there were so many kind wishes on my last journal entry that i won't even try to respond to them all - thanks so much from both of us! but to comment on a few responses:

- i thought the mittens looked like boxing gloves too! and i thought that first picture of her was the cute newborn take on the "you talking to me?" expression...the mittens, by the way, are for her long fingernails which we are not advised to cut until she's been here for 2 weeks (this thursday)...

- our house is raffi-free, sad (?) to say - i do have my share of children's records, but something tells me that A-chan won't really care much for Sesame Street Disco or Chipmunk Punk...actually, the first album that A-chan listened to? yoko ono & john lennon's unfinished music no. 2: life with the lions, believe it or not - no, not the whole album, but there's a 5-minute track on there of a fetal heartbeat from a time when yoko was pregnant - during one of the more, um, vocal evenings we had last week, i slapped it on the stereo and locked it on repeat, and within 2 minutes we had a sleeping baby in our arms - i'm sure that this will not be the case one day, but until that time i'm running it in the ground - no joke, we've probably heard that piece about 400 times in the past week...A-chan's first nonstop album selection? vashti bunyan's just another diamond day, which also seemed to calm her (and why wouldn't it?)

- yeah, it did seem that A-chan recognized my voice shortly after she was delivered - i had heard that it could happen but it still blew my mind to see the look on her face when she heard me speaking to her...

- of course we do realize that some people might confuse her name with a certain continent on our planet (it actually happened already, at the hospital), but we still thought it was a lovely and appropos and unusual name - thanks to those of you who confirmed this theory...

- those vital stats: height 20", weight 6.5 lbs, hair red (!), eyes bluish-gray like mine, although we know the latter two are subject to change - i was a redhead at birth too - honestly i was sure the asian genes would dominate so i was quite surprised - i almost thought for a second, are we sure this is ours?, until i realized that i saw her entrance into this world & knew that'd have to be one super magic trick if she wasn't...but S told me that she was actually blonde when she was born, news to me since i didn't know a blonde japanese girl was even possible...

- S (or mommy, however you want to call her) is doing okay - very tired, but manageable - i'm trying to help out where i can but no matter what a nursing mother knows that she has a tough road in front of her ー　other than that she's doing good!

and there's nothing else i'm going to say at the moment, because i'm getting out of work and am racing home to see them both! i know that its too cutesy to say stuff like that, but i can't help it...

oh, one last thing: on top of the blushworthy writing, i found it interesting that ikahana named this post (presumably after my daughter) with the exact same stevie wonder song that tredecimal used to describe my wife almost a year and a half ago! now, if only someone would describe me in such a way, my family would complete the wonder-triplet triangle...