I was on a casual Zoom call with my team this afternoon to welcome a new colleague who joined our team. But I realize that most of us hadn’t really been on a call anytime recently to discuss non-work things. So an Indian colleague of mine asked me if the reason we named our daughter Kaia was for the Hindi phrase. I asked her, what Hindi phrase? And she said “khana khaya,” which is a way of greeting someone in Hindi to ask “Have you eaten yet?” So, she said to me, “khaya” in Hindi means “has eaten.”

I cracked up and could not stop smiling. WHAT? A version of the name we chose for our daughter actually means “to eat”??? How did we not know this? Or rather, how did Chris’s mother, who is fluent in Hindi, never tell us this? I was completely mind boggled by all of this new knowledge. This colleague totally made my day.

I hope my sweet baby Kaia grows up to be a voracious eater who explores and embraces all cultures’ foods.