southern cali whirlind tour part 1: "baby gyorwia" and "uncle poo"

baby gloria is my new niece such a sweet baby. she's still in that sleepy newborn stage and she was just a dream to cuddle with. she was born on 9/17/08 (a few weeks early) and we finally got to see her as part of our whirlwind trip down to southern california.

this trip was most fortuitous as it coincided with grandpa jim's (my dad) trip to california (to see the new grandbaby, attend a couple of trojan home games, among other things) and jon's 20th high school reunion (aquinas high school, class of 1988). my brother and hana seem to have some weird goofy twin connection because even though they don't get to see each other often, when they are together, it's as if no time has passed. hana alway reacted strongly to his voice in the womb - he would say "helloooo pootie poo" and she would just turn and kick and have a good ol' time it seemed. this has carried on since then and she really had a blast with her "uncle poo" this trip. hana was a huge fan of "baby gyorwia" and spoke often of giving her a bottle.


here, grandpa jim is singing "signifyin' monkey" (the oscar brown peterson version) to baby gloria. this is tradition. well, it's more like legend actually. grandpa jim has been called the "baby whisperer" because he can sing this song and engage even the fussiest baby. in fact, we requested him to sing signifyin' monkey to us well into high school (and by "we", i mean about 200 high school campers as every talent show he emceed - which was annually for about 6 or 8 years it seems)...

we also go to see my neice bre'ana, gloria's older sister. she's 10 1/2 and as tall as i am . so clearly, hana will not be the only leggy super model type in the family... this was her first time meeting hana. hana loves hangin' out with big kids so she was quite enamored with bre.

more horsing around with uncle poo on the day we move on from palmdale to palm springs (via joshua tree).

representin' for grandpa jim, hana displays the trojan helmet. between my ucla bruins, jon's (and my) cal bears and grandpa jim's usc trojans, the poor child will share her mother's dissonence about which team to cheer for. when my brother was a kid, you could ask him which team he was rooting for, and he would say "i vote for whoever wins". if she used those standards, she certainly would not be rooting for ucla... it's sad really.

my other neice, jaz'mine (bre'ana's older sister) had a baby, devin, 2 days after gloria was born. she dropped by for a visit just before we had to head out so we could see the baby.
jaz'mine and her fiance seemed to be fairly relaxed for first time parents....

here's devin... super cute! he makes these little pucker faces like he's always giving kisses. he was very alert. he's pretty much the same age as gloria, except he was full term. so in some ways, it's like gloria is younger.