Dearest Ellis,
Today, our little Kung Fu Panda Mong Sheel-Ee dared to turn TWO on us! The baby of the family thinks he’s allowed to grow up like this!?

Of course I reminisced about your birth. How your dad and I were watching the season premiere of “Homeland” (Season Two) when I went to the bathroom and saw a little blood on my underwear. Your brother had arrived within 24 hours after the bloody show so we knew that most likely, you were on your way, ten days before your due date, JUST LIKE YOUR MICAH HYUNG!

You were gracious enough to let me (mostly) sleep through the night though some painful contractions did wake me up and I decided to jot down a quick letter to Belly Baby Gender Unknown.

The morning of October 1st. Your Lee Halmoni/my mama was scheduled to touch down at JFK but because my contractions were coming regularly, we sent her a Korean cab instead of picking her up ourselves. We were getting ready to go to the hospital when the contractions slowed down.

I told your dad to go to work to save his days off.

You so kindly allowed Halmoni to arrive and learn the ropes of how to take care of your big bro before you called Game Time on us. I was able to school her all day on all things Micah before your dad finally came home from the office. He came armed with a Buffalo Chicken Panini for me to take me to the hospital that evening. I am always fearful of getting hungry so I even ate through tearful contractions because a girl dunno when the next meal comin’ through with all that laborin’ in between.

It was still gorgeous and sunny that early evening. As we drove over the RFK/Triboro Bridge to get to our hospital, we realized this was it. We had to finalize your name. We joked that it had to be RFK.

We were already set on the first name. We had chosen “Ellis” a few weeks after finding out we were expecting, whether you were a boy or a girl, though now I see that I strongly prefer “Ellis” for a boy. We wanted everyone in our family to have five-letter names but broke the rule for your middle name as we thought the “Z” initial was too cool to pass up. Your dad wouldn’t let me go through with “Zion” and we both really felt peace about the “Zachary” you ended up with. “Zachary” means “remembered by God” in Hebrew.

Within a few hours of checking in at the hospital, you arrived. Those few hours were beyond painful but I can hardly recall the pain now because I only see YOU. It only took about 15 minutes of pushing and the doctor yelling, “STOP” instead of “PUSH!” for the final push because you were shooting out so fast.

Sorry, this letter hardly sounds like me. I’m rushing to write it because Mama is so wiped from this week of nervous weather-stalking for your (early) birthday celebration yesterday. I ended up postponing it at the last minute due to the threat of rain after a whole day of showers yesterday for the outdoor gathering. Not too Accu, Accu-Weather! Was praying for a flood of Noah’s Ark proportions after I ended up canceling but of course, not a drop.

So today, on your actual birthday, I wanted to hook you up with SOME kind of outing to commemorate your special day. But it turned out to be the same deal as yesterday, only worse. Rained all morning AND threat of continued rain in the afternoon. Even darker skies.

Mama said, “Not again, Accu-Weather. You don’t fool me! Mama taking her birthday boy to the ZOO!”

So naturally, I got lost driving to the zoo we go to only every week! The GPS led me to some shady road behind Citifield, the U.S. Open Tennis Courts, and some United Nations Drive. It went from, “You are three minutes away” to “You are 26 minutes away.”

I still don’t know what happened.

When we finally arrived at the zoo, your bro had fallen asleep. I took you guys out and placed you in the Strollerus Prime.

We were the only ones there. It was drizz…it was raining.

But I will always remember how happy you were to look at your bears and feed your goats with Mama on your one and only second birthday. With your brother sleeping the whole time and waking up only as we pulled out of the zoo parking lot, thinking he must have dreamt that he had been asleep near a sheep’s face.

Thank you for joining our little family two years ago today.

You too EZ to love!

Your biggest fan and paparazzo,
Mama