3 month check up

Charlie went for his 3 month check up after 3 months and 7 days. He had his injection and had a slight temperature for the next day, but is OK now.

His 3 month and 7 day numbers were:

Weight: 7.1 kg's (15.7 pounds)
Height: 64 cm's (25.2 inches)

Looking at various American baby growth charts it appears that as Charlie's birth weight was 3.5 kg's and his birth height was 50 cm's, he would normally (50th percentile), have reached the above weight and height at about 4 months and 10 days old. The charts have many disclaimers about ethnicity, breast feeding verses bottle feeding etc., but regardless of all the disclaimers and small print we summise that Charlie is a healthy baby who is growing well.

Charlie at 2-3 months

Above are a few pictures of Charlie at about 2-2.5 months old.

Charlie is now 3 months and 2 days old. He was due to be taken for a check up on 28 March, but he hasn't been yet as the hospital said they were too busy and have asked us to call back next week to make an appointment. Charlie is doing very will so the above doesn't cause any concern.

Charlie is:

• making lots of funny sounds (believe cooing may be the correct term)
• becoming more aware on a daily basis
• very healthy and is growing normally
• happy he has had his first haircut
• looking forward to getting out of the house more as apart from scheduled hospital visits he has hardly been out
• liking his swing
• in agreement with me that English is a much better language that Vietnamese
  

He's a swinger

A picture of Charlie at 1 month 25 days old.

Chinese New Year (Tet)

At new year Charlie had the opportunity to venture our of the house again when we did the rounds of the various houses that Hien's family live in.

The 3 larger pictures above are the lunchtime spread and the other smaller pictures were taken at the party.

Upon arriving back in Ho Chi Minh City we arrived to a spectacular sight. It was the day of Charlie's 1 month party and in Vietnam one month parties are very serious occasions. Unbeknown to me it is tradition to lay on a spread at lunchtime, which you can see above. Mum, Dad and I were all greatly relieved when we found out that we didn't have to eat this food and that it was all going to be given away to people. I still don't know who it was given away to.

The evening of the party had arrived and we set of to a famous seafood restaurant in downtown Ho Chi Minh City to celebrate with Hien's family and a few close friends. Making the invitation list was a long drawn out task when we realised how many people we had to invite. Hien's family consisted of about 40 people and then there many others we wanted to invite as well. In the end we invited about 115 people to the party, but thought only about 80 would arrive.

An hour after people were asked to arrive the room was still looking decidedly vacant of guests and if I were in any county other than Vietnam I would have been panicking. In Vietnam it is customary to be very late for everything and it is not the done thing to arrive less than 1 hour late for a party and 1.5 to 2 hours late is generally considered very acceptable. An hour and a half after the scheduled start time Hien turned up with Charlie and it was around this time that the majority of the guests turned up as well.

Many of the guests brought presents for Charlie and as is customary in Vietnam many guests brought money. The party was a great success with over 100 guests in attendance and we would like to thank everyone for coming and especially for bringing gifts and money. Charlie now has enough presents to last until he is about 35 years old and he has the finances to put himself through university.

Spent the next couple of days in Ho Chi Minh City being lazy and generally not doing much with the exception of a trip through the mangrove swaps of the Mekong Delta in my motorboat.

Then off on another motorboat for a 3.5 hour trip down to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta. There we stayed at the Victoria Hotel which was situated on the banks of the Mekong Delta overlooking a bridge which is presently being constructed to span the great river. The main reason for going to Can Tho was to experience the river so one evening we charted a huge junk just for the 3 of us. We spent about one and a half hours on a sunset cruise and with the exception of 4 staff had the whole boat to ourselves. One can certainly be decadent in ways like this in Vietnam.

After a couple of enjoyable days in Can Tho we found ourselves geting up early ro get the 7:15 am boat back to Ho Chi Minh City.

15 Jan Mum and Dad arrived in Ho Chi Minh City. I collected them from the airport and to my great surprise Dad came out of the airport in a wheelchair. Knew they were getting on a bit, but this was still a bit of a shock. Dad claimed something about falling over playing tennis, but this was a little difficult to believe.

Was great to see them and they were obviously delighted to get back to the house to see Hien and Charlie.