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)