VH-1: The Early Years.

Here's Colin - playing with this favorite toy:

And here's Colin - getting ready for his very own "Behind the Music":

Get your DVRs ready!

Monkey Suit.

I like that Colin is a baby. I like that he only has two teeth, I like that he kicks his legs when he's excited, and I like that he can get away with wearing pajamas all day. But every once in a while, it's good to break the monotony of hanging-out in pajamas and get a little dressed up. Wearing uncomfortable-but-cool clothes teaches Colin an important lesson: fashion over function.

Take hats. Hats are often made from yarn, and yarn isn't always soft. In fact, it's often itchy. So, this winter, Colin had to endure a bit of an itchy head in an effort to stay warm. That is, till he grew into this gem:

It's soft, it's warm, and it looks like a sock monkey. Hats don't get cooler than this.

We owe a lot of Colin's warmth on walks to Lorraine, who stayed up all night, knitting him this hat. It's entirely her own creation. Based on the compliments this hat generates, if Lorraine ever gets tired of lawyer jokes, she could start mass-producing these bad boys. When Vera Wang asks for a Lorraine Hoffman monkey hat for her little Josephine, Lorraine will know she's arrived. By then, Colin's monkey hat will be vintage, and he can sell it to pay for college.

The Host with the Most.

While I was pregnant, I did what other pregnant women do - I attended classes. Lots and lots of classes. Classes about me, classes about the kid living in my studio apartment, classes about how to evict the kid, all kinds of classes. They covered all kinds of different topics, but they all had one thing in common - they were epicly long and very, very boring.

I decided that the only antidote to these odious classes was a friend. Since I wouldn't have any friends left if I took one of my existing, not-pregnant friends, I knew I had to make a friend in the class. I thought it would be tough. Until I got to the first class, and I spotted Johanna. She was adorable, funny, and signed up for all the same classes I was. We signed a friendship agreement, settled ourselves in for the long haul of learning exactly what we got ourselves into, and compared vital statistics. We were both having boys, were due within 2 weeks of each other, and we both knew the pain of moving mid-way through a pregnancy. Unfortunately, I had just moved, and Johanna was getting ready to move.  

Nonetheless, Johanna and I keep in touch, and, while she was visiting Seattle recently, our little boys got to meet each other.  I don't mean to oversimplify the complexity that is a personality, but our boys can be summed up thusly:

Edison: adept in all things physical; good at rolling over and crawling

Colin: perfectly content to sit around and watch basketball; enjoys food

But when they met, it was like mother, like son: Colin clearly wanted to be Edison's friend. How do I know? Because as soon as he saw him, Colin grabbed Edison's cheeks and gave him a kiss.  

You can't teach skills like that.

The Emperor's New Clothes.

Colin has been given a number of great presents in his short life. I can't begin to thank everyone who has kept him warm, well-dressed, and entertained. Despite knowing I'm setting myself up for failure, I actually try to do exactly that: thank everyone. So here's another shout-out. This one is for Hanley.

One of my favorite parts of giving gifts to babies is that you can pretty much buy whatever you want, knowing that it'll get used eventually. You know, when he "grows into it." My delightful friend, Hanley, who I love and to whom I owe an email, was probably thinking just that when she purchased a slammin' pair of shoes for Colin. But Colin has a secret shame that is about to be made very public: he has hilariously fat feet.

It's as though Colin somehow inherited my super-swollen-by-pregnancy feet and ankles. But kept them. Long after I wasn't pregnant. They're that fat.

I don't mean 50th-percentile fat. Or has-to-wear-wide-shoes fat. I mean no-retailer-carries-shoes-like-this fat. Indeed, there is no shoe or sock in Colin's size that has come close to covering his feet. He has broken through elastic on socks, and lace-up shoes - even without the laces - are pointless. And his feet aren't just wide. They're also tall. So, even if some super-high-end cobbler made extra-wide shoes for the big-footed infant, they wouldn't be tall enough to help Colin. That is, till Hanley.

Hanley thought she was buying a pair of shoes for the walking-around version of Colin. For a one-year-old toddler, who needs his feet to toddle, and whose one-year-old feet fit into a one-year-old's shoes. Instead, what she really bought was a pair of high-enough, wide-enough, yet-still-totally-adorable shoes for my otherwise shoeless son. So, now, Colin gets to enjoy having his feet covered.

His face says he's still getting used to it, but his feet couldn't be happier.