Dear Charlie,

The closest your stone-hearted father came to tearing up in the last month was while watching a Google Chrome commercial called "Dear Sophie" (look it up in your future version of YouTube), so I was inspired to totally rip it off.  If you don't cry while watching it, you definitely inherited my tin-man-ness ("Wizard of Oz"... look it up; it was a "book"... look that up too).

If all goes according to plan, a month from today we will meet for the first time.  If you're like your "better-two-hours-early-than-5-minutes-late" mother, you'll be here in a few days.  We are so excited for that day, whichever it may be.  Mom really has low pain tolerance, so don't dilly-dally when you're ready to come out. We have so much to share with you.  I also have a lot of questions like, "who were you punching and kicking in there repeatedly for four months?" and "why did you need so much cheese when you knew your mommy was lactose intolerant?"

Your name is officially going to be Charles Jacob Kim, but we'll just call you Charlie.  We chose that name because we want you to experience the same joy of having first generation Koreans butchering the pronunciation of your name as I did growing up.  People might call you "CJ", which is fine... but you're not allowed to go by "Chuck" unless you become a professional athlete.  However, since you've inherited 50% of your athletic ability from me, this is quite unlikely.  Sorry.

I can honestly say that my greatest fear is that despite hearing all my life that I will be a great father someday, I will somehow fail you... that I will be so obsessed with being right or being just that I forget to be loving.  I can already imagine the yelling matches we will have over the way your hair is cut or because you want to get your adam's apple pierced or something like that.  I'll probably send you to your room without dinner but ask your mom to sneak you some food behind my back.  So I'm not as mean as I might seem.

I want you to grow up strong but not be unyielding.  I want you to know what is right but not to let that overshadow knowing what is merciful.  I want you to be successful but also know that it means nothing without being generous.  How I'm going to teach you these things, I don't know.  I'm still trying to learn them myself.  But mostly I want you to learn about the grace of God.  If you ignore everything else I say except that, I will be happy.  He will love you more than mom or I ever could... which is hard to imagine... because I love you so much already.  Stay warm.

Love,

Mom and Dad.