Dear Family and Friends,
Greetings during this Epiphany season! As most of you know, 2004 was a wonderful
year for Alexa and me. Our first
surviving child, Margaret Rose, was born on Sunday, October 24. Alexa’s contractions started at 3 in the
morning that Sunday, and became intense by around
Margaret Rose Kuwata, five minutes (left) and two and
a half hours (right) after birth.
Some 30 years ago, columnist George Will expressed the
natural pride all parents take in the manifest superiority of their own
children:
Geoffrey
Marion Will was about five seconds old when he took his first test. He earned a smashing ten—the highest
possible—Apgar score, by which obstetricians grade a newborn infant on such
vital signs as color, heartbeat, muscle tone.
Pardon his “pinker-than-thou” attitude.
Margaret
received only a nine on the Apgar test, and weighed in at only 6 pounds, 1
ounce, but trumped any perceived weaknesses with her extremely high cuteness
and powerful cry! We are grateful for
all the help we received from friends in the first few weeks after her
birth—from meals to substitute teaching at Macalester. We are also grateful that our cat, Echo, has
been quite accepting of his new mistress.
He often sniffs her, and simply walks away if her crying becomes too
loud for his sensitive ears.
Margaret’s popularity continues to exceed that of her
parents, with many kind people giving us clothes, toys, and gift cards. (We especially enjoy opportunities to spend
money at Minneapolis-based Target.) It
has been a pleasure introducing her to our colleagues and students at work, people
at our parish, friends in a Catholic mommy group (daddies are honorary members),
and our families back in
Left: Margaret started keeping her eyes open around
four weeks after birth, and was feasting those eyes on some of Alexa’s work
friends at a Thanksgiving Day dinner.
Right: Margaret receives the sacrament of baptism at our home parish, Nativity
of Our Lord Catholic Church, on December 5.
Life leading up to Margaret’s birth was atypically
idyllic, with my enjoying the second semester of my pre-tenure sabbatical (my
reward for not bombing continuously during my first three years at
The last months before Margaret’s birth brought a
number of stresses. Alexa contended with gestational diabetes (you might too,
if your pancreas were squeezed to the shape of a pancake), and frequent
ultrasound and ironically named “non-stress” tests to reveal possible premature
contractions. The ultrasounds happily
(and accurately) revealed chubby cheeks and (a little) hair—observations that
were corroborated October 24. Alexa
hopes to return to work at
In September I contended with a return to Macalester,
teaching two introductory and one upper-division chemistry class. Teaching at a liberal arts college is not an easy
way to make a living, but when the students respond positively (as they did,
happily, this past fall), the job is quite rewarding. However, I’m told that today’s college
freshmen and sophomores are the vanguard of a “millennial” generation whose
rearing has revolved around the meeting of their needs. They expect their professors to be likewise solicitous. On the positive side, they do value
relationships with both “authority” figures and peers. So when they ask you why you didn’t give them
an A on a test or a paper, they will do so warmly and out of a sense of
friendship! (Seriously, I’ve been
blessed with many good, hard-working students.)
Meanwhile, Alexa and I rejoice every day in the gift
of our child. For centuries, the Church
has thanked God during the Christmas season for “wondrously creating, yet more
wondrously restoring, the dignity of human nature.” That restoration came not from the appearance
of a fully-grown human, but in the birth of a baby. Every day we are given the opportunity to see
in Margaret a manifestation (an epiphany, if you will) of God’s goodness and to
live our lives in a way congruent with that vision.
God’s blessings on you all during 2005!
Alexa and Keith
Kuwata,