Welcome Baby Kei

For those of you who did not get our mass email, here is what my sweet husband work regarding our newest addition, Kei Kawashima. I will write more details regarding the birth and my experience so far hopefully tomorrow. For now, this will have to do. But I do need to write a bit, for my own sake, just to have the memories. Maybe that will be my one goal for tomorrow...

Hello friends and family,
Our apology on mass e-mail once again instead of writing it to each and everyone but we have another news we like to share and we just couldn’t wait. Please allow us to welcome “KEI” Kawashima to our little family. He was born on May 2 at 15:26 Tokyo time (which is May 2 on Eastern Standard time, same date as Japan and US for those who guessed his birthday horribly and blamed on time difference..), whopping 8.4 lb. Apparently, 6.6 lb is average size new born baby in Japan where midwife was quite concerned with Shari having over 8lb baby. All we could say is we super size everything in America.
Kei and Shari are doing well and they came home last night, we started our new journey, pilgrim, satire or lampoon (however you think the word would best describe us..) as family of four. What do you know, we are becoming the statistics, the average American family size which is 2.6 according to US Census Bureau (thanks Census Bureau for the update :) )
Last few months has been eventful to say the least. There was that huge earthquake in March, which destroyed northern part of Japan and also seriously damaged nuclear plant. We were okay physically but were drained emotionally and had to pray through where to be and where to have this baby. We had some scares with supplies (especially with bottled water) and electric shortages in April and weren’t sure how it would all play out but it appear to be life as usual for the most part here in Tokyo. We had a labor that went so perfect we couldn’t ask anything better. Well, easier for me (Kan is writing this obviously..) to say since I wasn’t the one who had to bare the child but hey… I suffered kicking in my back throughout the night in last few months, can we say it’s even? Okay.. I am getting a feeling I just need to drop the subject and move on… what I wanted to say is… there were no complications, and the labor was much shorter than Miyako. We arrived at the hospital around 10:00AM and Shari went into active labor around 11:00ish. By 15:30, we had a healthy boy. It was smooth. There is no jaundice issues so far, he eats well (I mean really well), he poops well (I mean really well) and he sleeps well (little more would be nice but..). As you can tell, I am such a proud dad. Oh, that reminds us.. any of you out there has a good advice on how to change boy diaper, please let us know. Man, that thing is like a fire hydrant and shoots out everywhere unannounced. Well, please look through the attached photos if you have time. I am sure we will try to post more pictures through Facebook and Shari’s blog (http://volscats-kanandshari.blogspot.com/), so please keep up with these sites as well.

For those who are curious, Kei ( ‘京’ <- Japanese character if you can see.. ) means Capital, wealth of wisdom through heritage and history. It is much similar to Miyako’s (‘都’)name. In fact, if you place Kei and Miyako’s character together, it reads Kyoto (‘京都’).
This idea came from the Kawashima side of family and their wish is that wherever Miyako and Kei end up, their ‘home’ is in Kyoto and that they would live graciously in accordance with customary expectations.
Shari and I have a different take on this obviously. We want them to return to their true home, God’s kingdom someday. Wherever they end up, they are both covenant children, they both represent the kingdom of God, and they are marked.

Now our job now is to make sure they don’t go to same Japanese school because if they do, man, they are going get it… :)


Well, thanks for letting us share our news… What’s up with you? We would love to catch up with you, let us know how things are going.




Your… whatever we are to you,
Kan, Shari, Miyako and Kei