Jack's Guide

Jack's Guide to Keeping a Chunky Baby Extra Chunky

Feed them.

The end.

7 Months

Jack is getting so big! I think his legs get chunkier every single day. Today he weighed an even 8 kilos (17 lbs 10 oz), almost the same as Asher at this age.

As chunky as Jack is he's still mostly getting by on milk. He's been eating solid food once a day, unless we are busy. Then he doesn't get any. Oh, the second child. So far, Jack loves it all. He's had carrots, pears, avocados and a little bit of rice. I tried to make sweet potatoes for him, but I think I bought something that wasn't a sweet potato. Perhaps it was a giant piece of ginger. I'm still not sure. Green vegetables are the most difficult to get here. There's no green beans or green peas to be found. I did, however, find three jars of baby food at the store last week. $3 a jar! Crazy! Not to mention I paid $2 for one avocado. Luckily we have lots of wonderfully fresh fruit around.

Jack's new favorite toy is his walker. He is just like his big brother, he absolutely loves rolling around the house. And just like Asher, he likes to get under the kitchen table and play.

One day after nap time we took the walker and Asher's bike outside and had a great time. Asher and Jack loved rolling around chasing each other and banging into each other.

Jack's newest skill is screeching and screaming when he doesn't get his way. This, of course, goes hand in hand with Asher's newest skill of bugging the snot out of his brother. See below for an excellent example: Asher rammed into Jack therefore Jack squealed.

Night time sleep has been an issue for the past few weeks. Jack does not like to go to bed. Once he gets to sleep it's fine, but lately it has taken a very long time to get him to sleep. I think it was mostly because of all the craziness that came from having 13 college students around all summer. Things seem to be getting back on track, Jack even took a 2 hour nap this afternoon.

Jack hasn't figured out how to crawl yet, but he can pretty much scoot around on his belly to get where he needs to go. I think he will be crawling soon. And I think we will all be in trouble when that happens.

More Beach Pictures

Did I mention that one of our recent visitors is a photographer? She snapped a few pictures of us on the beach last week. I edited them, so, Jill, I am so sorry if I have ruined all of your wonderful pictures.

Frisbee with Daddy

We took our volunteer group down to the beach last weekend. The weekend was filled with sun and sand and swimming and frisbee.

Asher joined Daddy for a little frisbee fun.

Being 2 did not stop Asher from thinking he could play frisbee like a college student.

As Asher loves to say, "Oh Daddy! It be so much fun!"

Of course, I think Roger had just as much fun as Asher.

The Grand Palace

While Mimi was here we decided to go check out The Grand Palace. Besides being the most famous touristy place it is also the hottest touristy place. And the hotness is only intensified by the dress code: pants and closed toe shoes. We had some good sweaty fun, but I am not planning on going back anytime soon.

Mama and Jack.

Daddy came with us, too!

The famous Emerald Buddha.

Jack finally escaped the carrier.

Of course, he was soon captured by a group of Chinese tourists so that they could take pictures with him. (We were at a gas station earlier this week with some volunteers when a Thai woman walked up, asked for Jack and then took him back to her food stand while she finished making drinks for the other customers. The volunteers asked if this was normal, I assured them that it was completely normal for strangers to walk off with my baby.)

Jack was returned to Mimi after the photographers were finished with him.

And a family photo. Asher was at school so he didn't come with us.

Thank you photoshop, Asher was able to join us after all.

More from Asher's School

We are about two months into the first term and Asher is still loving his school. He's been going 3 or 4 days a week just depending on what we have going on. Some weeks he goes everyday, but that leaves him pretty worn out by Friday afternoon.

Asher and his friends in their classroom. He's the little white boy on the right.

His favorite day of school is Thursday because he gets to wear his Jesus shirt (sports outfit) and his Jesus shirt shoes (white shoes). He also likes Fridays more now that we bought him a new Thai outfit to wear. It's a little more comfortable and fits better. I was getting used to seeing Lightning McQueen underwear on Friday afternoons because his pants were always falling off of him.

So, you know those stereotypical immigrant parents? The ones that dress sort of funny, talk sort of funny and always seem clueless? Yeah, that's us.

For example, a few weeks ago they had a special day called "Wai the Teacher and Bring the Teacher a Flower Day." Basically the day was like teacher's appreciation day except instead of gift cards you were supposed to bring the teacher a flower. So, we were confused about which day it was and didn't send him to school with a flower. Oh well, he's 2, he doesn't care. Turns out this always happens on a Thursday. Never, ever would this occur on a Friday.

So, the next Thursday was another special day. It was "Health Check Day." There was nothing we needed to do, but we read carefully. We knew it was happening. The day before (on Wednesday) Asher's teacher made a big production of telling Roger something. He heard, "Wear polite clothes tomorrow." In reality she said, "We are checking health tomorrow." In Thai those two things sound a lot alike. Like, polite is "soo-phap" and health is "soo-kha-phap" (I think). We are talking one little vowel sound. So, while the other two hundred students showed up on Thursday in their Jesus shirts for "Health Check Day" Asher showed up in his normal uniform. We had no idea what she could mean by polite clothes, we figured his normal uniform was much more polite than his sports uniform. Again, oops, he's 2, he has no idea that he looks different (okay, more different, he is the only white kid).

Asher getting his "soo-kha-phap" checked while wearing his "soo-phap" uniform.

Then, the next Thursday was "Dental Health Check Day." We didn't mess anything up. Asher got a new tube of toothpaste. Victory.

Some Pictures

Here are two pictures of my two favorite baby boys.

And a picture from our night our with Mimi.

We left the boys at home with a friend and took Mimi to hip, new Thai restaurant near the river. It's always fun to get dressed up and leave the boys at home! We tried to give Mimi the full Bangkok experience that night, including a ride on a motorcycle taxi during rush hour.