Asher's Songs

Friday night we had Asher perform his favorite songs for us. Enjoy this video of him singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Jesus Loves Me, The ABC Song and The Chaang (Elephant) Song.

One of my favorite parts of the video is when Asher sings, "Jesus loves me this I noor." Every time he says the exact same thing. I also like that he just grunts through the middle of the alphabet.

The Chaang Song has been a favorite for a long time now. Roger and I learned the words a few weeks ago and I think Asher learned them at school.

Sunday Morning

Now that we have a car (an Own Car* in AsherSpeak) our Sunday mornings are a bit more leisurely. Instead of rushing out the door to jump on a motorcycle or a taxi or the train we just jump in the Own Car and drive to church.

Last week found us with matching clothes and some time to kill before we left for church.

Asher in his Car Bear* shirt.

Asher even took a picture with me because on this day taking pictures be so much fun*.

Asher Boy* and Baby Gack* both wore Car Bear shirts.

Daddy tickled Baby Gack and got a big smile.

All of the boys wore matching shirts. I don't think any of The Friends* at church even noticed.

Glossary

Own Car: a vehicle for personal use, originally referring to Mimi having her own car, most importantly this means a car that is not a taxi.

Car Bear: the Brennan Bear from Baby Gap that Granny bought for Asher before he was born, currently the bear rides in the back of the Own Car with Asher and is used to distract him while we sit in Bangkok's notorious traffic.

Be so much fun: Basically how Asher describes anything that he likes, very popular with our summer volunteers who often describe things on facebook by saying, "it be so much fun."

Asher Boy: how Asher refers to himself due to the fact that he does not yet understand pronouns, also to make sure we know that Asher is a boy and not a baby like Jack.

Baby Gack: how Asher refers to Jack.

The Friends: anybody that Asher knows, we have The Friends at school, The Friends at church and The Friends that come from America to visit us, most commonly this refers to our summer volunteers.

Around Our House

Our washer is outside in a little building next to our house, so as I was making my hourly trek from upstairs to outside with the laundry I just threw Jack in with the clothes. Saved a little bit of time and kept poor Baby Jack from having to cry when he couldn't see me.

Jack can't quite crawl yet, but he tries. He can occasionally get up on his knees and he was getting pretty good at grabbing the top of the crib and trying to pull himself up. That made me nervous, so Roger had to move the crib down to the lowest level. This was one of Jack's last times to sleep in the crib when it was still up high.

Jack has huge eyes. On Friday I was helping a friend run errands and we had to stop by a local church. One of the church staff came out to say hi and see Jack. The first thing she said: his eyes are too big and pretty for a boy, he should be a girl. Thanks.

August 12 was Mother's Day in Thailand. Asher's school had a program and he was supposed to wear handsome clothes. We actually had him in the right outfit on the right day. He willingly wore a button down, jeans, socks and shoes. This is the child that normally refuses anything besides shorts, t-shirt and sandals.

Asher and Jack post-Mother's Day program. Asher loves his little brother and Jack thinks Asher is the funniest person on earth.

Jack loves his walker. He spends a lot of time following us around, trying to get in the trash can and looking out the front door.

Asher has a great smile. And he has pointy canine teeth. Often Thai people will see him smile and say "wampie." Eventually we figured out this meant "vampire."

The Past Few Weeks

We've been sick around here the past few weeks. It's like as soon as one person gets well another person gets sick. And on and on it goes.

Jack and I have been the most recent victims, but I think we are finally on the mend. Our most recent round has included croup for Jack and a stomach virus for me.

I blame Asher. He goes to school and brings home all this little preschool germs. But, the thing is these are not normal preschool germs, they are Thai preschool germs, unlike any these Americans have ever experienced. Somehow Asher usually gets the mildest illness and Roger and I get it the worse.

After so many weeks of having sick people around we are really behind. I haven't studied Thai in two weeks, Roger has been teaching a government English class and has yet to go to class healthy. The house is a wreck, the clothes are not clean. But, we have had plenty of time to sit on the couch and watch movies. That was definitely the best part of being sick.

In one of our non-sick moments we had some friends over. Braidynn and Asher spent quite a bit of time together when we were in Vancouver. Now they each have a little brother to hold. I think Jack looks like a giant baby next to sweet little Aben.

Now I'm off to re-wash my laundry (it got rained on) and get ready for another day.

Asher's Big Balloon

Ahh, Daddy's out of town. Just Mama and her baby boys at home. Driving cars, doing laundry, reading books and playing all day long.

Here's what was going on earlier this week while Roger was up north picking up our car.