illustrious history of the Park family. And knowing Grandma, we’ll probably be doing the same thing three years from now for her 100th birthday when Justin will be old enough to remember his great Great Grandmother. Boy, will that be a party! Happy Birthday Halmoni!!

Everyone here at Colevault.com would like to wish a very special Happy Birthday to Jason Cole, who turns 36 today. I couldn’t find a decent/recent photo of Jason, so here’s one from a few years back. As you can see, the brothers Cole were already getting their drink on, Galveston, Texas-style, back in the early 70’s. (In case there’s any confusion, I’m the clown with the hexagonal dork glasses, and apparently I’d recently been to the hospital for God-knows-what and thought it would be cool to keep the ID bracelet on.) Jason, thanks for being a great brother, brother-in-law, uncle, and buddy. And by the way, when do you think we should comment on the rampant rumor circulating around the blogosphere that Colevault.com might soon have a guest columnist? Can you say Crazy Uncle JJ’s Corner?

On Saturday Susan, Justin and I went to visit our friends Kevin and Hyun-Joo Laws and their very cute 3-week-old daughter Hana Elizabeth. We picked up a Zachary’s pizza on the way and we had lunch and chatted and cooed over Hana. (OK, Susan cooed over Hana). Like Justin, Hana is half-Korean and half Euro-mutt, and they were born almost exactly a year apart. Other similarities between our families: we each got married just a month apart back in 1999, Hyun-Joo and I were both born on 12-28-68, albeit on opposite sides of the globe, and Kevin and I work together at Vast. (You’d think I’d get enough of Kevin five days a week at the office!)

So we got to hold Hana and see her eyes open and interact with her a bit more than we were able to at the hospital the day after she was born, when she was understandably a bit groggy, tired, and presumably quite confused. She seems to be a pretty low maintenance baby so far - I don’t think she made a sound the whole time we were there. And she even did a full 5 and a half hour stretch of sleep one night this week. For the Laws’ sake, I hope she turns out to be as good a sleeper as Justin is.

When Justin was born he looked almost 100% Asian but has since morphed into a pretty even mix, whereas Hana does not look particularly Asian, or particularly like either of her parents for that matter. According to Kevin she looks like his sister Virginia when she was a baby. Hana has light brown, almost reddish hair, while Justin’s was quite dark at birth and has been getting lighter ever since. When you have a mixed kid it’s a pretty common parlor game to discuss the ever-changing balance of features between the two ethnicities as the kid grows, maybe because it’s easier to tell which features came from whom? Maybe in one more generation there will be so many mixed children (and children of mixed children) that the distinctions will become irrelevant. One can hope!

We took a few pictures of Justin and Hana together (so we can embarrass them when they’re teenagers) and some photos of the Moms with the babies. Our other friends Ming and Sherman also dropped by, along with their little girl Emma, or Ariel. We’re not quite sure what her name is because we won’t officially meet her for a few months yet. But she certainly seems like a nice enough baby, judging only by Ming’s belly and the fact that she’s in great spirits, although that’s not the least bit unusual for Ming. And Justin really enjoyed having Uncle Sherman toss him up in the air, an excellent fatherly skill that Sherman has mastered several months ahead of schedule.

So it was great to see the Laws and the “Mermans”. With Susan instantly falling asleep during the car ride home (presumably dreaming of having a baby daughter as soon as medically possible) I was able to drive even faster than normal in order to catch the second half of the first Final Four game and all of UCLA thoroughly dismantling LSU, only to have the same can of whoop-ass served up to them by Florida two nights later. For me having UCLA in the title game was a win-win situation: if they had won, it would have been great for the Pac-10 and West Coast hoops, but since they lost I was also happy, because I hate UCLA. Hey, wasn’t this post supposed to be about babies? Oh yeah, for the record Ming and Sherman, we’re voting for Emma, not the Little Mermaid.

Just like most people are either Coke or Pepsi, there are also Letterman or Leno people. Or more accurately, there are Letterman people and then people who don’t know a damn thing about comedy or entertainment. And one of the many great recurring Letterman sketches is Will it Float? which involves models dropping random items in a tank of water while the audience tries to guess whether they will float or sink, usually while a scantily clad “Grinder Girl” stands to the side shooting sparks off herself by using a power grinder on a piece of metal. If that doesn’t scream comedy, I don’t know what does!

Well, in keeping with the previous post’s theme of mischievous Justin hijinks, our little boy decided to play his own little game of Will it Float? on Sunday. I turned on the tub faucet for Justin’s weekly bath (no comments please, we’re pretty busy) and went off to do something else while the tub filled (it takes 5-10 minutes to fill). Justin was in the bedroom doing his usual Justin thing, ambling around with a remote control in each hand, alternately banging one of them against a piece furniture and chewing on the other. Then he wandered down the hall and into the bathroom, and I immediately knew what was about to happen, but I was just a split second too late to stop it.

By the time I got to the bathroom there was already a remote floating in the tub like a sleek silver rubber ducky. (Yes, thankfully, remotes do float rather than sink.) And which of the two remotes he was carrying did he decide to toss in the tub? The one from my 15 year old Onkyo receiver which we don’t even use any more, or the one for my less-than-a-month-old Panasonic plasma TV? Is there any question? I think someone named Murphy passed a law relating to these situations. So despite the fact that the remote was floating it was still full of water. After mercilessly beating Justin about the head and neck (err, hugging him vigorously and asking him kindly not to do it again) I shook all the water out and gave it a good blow dry, then let it dry for a few days. Today I put the batteries back in and it works fine.

Again, like the hidden cell phone, this was not the first time he’s thrown things in the bath tub. And since he’s ALWAYS carrying a remote around the house you’d think we would realize, “hmmm, bath water is running, Justin has remotes in hand, we should make sure they don’t end up in the bath.” It was only a matter of time before this happened. We’ll just have to be a bit more vigilant so that next time it’s not the DVD player or the Tivo. (Note: this picture of Justin has nothing to do with this story, I just figured I needed to have a photo in the post, and I neglected to take a photo of the floating remote!)