We be Parents

Coming to you live from Framingham Massachusetts…where I’m on a business trip and Yenari and Hazel have come along for the ride.  We’ve been a bit lacking on updates recently despite a number of visitors, first meetings, and this trip.  Here’s a quick recap:

First off, we had a visit from my Aunt Janet (Janet Brown that is…two Aunt Janet’s if you’re counting) and cousin Morgan.  Here they are playing with Hazel:

Two days after the visit from Janet and Morgan, we drove up to Yenari’s Aunt JungHae’s house to see Yenari’s grandfather who had just arrived from Korea.  This was Hazel’s first introduction to her great grandfather and my first introduction to my grandfather in law.  Because this was the first time I saw him (and the first time Yenari saw him after getting married) we bowed to him and he gave us advice on how to have a good marriage.  When he came from Korea both of his checked bags were for us: a big and colorful playmat sent by Yenari’s mom and the second suitcase filled with food from Yenari’s grandmother.  He is a very sweet man and it was great to finally get to meet him and to see him playing with Hazel and keeping her entertained:

Hazel on her great grandfather's lap

Hazel hanging on the couch with her great grandfather

Just a couple days later my brother Andrew arrived for a short trip from DC to come see his niece for the first time.  Andrew balances a pretty wild schedule between work, law school, and breathing, so it was great that he was able to make it out to see us in one of his few free moments of the year.  Just after picking my brother up at the airport and visiting Yoni, his friend from college, we went to the Button’s house in Alameda for the annual bbq which was a lot of fun (as usual).  Hazel saw her first competitive croquet match! Here are a couple shots of my brother playing with Hazel and a video he took of her dancing (with a bit of Yenari’s help) to the Flight of the Conchords’ The Humans are Dead:

And finally…catching up to the present…we made our first big trip with Hazel yesterday, flying from San Francisco to Boston (yay direct flight, yay Jet Blue) and Hazel was a real champ.  She didn’t cry much – she spent most of her time sitting happily on our laps watching tv, sleeping, and eating…all the things ‘real’ people do on flights!

She and Yenari spent their time in the hotel today, and then when I came back from work we brought her down to the pool for her first swimming experience.  Here she is, decked out in her bathing suit doing her thing:

I can’t say that Hazel loved her first swimming experience, but at the same time she wasn’t crying, so it must not have been too bad.  The water was a little cold for her, but we made the best of the short experiment by taking a lot of photos.  And yes, Hazel has the fanciest swimsuit in the family – thanks to Sarah Lee for Hazel’s stylin’ Juicy Couture suit!  After the swimming we brought her back to the room and Yenari took a warm bath with her – definitely a more enjoyable experience for her.

And next up?  After I finish work tomorrow afternoon I’m going to pickup my sister Liza at the train station and we’re going to drive down to Connecticut to spend the weekend at my mom’s house and then drive back up to Boston on Sunday evening to fly home…

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Double post Sunday!  Today Hazel celebrated her 11th week…or maybe it was we who celebrated – she pretty much just tagged along with us all day.  She slept in late and let Yenari get some rest while I caught up on some work in the late morning.  We decided to celebrate with a lunch at Yenari’s favorite sushi restaurant in the Bay Area: Pink Godzilla in Santa Cruz.

So we made the not so long, but long for lunch trip down to Santa Cruz for our late lunch and Yenari ate like a champ, taking down all of the sushi that she couldn’t eat when she was pregnant (still staying away from the high mercury stuff).  Lunch was excellent and Hazel slept the whole time, allowing us to devour the food without having to keep her happy.

After eating, we drove up to Felton to visit Rebecca, Troy, and their 4 week old baby boy Ewan.  We hadn’t met Ewan and they hadn’t met Hazel, so it was a big baby fest!  Ewan’s a big boy – despite her 7 week head start, Hazel is just about the same weight as Ewan and his feet are even bigger than hers!  Here they are together with their mommies followed by the foot comparison shot!

Yenari thinks that in this picture Hazel is checking her watch to see if it’s time to wake up Ewan!

In the foot comparison Hazel’s on the left and Ewan’s on right.  Though they’re about the same size, it’s amazing what a difference 7 weeks makes – Hazel feels a lot more ‘solid’ and obviously has much better control over her head.  On holding Hazel, Rebecca said that Ewan is a lot more ‘floppy’.  Amazing how much they change over the course of a few weeks.  We had a great time visiting with Rebecca, Troy, and Ewan…trading baby stories and just catching up.

Normally when we go to Pink Godzilla we stop at the nearby A&W to pickup some root beer floats.  We hadn’t done that earlier, and Yenari was eager to fulfill our eating destiny, so we decided to stop in Campbell to pickup our root beer floats (and a bacon cheeseburger for me!) before heading home.  Tastey tastey.

We topped the evening off with a visit from my mom and Duncan who had just gotten back from their weekend excursion in Monterey.  Here they are, playing with Hazel on the couch:

And lastly, here are a couple nice smiley photos I took today:

So, it was a very fun-filled day for us today…we’ve finally realized that we can actually go places and do things and she doesn’t go wild and crazy, so here’s to more fun-filled and exciting days to come!

The last week and a few days have been really fun because my mom and my sister Liza came for a visit.  Liza stayed a week and left this past Thursday, trading places with Duncan.  My mom and Duncan went down to a classic car race in Monterey for the weekend, but they’re due back any time now.

My mom and Liza were super helpful in their visit…playing with Hazel, burping her, arranging all her clothes, cooking, and giving our house the most thorough cleaning its seen in a long time.  My mom actually brought all her favorite recipes and let us pick out which ones we wanted for different meals – very luxurious.  They also watched Hazel during the day while I was at work so that Yenari could go get a massage.

Not only did they do all these useful and helpful things, but they had fun with us too!  Here’s a photo of Liza playing with Hazel just before heading out of the house:

And here are all of the girls at the tail end of a walk we took around the Stanford campus:

This was the second trip for my mom to visit Hazel and its amazing how much Hazel has grown and changed in the weeks between her trips.  This was Aunt Liza’s first encounter with Hazel and her first time spending any significant time with a newborn.  One of the nights when they were here my dad was also in the area on business, so we had a big family dinner – Hazel’s second time having dinner with both her grandmother and grandfather.  Here’s my dad with Hazel:

It was a great week with Liza and my mom, a nice stop in with my dad, and we still have a day and a half with my mom.  But the visits aren’t slowing down…tomorrow my Aunt Janet and cousin Morgan from Portland will be visiting us for dinner, on Wednesday we’re going to Yenari’s aunt and uncle’s house to see them and Yenari’s grandfather who is coming in from Korea – this will be both Hazel’s first and my first time meeting him!  Then…next Saturday my brother is coming for a three day trip after which I’ll be headed to the Boston area for a business trip with Yenari and Hazel in tow…we’re extending the trip a couple days to head down to CT to stay with my mom again.  Then, I think, the month of visits will end and the preparation for Yenari heading back to work will begin.

This post is being dictated by Yenari because I have no memory of the following conversations (if you can call them that).  At night, when Yenari needs some help she tries to wake me up, but sometimes I’m in a totally zoned out, half asleep, incomprehensible state.  Other times I actually do get up and help, but this post is not about that!  Here are three examples Yenari would like you all to know about…

Gotta go!

This one is from early on in Hazel’s life.  Yenari was having difficulty with breastfeeding and needed everything in its right place for it to work properly – she needed her Brest Friend setup, pillows behind her, and pillows under Hazel’s head.  It was my job to pickup Hazel from her bassinet and perfectly place her in the right position.

Why?

This one is from last week. Yenari’s got the breastfeeding down, but she still relies on me to burp Hazel most of the time. This time however, I wasn’t quite sure it was necessary…

I’ll think about it

This one is from a few weeks ago. Hazel had been crying all night long but I was totally passed out and not waking up even when Yenari pushed and kicked me. When she finally got me to wake up enough to talk, here’s how our conversation went

Hours later, in the morning:

Luckily these particular incidents aren’t exactly representative of the last few months…Yenari’s eager for me to type out another couple stories like this, but I think three is enough, right?  If she wants to write more, maybe she should get her own blog!

On Friday, Hazel hit the 2 month mark and celebrated with a trip to the doctor for a checkup.  She’s doing well in the growth department – she’s in the 90th percentile for height (23.5 inches), the 75th percentile for weight (11 pounds, 10 ounces), and the 50th percentile for head circumference.  I think it would be funny if doctors gave adults these same comparative statistics when they go in for checkups – I wonder how my head circumference compares to other 30 year old dudes.  Anyway…here’s the dear child, in her car seat ready to head to the doctor.

Hazel in her car seat

On the developmental checklist she had ‘yes’ circled for all of the things she should be able to do as a big, grown-up 2 month old – lifting her head, making (non-crying) noises, smiling, tracking things with her eyes, and recognizing and staring at faces.  The least fun part of the doctors visit was the 3 vaccines she had to get…only two of them were shots – one in each leg, neither of them very enjoyable for any of us.  Luckily she seemed to have forgotten the shots after a few minutes.

And because all you readers are interested in is pictures of Hazel, here she is, ready for her closeup:

And now for that closeup: