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Another image of Kaika

I promise I won’t make this a daily occurrence, but please indulge me once again. Yesterday was the first day I could see Kaika “in person,” so to speak, that is, not just from behind glass. And yes, I held him. So small, so tiny. I was shocked at how warm he was, like he had a fever, but Naoko reassured not to worry. The nurses say he hardly cries at all, such a quiet baby. But when I was leaving, he let out the briefest of cries. I’m sure it was a coincidence, but hey it was a nice touch anyway.

The day before yesterday, my mother-in-law made a big deal about checking the ochinchin (penis), making sure it was there. And the hands and feet, checking that Kaika has the right about of fingers/toes on each. It doesn’t occur to me to do this — I trust that the doctor or nurses would have told us had there been something missing. And an equally big deal was made over whether or not the baby has a smooth eyelid or a “double eyelid,” as it’s commonly referred to. Again, it never occurred to me to look for this.

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Kaika’s naming antecedents

An partial explanation of our son's name Kaika

Some of the thoughts that went into the name:

kai (umi) — both Naoko and I grew up on islands, surrounded by the sea. Naoko crossed an ocean once to meet me, and kept crossing it to pursue me. We fell in love, and crossed the same ocean together to start our life and family in Japan.

ka (uta) — given in the hope that our son will be a creator, a performer, a builder, an expresser. The names of Japanese artists Utamaro and Utagawa Hiroshige were the inspiration.

When I was young, on the beaches of Hawaii my brother Kimo and I would look for seashells with my mother. When we found the big ones, my mother would tell us to cup it around our ear. She told us that no matter where you were, if you listened to the seashell, you would be able to hear the song of the ocean. kai (using a different Chinese character) is Japanese for shellfish. kaigara is seashell.

Other considerations: Kaika is derived from the Hawaiian name Ikaika, meaning strong. kai in Hawaiian also means the sea. Naoko and I had decided early on that if it was a boy, we would give it a Hawaiian name (or close to it).

And lastly, the idea for the name first came to me while I was creating some Kanji flashcards. While learning the kanji for akeru (to open), I came upon the kanji combination word kaika, a pairing of the kanji for akeru and hana (flower). Written with these kanji, kaika means “flowering” or “blooming,” in both the literal and figurative senses of those words. I liked the idea of that, as Kaika would be born at the time of Spring that cherry blossoms are making their blooming march across the Japan archipelago from south to north (called sakurazensen).