A New Addition

It's been far too long since we've had our new addition and haven't introduced her to the world via blog, although most of you have already seen her on facebook. Our new baby girl here is Marici Rath, born 18 May 2010 at around 11:30am, weighing in at a 7lbs2oz and a height of 19 inches, our shortest, fattest baby thus far. She's grown up quite beautifully over the last 5 months now, and we can hardly believe that it has already been that long.

We named her Marici, which is Sanskrit for stars, following our Kiran, Oriya for rays of sunshine, and Nisha, Oriya for moonlight. Joram's first name is Jagadish, Hindi for Lord of the Universe, so with all of them together we have, as Joram always says, the entire outer space.

The kids all love having a baby sister, although when we first told them we were having a girl Joram said, "Awww, can we have another one and make it a boy?" The girls are both extremely fond of her, especially Nisha, who gets her out of bed and changes her diapers nearly every morning.

Marici already has a giggle and a smile that lights up the room, and we love to make her laugh. She has been a wonderful change to our otherwise hum-drum lives, and we look forward to seeing her grow and mature like the her siblings.

Punished with a...what?

I was up late watching Glenn Beck, and I watched a clip that I had seen before more than a year ago, but seeing it again just made my blood boil. In it, Obama is speaking to a group and, of course without the teleprompter to help him, says one of the dumbest things I think I have ever heard from a politician.



I can't even believe that anyone who expects to represent us as a nation would have beliefs such as this. I hope his children have something to say about it when they get older, since he believes that they may have been a "punishment." I cannot imagine life without my three little ones, and I have to believe that many of you, whether you like this president or not, feel the same way. How can I trust someone to lead our nation when he speaks so frivolously of human life. If all punishment were like these three, I think I'd like to have little bit more of it.

The prayers of children are truly answered...

So our older cat, Platinum, named for his silvery, platinumy color, got out the front door sometime last Monday. We didn't realize it until just before Nancy and I went to bed because our two cats usually hide somewhere in our bedroom to sleep through the afternoon. When we discovered he was gone we figured it was from one of the kids accidentally leaving the door open, and as late as it was we did only a cursory search outside. He had gotten out once before one morning, and by the evening he was meowing in our backyard, so I held out hope that he might just find his own way back home. I don't know if we spread our scent around when the five of us all went on a walk around the neighborhood, as I've heard cats have an incredible sense of smell. That entire day the kids all asked Heavenly Father to bless Platinum to come home, and lo and behold that night he did. This time was no different, as the kids asked for Platinum to be safe from harm and danger and to find his way home every single chance they had.

Well, a few days went by, and I took the girls on walks around the neighborhood with the girls calling out "Platinum!" You haven't heard cute until you've head our youngest, Nisha, say Platinum's name. It was more sad that the kids missed him, and as well because he is my frequent companion when everyone else goes to bed late at night. From day one we left our back door open a nudge, hoping the scent of out home would draw him back to us. He is quite vocal, so it would've been easy to hear him, and in fact, the first time I was in our master bath and heard him just outside our open window. Well, it didn't work after a week or so. I even tried leaving his litter box by the open back door for an entire evening. No luck, however.

It's been a week and two days now. We've made a trip to the shelter every couple of days to check if he had been brought in, but to no avail. Living in the far west part of town, and having abundant desert land around us, and especially since I've seen coyotes very often within a half mile of our home, I didn't have much hope any more, being a small docile cat. But, even today Nancy said she spoke with a shelter and they said not to lose hope since some animals return weeks to even months after being gone.

The prayers of our little ones are truly answered by our Father in Heaven. This evening Nancy was going out to the car to get something, and as soon as she opened the door a little brown field mouse came running inside, to which she called my name. Then she yelled me to come wuickly and darted out the door saying she saw Platinum. That blimey cat had chased a mouse and trapped him in the alcove of OUR front door!

I grabbed my shoes and followed as Nancy tried to corral him Platinum, though as soon as she got within arms length he would scamper off. I tried to catch up as they made their way into the neighbor's yard, and then across the street to an alley, then around the house into their front yard. He wasn't about to let us get close enough to catch him, so I asked Nancy to run back to the house and get his wet cat food, which has a pop top that's like catnip to our two cats the second they hear it open. That did the trick. As soon as she opened it he came up to her, and she picked him up. He scratched trying to get away, and when I took him from her hands I got a few gouges out of my arm, but all well worth it.

Platinum is safely back in our home, although Diamond is acting like an angry diva after having the house to herself for so long, and hisses at him and everyone else now that she has to share a food bowl and everything else again. We've had a good lesson about closing the door after going in or out, and I hope that it sticks with the kids this time. Oh well, on to the next adventure...

Kids grow way too fast!

So we had a couple birthdays in the last few weeks. Nisha turned 3 on the 8th of last month, and Joram turned 7 last Saturday. They grow up way too quickly. Because Nisha is our baby, it seems wrong that she is so old now. I'm just thankful that she's almost completely free of diapers, and last night was her first night without them on. Kiran has been doing it for a couple weeks with just a few overnight accidents, and Nisha is nearly there as well.

For Nisha's birthday we went to our old birthday staple, Peter Piper Pizza, because they have decent pizza and the kids just run around playing games the whole time. My parents and two of my siblings came down to join us. But for Joram's birthday, my dad wanted to take him to a place in Gilbert called Amazing Jakes. It's like a miniature indoor theme park/buffet. It was a blast...for the first 2 hours. After that it got a little old but we stayed longer because my parents bought Joram a 3-hour ride pass that he could ride unlimited for 3 hours, while the rest of us had to actually buy our rides, which ranged from $2-5 apiece, not to mention the hundreds of arcade games they had as well.

It was fun to go there once, but I'm not sure we'll go back. It seemed a little of a downer to me because it asn't quite the excitement of a real theme park, of which I've been quite fortunate to visit many in my time. This place seems perfect for ages 9-12 because they're tall enough to go on every ride, and not too old to be "too cool" for kid stuff. Joram is tall for his height (we'll see how many of you get that one) so he had a blast as could go on nearly every ride except the race cars. Kiran was tall enough to go on a few rides, but the only one she really liked (and I mean she REALLY LIKED it) was ride that 7 kids sat on a bench and buckled in and it went up and down very quickly. Her first time she sat next to Joram and Kiran just giggled and giggled and giggled the whole time. She went on the ride at least 4 more times, without Joram most of them, and when we weren't on it she'd ask about the "up-and-down" ride constantly. She even woke up from her nap yesterday and cam out to tell us about the up and down ride...making us think she was just dreaming about it. Nisha was extremely sad because she couldn't go on anything, so Nancy just held her the whole time to comfort her...and they played the skeet shoot game a whole lot!

It was a fun month, but thankfully we don't have any birthdays for a while. I don't think I can handle that much fun all at once for some time still. Wow, I think I'm getting old. Well, if I am getting old, than so are all of you...

It's a girl!

Well, our next pregnancy was an interesting one. Joram was a few months from turning 2, and Nancy had been having abdominal pains for a few weeks. It became more intense a few days before Christmas when we were down in the Gila Valley visiting our families. On Christmas Eve my dad called the hospital and said that we were coming in (it helps to know someone with connections to get fast service!) and after an ultrasound we found out that it was an ectopic pregnancy near rupture, and Nan had to be helicoptered to Tucson for emergency surgery. In the early evening she left the hospital and I was on my way as well, Joram asleep in his car seat, to meet her at the hospital in Tucson. Some close friends of ours met her there after her surgery finished and I got there soon after. We spent Joram's 2nd Christmas at our little duplex with just the 3 of us. I don't know exactly how everything works, but I know that if our little baby received a spirit, she's waiting for us with the rest of our family.

Kiran
We have a 15% chance of having another ectopic pregnancy every single time we get pregnant, and we were fortunate and blessed to have another baby less than a year later. We knew better what to expect this time, so I tracked contractions very carefully, and in the evening of the 16th of December we headed to the hospital, where my younger brother, Tikon, met us to watch Joram while we were in the delivery room. After just an hour or so of pushing, in the very early hours of 17 December 2007, out came our little Kiran (which means "ray of sunshine" in Hindi) Rath. With Joram we had a midwife named Janet, whom we loved, but Kiran was born just 2 weeks after Janet retired, so our new doctor, Dr. Shawn Tassone, whom we had met just twice (he had performed the ectopic surgery the previous year, which is why we chose him this time, and the week before our delivery).

When Joram was born, things went so quickly that I didn't have a chance to see anything. I watched him crown, then glanced up at Nan, and by the time I looked back down he was out. This time I wasn't about to miss it, so as soon as she was crowning I didn't look anywhere else, and watched as the whole sloppy mess came out quite smoothly. They cleaned her up and gave her to Nan, and I'll tell you, there's nothing like seeing a child of God taking their very first breath of life, and then holding them for the very first time. Kiran had darker skin and eyes than her older brother, and we were pretty sure she would take more after me, whereas Joram was a gentle mixture of the two of us. Joram was in there pretty soon after and was instantly a proud big brother. Their first pictures together show the beautiful relationship they share, even still to this day.

Kiran is such a wonderful blessing in our lives. She is quick to smile and laugh, which is infectious to everyone around her, as rambunctious as her brother, and seems to love everything about life itself and does everything with an intense passion. We're sure that she's going to be a high-octane daredevil when she gets older. Her big, beautiful brown eyes attract gazes wherever she goes, and her hair is filled with huge curls that always look like she just stepped out of a beauty salon.

Kiran loves her family, especially being a big sister, and she gets along well with her baby sister. She wants to go to school badly, just like her big brother, and loves being in preschool (on her first day on the right). She even pretends that she is in school and talks about her schoolwork using the same terminology that Joram does with his schoolwork.

Life is definitely much more exciting with Kiran around, and you can usually expect the house to lack any sense of quietude if Kiran is awake (with Nisha on the left - they got dressed on their own!). We love our sweet Kiran, and she truly is our "ray of sunshine."

The day I became dad

So I figured that there was enough depression to look at, and even though there'll be more to come, I wanted to put some actual family stuff in here as well. I wanted to talk about each one of my kids and how we were introduced.

Joram
Although we'd been talking for some time, the first face-to-face meeting between Jagadish Joram Rath and I was on 28 March 2002, about 5 days after expected. Nancy and I, being first-time parents, were unsure of what to expect. So, on the morning of the 27th, as soon as the contractions were close enough, we drove up to the hospital. After having Nan checked out and monitored for a few hours, they decided we weren't quite ready and sent us out.

Since the hospital was a bit of a drive from our house, we decided to grab a late lunch and ate some Mexican food. We walked around the Foothills Mall for a while, and when the contractions picked up again we went back to the hospital. We sat in peaceful quietude for some time, and early in the morning on the 28th Nan's contractions got stronger, and with some minimal pushing our baby boy came to us around 4:30am. We named him Jagadish(after my paternal grandfather and means "ruler of the universe" in Hindi) Joram(from a king in the Old Testament) Rath. (The picture is the oldest I had at hand, before we had a digital camera)

That moment marked a new era in our family, as we were no longer just the two of us, but now a functional family unit in the household of God.

It has been an interesting life since then. Joram is quite an inquisitive soul. His curiosity is abundant, and while it helps him learn relentlessly, it also sometimes gets him into trouble. In some things he has tremendous focus, including math, science, and video games, yet in others he often wanders.

In all things, however, Joram is a wonderful son and big brother, doing much to help the function of our family and being a good example to his little sisters and everyone else who associates with him.

Joram is now in first grade at the Montessori Schoolhouse (this is him going to school). Although I still have some qualms about their teaching method (including calling teachers by their first name), they are successful in many things and we absolutely love one of his teachers, Mandi. Joram is, from what they tell us, a veritable math wizard. He is a first-grader who does multiplication and division, and when we are out and about people are amazed by his math prowess.

He loves his sisters, his mom and dad, and everyone else in his extended family. He loves going to school and church, and really enjoys reading. He has great faith in his Heavenly Father, as shown by what he says in his prayers every night. We love our Joram and are thankful that our Father has blessed us to have him in our family.

They love to dance

My older daughter, Kiran, has been dancing ballet and tap for a while now through the city parks and rec, and she loves it. My younger girl, Nisha, loves it as well, but is too young to be in the class yet, so she just dances out in the hallway while we wait. We forgot to sign them up for this last session of classes, which was okay because we were out of town so much over the last month or so. But yesterday when she started asking about it again we told her we'd sign her up, and she started getting her ballet clothes to wear saying she has to get ready for ballet. When we informed her that we'd have to sign her up before she could go, she said okay and that she'd get dressed anyways and just pretend she was going to ballet class. So she's gone to "pretend ballet class" two days in a row now. I'm so thankful for my kids who make me smile every moment of every day.