The family in October 2008	Two-week-old Jane Marie

17 December 2008

Dear friends and family,

As many of you already know, we have been blessed with a third child. Jane Marie Kuwata was born during Alexa’s third visit in nine days to St. Joseph’s Hospital in downtown St. Paul. Since both Margaret and William were born several days before their due dates, we expected to welcome Jane into the world before her due date of November 26. However, as was her prerogative, Jane waited until December 1. We are thankful for the amazing doctors, nurses, and doulas who served Alexa during the nine days of painful and often frustrating “false” and true labor. We are also grateful to Nate and Cathy Clyde, and Chris and Sue Michel, who cared for Margaret and William while we were in the hospital, and to Tom Varberg, Rob Rossi, Amy Rice, and Katy Splan, who filled in for me at Macalester. Jane Marie, named for St. Jane Frances de Chantal and for the Blessed Virgin, seems remarkably calm for someone only a few weeks old. She is quite alert and strongly resembles Margaret when she was a baby.

Margaret and William both love their new sister and enjoy demonstrating their love—sometimes exuberantly! Margaret, who is four, is committed to dressing, bathing, and even nursing her baby (named either “Star” or “Bluey-Whitey”) the same way Mommy cares for Jane. Margaret has started attending pre-school, is learning to write letters and numbers, and still loves reading and dancing. She is quite articulate at home, and we hope that she will express herself more freely at school and with her friends. William is a quintessential two-year old boy (although his second birthday isn’t until next month). He loves exploring everything, including his baby sister, and often has to be reminded to be gentle! He enjoys dancing and playing with Margaret, but does not share her maternal instincts for dolls. He is saying several words now, and recognizes several letters. Echo, our ten-year old cat, is aging gracefully and is remarkably gentle with all three kids. (He usually trots away from fur-pulling William!)

Alexa continues to stay at home with the children most of the time, but still works as a nurse on a casual basis at St. Joseph’s Hospital. She has remained involved with a playgroup, a local chapter of the MOMS Club, and a FAMILIA group that studies Catholic teaching. She went back to Los Angeles in August for the funeral of her grandmother, Nancy Mulleavy, who had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for some ten years. Happily, the whole family was able to see her before her death, as well as lots of other family and some friends, during a visit to LA back in May. We also spent a week in August vacationing at one of our favorite places, the North Shore of Lake Superior. (Jogging along State Highway 61, however, was not as fun as I’d thought it’d be.) Alexa and I were also able to get away for a weekend in May to the almost ostentatiously quaint town of Stillwater, MN, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. (Dave and Cathy Deavel graciously cared for William and Margaret that weekend.)

Teaching at Macalester has had its ups and downs. As I anticipated in our last letter, Spring 2008 was indeed saner than Fall 2007, but it was also less satisfying. I found a number of the chemistry majors in my upper division physical chemistry class to be unreceptive and hyper-critical. However, I had very good rapport with three research students doing computer modeling and elemental analysis over the summer, and I really enjoyed teaching a general chemistry class this past fall for advanced placed freshmen. As I brag to my colleagues, I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad experience teaching freshman classes, even when I was just starting my career. However, the attitudes of older students take a toll, and Macalester’s weakness for showy individual achievements by faculty concerns me. But by the same token, the institutional culture gives tenured faculty lots of freedom and discretion. I suspect I should be using this freedom as an opportunity to focus on what are truly important—family, friends, and church.

To be sure, I have a good number of wonderful, helpful colleagues at Macalester, and Alexa and I both feel blessed by a strong local parish and a vibrant Catholic community in the Twin Cities. We certainly miss our families back in LA, but for now, it seems to be our calling to heed the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “Seek the welfare of [this] city…, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We hope all of you have a peaceful 2009.

Margaret enjoying sushi in LA in May

Celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary