1 month party

Wow, we've been so busy lately that we didn't have time to update our blog... okay, here is what you missed!




When Katie turned 1 month old, we had a party for her and invited some friends to a restaurant.




Mommy looks hungry! It was the first time we took Katie outside (except to go to the doctor), and Thao kept worrying about her. Katie started to cry a little bit, so Thao got up and took her down to the first floor. After a while some friends went to check on her, and they came back and said that Thao wanted to go home already! But luckily daddy went downstairs and everything was fine. Thao was just worried that Katie was crying a bit, but it was a noisy restaurant already so nobody cared... Thao just fed her a bit and she settled down.




Mommy needs to eat too! Good thing that Ha was there to help out!

1 month and 13 Ghosts

Last night was horrible, Katie did not sleep all night and we eventually went to bed at 6am. Then today at 13:00, Thao's two younger sisters came to prepare for the 13 Ghosts... 13 shrimp, 13 little crabs, 13 snails, 13 bird eggs, 13 potatoes, 13 sticky rice balls, 13 normal rice balls, 13 green oranges and 13 green fruit..... Oh my! And with the 13 candles and 13 incense sticks, surrounded by lots of paper and fake money bundles, the whole thing was a huge fire hazard! heheh

Eventually they told me that when the baby is 1 month old, the custom is to make an offering for 13 spirits to protect her throughout her life.




Since we did not do things right at new year, finally we have a proper full chicken with entrails wrapped around its neck and a rose in its mouth!




Doesn't exactly look too healthy to keep a baby in a room filled with smoke like that, right? Well actually it was soooo windy that morning that we had to close the windows for a few minutes for pray time.





Many friends came to visit throughout the day. I'll have to keep Hà in mind when we need a babysitter, because she was holding Katie all day and fed her a bottle too. She is a very good friend who often comes and brings food for us, or goes shopping at the market for us. Last week she cooked us Japanese curry rice!




Ling is another good friend who was very busy all day helping us prepare everything. (she is the girl that wrote the newspaper article about me)




Thao's sister brought a very yummy cake to celebrate 1 month




Some nice new clothes for the summer from Hà!




Here is another girl Chi from the "foreigner boyfriend club".




She came with her boyfriend and they brought very nice flowers and Baileys. Hopefully the Baileys is for the parents, not for the baby...




Too much excitement for one day! Katie is fast asleep, holding her lucky money...

We also went to the doctor for the 1 month checkup a few days ago. Everything is fine, although Thao is worried that Katie is not gaining weight fast enough. But of course the baby growth charts show that she is right in the middle of average weight.

Katie Gia An Poole
1 month old
4.23 kg (9.3 lbs)

3 weeks old

Wow, Katie is 3 weeks old already! I don't know where the time went... it is probably because she keeps mommy and daddy very busy...

I tried to do that Trixie Tracker thing for a day, where you record every little detail what your baby does. Sleeping, nursing, diaper changes... But it just got to be too much of a hassle. It was hard enough to take care of a newborn, I didn't want to have to record everything too. Plus I found it very depressing when you review the night before and realize how little sleep you got...

Thao's mom stayed with us for a week after Katie was born, and she was a great help. Actually she wanted to stay longer, like one or two months! But we thought we should follow the Western way and try to do everything ourselves. And the house is really too small for too many people. She was planning to come again this week with Thao's sister, and prepared a lot of food to bring, like whole chicken and fish. But suddenly the weather changed and got cold again, and she got sick, so she couldn't come. Thao's sister said that one night at midnight, her mom was was walking around the playground and crying, saying that she misses Katie and worrying if we could take care of Katie by ourselves. :( She still wanted to come, but we had to say that she should stay home and take care of her health...

So now we are doing daily baths by ourselves. Well, Thao is doing it, I basically just fill the bath tub with water... But Thao is really good and Katie loves to be in the water. I read some Western books that say you should only do a sponge bath and maybe only once a week until the baby gets older. But Thao says that's because it is very clean there, here in Vietnam the air is dirty...

Katie's umbilical cord stump finally fell off after about 2 1/2 weeks. Thao saved it and put it in a plastic bag with some cotton, and tied it to the lamp in the bedroom. I'm sure she had a good reason....... heheh




Here is Katie just hanging out... During the day she usually sleeps a lot, and not matter what we try to do to wake her up, she sleeps like crazy. Of course, during the night she wakes up if we make the slightest noise. She likes to stay awake from 12 to 4 am :(




Here is the basinet I bought for Katie. It is hand-made from bamboo but only cost $12... You have to imagine me riding home on the motorbike with this tied to the back heheh





Here is the cute outfit I bought her for Woman's Day (mommy got 30 long stem roses!)

And now for some more of Katie's modeling...