Lessons from George W Bush

The impressive thing about George W Bush, you may say the only impressive thing, is that he lowered expectations so much that anything better than catastrophe was celebrated as success. Ayako and I were very much from the Managed Expectations school during pregnancy. Unrealistically high expectations could only lead to disappointment, or so we thought. Little did we know of the powers of babies to woo their parents into labouring on their behalf. Great expectations, it turns out, would not have led to disappointment at all.

Sawa is one week old!

Sawa’s first week was pretty standard for Mum and baby. Ayako was in considerable pain and having trouble peeing. Sawa was a bit dopey and hard to rouse at first, and then frequently irate at the breast because colostrum, of which there was lots, didn’t flow fast enough for her liking. These problems resolved fairly quickly, but even at their worst, we were a bit surprised by how little we resented our efforts to bring her into the world. She’s a charmer. More photos illustrating her charmingness are here.

Sawa Kitta Etches

Sawa Kitta Etches, a.k.a. 橘田咲和 (Etches), was born Thursday, January 27 at 02:19, weighing 3415g, and measuring 52.5cm. Sawa and Ayako were both calm, happy and healthy. Ayako says more dazed than calm. More photos from the hospital are here.

If you want to understand the meaning of her name, the short story is that Sa means blossom and Wa means harmony, or peace, or Japanese style.  Kitta means mandarin orange-rice paddy. Kitta is Ayako’s surname, and Sawa’s middle name in Canada. Her legal name is Japan is the way it’s written above. We wish it were simpler too!

If you want extra details, and animations on how to write it properly, here are the links:

Kitta = 橘田
Sawa = 咲和

Once you follow the links, you’ll need to click on the Chinese characters (called kanji in Japanese) next to the correct reading of those characters, since there are multiple readings for most combinations of characters. I’m afraid that the cost of layered meanings and beauty is complexity. If you see crazy symbols, you may be missing the required fonts.

The washing of the socks

We’re blessed to have friends with little girls who have just outgrown their newborn clothes. Ayako looks like she’s about to explode, so we’re washing the newborn stuff, including this army of socks. Our child will have many feet, apparently.

Spooky demon baby

Yesterday we had what was probably our last ultrasound to see how it was growing and to coo over its obvious cuteness.

Jacob: “Whoa! Spooky demon baby...”
Ayako: ...
Sonographer: “No, cute baby!”
Jacob & Ayako: ...

Cuter scans are to be found here.

Nesting

We’re not doing a lot of nesting, but Ayako just finished sewing a new cover for this bassinet that we borrowed from our friends Adam & Karen. So far, Sebastian Ghastly, the cat in the print, does not seem to be scaring our cat away, and he is determined to make the bassinet his. Maybe we’ll have to wrap Sakana-chan (fish-child, formerly “the creature”) in pungent herbs to keep it from being smothered.

We’re at 31 weeks now. Ayako thinks it’s taking forever, but for me it’s going by terrifyingly quickly. She’s at the stage where she jumps occasionally due to a sharp kick or a sudden leg cramp.

Manhattan

We finally posted some photos from our trip to Manhattan in May, only days after learning that Ayako was pregnant. The Highline was in full bloom, and was full of tourists, locals, and park security. More photos.