Baby Notes

Abi's First Birthday

2008-08-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

So our little girl is now 1 year old, and a wonderful year it has been.

We celebrated a few days early at Aje and Nancy's home and to put an exclamation point on the party Abi took her first (completely unassisted, or spotted) steps!

The party had most of the usual American trimmings (food, birthday cake, and the song "happy birthday"), but we did miss our family from America on the occasion. To make up for it we had people from (at least) 4 different nations - Thailand, Burma, America and New Zealand. It seems like this international audience will be the norm for Abigail in this strange, wonderful life we lead.

Here is a video of the party, some antics at home leading up to the party and of course those famous first steps. Enjoy!

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Abi: 6-8 Months

2008-07-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

Abi just turned 11 months old, so I figured it was about time that I finally post her 6-8 month photos that have been sitting on my desktop awaiting a blog of their own. Also, since this blog is really our digital equivilent to a baby book, I thought I'd share a few milestones and interesting tid bits about Abi's life during those months:

Favorite toy: Other than big people toys (cell phone, laptop, mouse, remote, etc.) which she's not really allowed to play with, she loves the foam letters in the ABC puzzle mat, and also she loves these squirter ball toys that we got in four packs from the dollar store!
Her first two teeth showed up when she was: 6 months & 10 days old
Her biggest fear: the blender!
Biggest hurdle in life: huge gag reflex... even just a pacifier can make her vomit!
First foods: Rice cereal, mashed pumpkin and tomatoes and cucumbers in a mesh feeder.
Nicknames: Boo, Tomato head, Frog Face, sweetie, sweetheart, sweet thing (or any other variation on sweet-something that happens to come to mind!)Of course, her Akha name is Yeh-mi, but all of our Akha friends have different nicknames for her too, including Bu-Tsa (pretty girl) and Bu-ga (Loved Girl) or just A-mi (Girl).
She crawled for the first time when she was: 7 months & 13 days old
Teeth #3 & #4 popped through when she was: 8 months & 10 days old

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Abigail Dancing (Video)

2008-07-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

I know I said I would put a video of the house tour up next, but I lost that video so instead you get more video of the baby :)

Lori shared with you a while ago that we have been showing the Signing Time series in the village to teach English and Sign Language to the Akha children. Well, it turns out that Abi loves the movies as much as anyone, especially the theme song.

Back at home she will watch it over and over, dancing and "signing" as she deems appropriate.

We put a video together of her dancing, but that's really all it is. So unless you are a grandparent, family member, friend or stalker that really wants to watch the baby for three minutes, it will be pretty dull for you. All of you can go check out a slightly more interesting video.

For those of you who are still on this page, here's Abi!

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Isn't she cute?

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It Takes a Village...

2008-05-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

This is more than just a cliche or ad campaign! Abi is constantly being passed around to her adoring Akha family! ...And she loves it, what a people person she is! (She must take after her mother!) Here is a little glimpse into Abi's life in the village.

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Abi: 4 - 6 Months

2008-05-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

It's been so long since we've posted anything on the baby blog that I have to go back in time to catch up a little bit! Here are a few cute pics of Abi during our trip to America.

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A Day With My Sister

2008-03-03T04:04:00.000-08:00

Last week I took my sister Esther to Myanmar without my parents.

She did very good and walked exactly where I told her to. She didn't cry and neither did I.

After we gave money to the policeman for a special stamp we went back to see my parents in Thailand.

They were very excited to see me again, but I was indifferent.

I think I will take Esther to Myanmar again next month. Maybe my dad can make a better movie about that trip, because the only thing I like about this video is the song.

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Goodbye, I love you all!

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Teething and Crawling

2008-02-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

Yes, the days have come. Abi has one little bottom tooth and is "army crawling" all around our little house. Here's a brief glimpse:

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Abi's First Word

2007-11-30T01:38:00.000-08:00

Unlike Lori, I never promised myself that I wouldn't write mass amounts of posts about my children. That, combined with the fact that much of our recent ministry tasks have been less than blogworthy (really great, just not exciting on a monitor) and the fact that the Broncos have also been less than blogworthy gives me complete freedom to put up another post about my baby girl.

The other day Abi said her first word, and John caught it on camera. You might not believe she said anything after you see this video, but to everyone in the room it was clear as day (we even had a Dr. in the room and HE heard it, if that ain't proof I don't know what is...)

I also added a blip at the end of the clip that shows how much I have embraced this "talking about my kid" thing.

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Learning to Laugh

2007-11-30T01:15:00.000-08:00

Abi changes so much every day. She is much more aware of the world around her, she is starting to play with toys on her mobile (which is worthy of a full post in itself - that one can be yours Lori) and really knows her Mom and Dad.

She recognizes us and smiles at us. It just melts the heart, it does...

Just recently she has started laughing, or maybe learning to laugh is the better way to explain it. She will only laugh for her daddy. This is to guarantee that he will love her forever and ever.

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Big Blue Eyes

2007-11-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

Abi's "baby blues" are sticking around, and are even lightening to "people blues" - much to the delight of her mom and dad. The other day on the drive up to Mae Salong we stopped for a few pictures of the gorgeous flowers that grow on the side of the mountains. Abigail really liked the flowers, but the thrilling thing was that we finally caught a good shot of those blue, blue eyes.

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Go Broncos!

2007-11-20T04:15:00.000-08:00

We love Monday Night Football games because every once in a while everything is aligned and we are in the city, our internet is working and we have no other commitments.

If, on those rare occasions the NFL schedule works in our favor, we can even occasionally watch a Broncos game Live!

As you can see, Abi is already a huge Broncos fan - she can barely take her eyes off the game

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Diaperless Update

2007-11-07T13:23:00.000-08:00

You may remember a post a few months back about our plans to "go diaperless". Many of you have been asking how it's going, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to fill you in.

First of all, "diaperless" is actually a bit of a misnomer for us. I guess that's why so many people using this method prefer the term "Elimination Communication". While we're at home in the city, we use a combination of cloth and disposable diapers; cloth during the day and disposables at night. The cloth diapers (without plastic covers) allow us to really tune in to Abi's timing, since we can feel immediately when she is wet. Also, the cloth diapers provide a bit of extra motivation for us to pay attention to her signals and give her plenty of potty opportunities, because, let's be honest here, no one likes to get peed on! When we're in the village, Abi doesn't wear diapers at all during the day, only a loose fitting pants. We use these because all our laundry in the village is done by hand and absorbent cloth diapers would be a real pain! However, even in the village we put her in disposables at night, because we all like sleep just a little to much to be fussing with anything else!

We started sitting Abi on the toilet for her morning-pee when she was just seven days old, so, as you can see in the pictures, she's pretty comfortable with the whole process. In fact, we suspect she even likes it! Paul and I really like it as well; it's such a good fit for our lives, especially village life! It is so amazing to practice EC in the village where it is second nature to everyone (except us, that is!) For example, whenever I'm letting Abi "go potty" in the village, one of the young girls will automatically run to the well for a pan of water to wash her bottom with. Honestly, I probably wouldn't even think to ask for water, but theses little girls totally know the drill because it's absolutely normal for them! So many aspects of our lives seem odd to our friends in the village, so it's really nice to do something that's viewed as completely normal!

Beyond enjoying the cultural relevance of the EC method, we have to admit that we really love not having to deal with too many poopy diapers! By now, I would say that we catch about 90% of "twosies"; in fact, in the last two months I can only think of 4 instances where we had to change a poopy a diaper! And now that Abi is starting to have stinkier, sticker grown-up-baby poops (I know you all wanted to know that), we're especially happy that most of that poo goes directly in the toilet!

For those of you who are still skeptical, here's proof! I think she's about 6 weeks old in this video.

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Abi's First Boat Ride

2007-11-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

We were helping out the sponsor team from Denver yesterday, showing them some of the Tourist sites of Northern Thailand. At the end of the day we took a longboat over to Laos for a little shopping and site seeing.

Abi had been doing great all day, but we wondered what she would think about the boat ride. It turns out we did not need to worry - she loved it. She sat the whole time taking in everything she could - and she especially liked the wind on her face.

Here are some images from the ride:

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A Village Baby

2007-10-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

Abi's first week in the village was a tremendous success. She is a great village baby and our friends in Mae Salong were thrilled to finally have some extended time with her.

Music is an important part of Abigail's life.
Nana wrote her a lullaby.
Daddy makes up songs for and about her all the time.
The Danny Kaye classic "Little White Duck" is her official bath time theme song.
Then there is the beautiful Danny Oertli song that Lori wrote about.

Well the theme continues in our home in Mae Salong, here we have our Akha Mom (one of Abi's Akha Grandmas) singing to Abi in the traditional Akha mode:

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We also captured (in still life) some of Abi's other experiences in the village. Following are some shots of her in her beautiful Akha hat, the crowds that gather around her, her Akha family holding her, and bundling up for the "cold weather" in Mae Salong.

Take a close look at that last picture. We are weighing her on the chicken scale at her Akha grandma's home. This is the first time we weighed Abi since she was born. We knew she was healthy, so we didn't bother with weighing her every week and following the percentage charts. After two months she weighs 5.4 kilograms (11 pounds 14.5 ounces).

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Like Mother Like Daughter?

2007-10-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

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Thank You Hope Chapel!

2007-10-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

We just want to take a moment to send out a huge "Thank You" to our home church, Hope Chapel Northglenn, for the awesome care package they sent in honor of Abi's birth. It was filled with adorable onesies, toys and all sorts of other great "baby stuff" (not to mention the goodies they sent for Mom and Dad like black beans and Starburst candies.) We feel so blessed to have a home church who remembers and cares for us so well, despite the distance that separates us!

Nana and Papa

2007-10-04T02:23:00.000-07:00

We're so happy that Nana and Papa (Lori's parents) were able to come visit us in Thailand just 13 days after Abi's birth! I say they came to visit "us," but let's be honest here, the main focus of this trip was, of course, little Abigial!

Just days after their arrival, they accompanied us up to Mae Salong for Abi's dedication and Akha naming. What a joy it was to have them there for such a special event! Next, we made the first of three trips to Chaing Mai to apply for Abi's passport. We decided to make a vacation of it and had a great time just hanging around the hotel and eating out at the wonderful international restaurants in Chiang Mai, like The Duke's and Arcoba'leno. Later on, Nana and Papa were a huge help for the Clinic Day in Wiang Pa Pao. They helped us to prepare all the medicines ahead of time and made outstanding "assistants" and "cameramen" on the clinic day!

When we weren't traveling about, we had some great family time at our home in Chiang Rai! Nana pampered us all with some American home cookin' and Papa helped us with a few projects around the house. And of course, we all took turns holding, burping, watching and generally fussing over Abigail whenever we got the chance!

Thanks for coming Nana & Papa! We miss you already!

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She Sees Angels

2007-09-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

Lately Abi has started laughing in her sleep. It's one of my favorite things in the world right now. She's not really laughing during waking hours yet and even her smiles are pretty rare, so I'm always amazed by the laugh-out-loud giggles that she has during naps! I wonder what she's dreaming about that's so funny. Her life experiences are relatively few at this point, and it seems that nothing she's seen in this world has been worthy of a laugh, so my thoughts easily drift toward the things "not of this world". I wonder, is she sitting at the feet of the Jesus, while he regales her with tales that delight her little heart? Or is she sitting in the High Court of the Lord, watching the angelic court jester perform his worship? Is she dreaming of heavenly things that make the things of this world pale in comparison?

I'm reminded of one of our favorite songs by Danny Oertli:

She Sees Angels

I've seen this before
So I turned out the light
And walked across the room
The wind played its song through the trees in the yard
The shadows were chased by the moon
I stood in the doorway and I let out a sigh
And watched the small little girl
who was there in the moonlight
Tossing her head in a whirl

And she sees angels dancing in the sky
She sees angels in the night

Do they whisper sweet words,
Do they sing her a song.
Do they light up her eyes with the stars
Do they touch her soft skin as she sleeps late at night
Does she even know who they are
Floating in air they perform their ballet
Lifting their praise to above
For sweet little girls bathed in heavenly light
Learning the ways of God's love.

And she sees angels dancing in the sky
She sees angels in the night

Listen to a clip of She Sees Angels by Danny Oertli

* I know it's almost a sin to make a post on a baby blog without including a picture, but you'll have to forgive me this time! I promise we'll post more pictures soon!

Abigail

The Girl without a Country

2007-09-10T04:07:00.000-07:00

Thailand doesn't want her.
America doesn't know she exists.
So what is the first thing you do when your baby is born overseas? Get her a passport of course.

Unfortunately for us, that means at least three 6-hour round trips to Chiang Mai.
One trip to get the forms, and send her Thai birth certificate to Bangkok for translation.
One trip to pick up the translated birth certificate, take a passport picture and submit the applications (and the US$).
One trip to pick up the passport so she can travel to her home country this Christmas.

Two of those trips are now behind us, and were relatively easy. Actually the most difficult part was the passport photo.

According the the US requirements, the passport photo must be perfectly straight-on, showing both of the child's ears. Many parents accomplish this photograph by laying their tightly swaddled, sleeping baby on a white sheet and they just click away.

But we encountered three problems when we tried to take her passport picture:
Our first problem was that Abigail hates the swaddle. I mean she absolutely loathes it. Little Abi wants her arms to be free at all times, and preferably over her head.
Second, when Abi was brought into the studio, the lights and contrasts were so engaging that she spent the entire time flailing back and forth to make sure she did not miss anything.
Finally, it seems that Lori's milk is incredibly nutritious, because we found it to be almost impossible to see both of Abi's ears behind those round little cheeks.

We tried everything we could think of to capture the perfect shot, and the photographer was incredibly patient with her.
He took dozens of pictures.
We tried holding her head and moving all our hands away at the count of three.
We even tried stuffing tissue paper behind her ears to make them stick out (which actually worked but made us so sad to see our beautiful baby girl's Dumbo impression)

Finally the photographer captured this shot on the left. She's doing her best Elvis impression, but you can see a hint of each of her ears - and those beautiful blue eyes!

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Yay for Yeh mi!

2007-09-10T02:18:00.000-07:00

Our little Abigail has been given the name Yeh mi by the Akha of Mae Salong, and has been widely accepted as the newest little Akha girl in the village.

On August 26th we were able to go up to Mae Salong to introduce Abigail to our village family and to ask the elders to give her a name. In the most traditional Akha villages, the children are named by a grandparent, great-grandparent, village elder or a spirit priest. We wanted to continue in this tradition, but the problem we faced was that there are so many elders in our village who have adopted us as their own and to choose one of them to give her a name would have been a very difficult and delicate process.

We were blessed, however, to have Aje and Nancy join us in the village for the day, and after talking with Aje about our dilemma, he suggested that we pose the question to the whole village in church on Sunday morning.

So, we did. Five or six names were suggested from some of the most important people in our lives, but one name was suggested by a man who is very dear to our hearts. If Lydia is our Akha mother, than this man and his wife are our Akha grandparents.

The name he suggested, Yehmi, literally means "daughter of God".

We loved the name right away, but - determined to let everyone have a part in the decision - we put all the names to a vote, with Yehmi ending up with the overwhelming majority.

Right after the church had named her, we took some pictures with our Akha Grandpa, and his wife brought a traditional Akha baby hat as a gift for little Yehmi. This was another very special moment, because the silver coin used on the hat was given to our Akha Grandma by her mother.

After some prayer and teaching, it was time for the whole village to get a closer look at their newest little girl - and Yehmi was right at home, sleeping peacefully as she was passed from person to person and gripped her gifts of sa da and ya u like a pro (the Akha give money and hardboiled eggs to newborn babies as a blessing to the family to purchase new items for their child and to ensure the mother has enough protein in her milk).

* We know that these posts are late in coming, sorry about the delays. Hopefully over the next week we will be able to catch you all up on our last month. Thanks for your patience!

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Shhhh... i am sleeping.

2007-09-07T05:43:00.000-07:00

We've had our bad nights, but all in all, Abi is a great little sleeper...

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The Birth Story

2007-09-05T01:49:00.001-07:00

Today, Abi is 4 weeks old. They weren't kidding when they said "Time flies!". How is it that I still haven't written about the birth!? Well, read on for the whole story if you're interested! Warning: Slightly graphic birth details ahead!

Thursday Evening: 10pm Returned from our nightly "baby walk" to The Big D and the infamous bloody show. Although I was having no contractions, I had a feeling that I'd be in the hospital by the next day. I finished a final bit of packing and made it to bed at about 11:30

Friday Morning: 4 am After about four hours of sleep. I woke to another bout of diarrhea and some pretty good contractions. I headed back to bed hoping to get some more sleep, but no luck. By 4:30 contractions were getting intense, and I spent the next few hours in a hot bath.

6:00 am Paul started timing the contractions. They were already 3-4 minutes apart and 45 -90 seconds long. "I'm in active labor already? Start packing the car honey!"

7:00 am We drove to the hospital and almost missed the turn. (I guess that cliche about expectant fathers getting all befuddled is not so far from the truth after all!) Upon arriving in the maternity ward, we clumsily tried to communicate with the Thai nurses and get all the paper work filled out...all the while enduring really painful contractions!

8:15 am I was finally checked in and moaning through excruciating contractions in the labor room. One of the nurses checked my dilation: only 2 centimeters. "Are you kidding me?! I'm only 2 centimeters dilated?" The nurse informed me that it usually takes about one hour to progress one centimeter. Facing 8 more hours of pain like that, it was pretty easy to abandon my hopes of a natural birth and say "I want an epidural!"

9:00 am The anesthesiologist arrived and performed the epidural. By then, my OB, Dr. Pitsanu, had arrived. He checked my dilation and we were all surprised to find out that I was already at 7 centimeters! I had progressed 5 centimeters in just 45 minutes (so much for that "one centimeter an hour" thing!) While normally a huge advocate for natural birth, Dr. Pitsanu said that it was actually quite good that I had demanded an epidural because, at the fast-rate that labor was progressing, it could have been dangerous for the baby and the epidural slowed things down a bit.

9:45 am The epidural was supposed to last for an hour and a half, but after about 45 minutes of glorious, painless relaxation, the epidural started wearing off and the contractions were coming back in force. By 10:00 am it seemed like the epidural was completely gone; the contractions were coming hard and fast and were, of course, much more intense than they had been before! I started having an almost irresistible urge to push, so one of the nurses checked my dilation. Sure enough, I had reached 10 centimeters! Unfortunately, Dr. Pitsanu had stepped out, assuming it would be several hours before I was ready. So, the nurses gave me another dose of the epidural to tide me over until the doctor returned.

10:15 am Dr. Pitsanu returned and we began the push for the finish line. Paul was such an amazing support! Thanks a ton honey, I couldn't ask for anyone better!

10:36 am Abigail Hope Vernon was born! Just six and a half hours of labor; I couldn't have asked for a better experience! Thanks Dr. Pitsanu and all the nursing staff!

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The Big Winner!

2007-08-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we set up a fun little game so that everyone could get in on the excitement of trying predict all the vitals of our new arrival! Well, now that Abi has "arrived," we have a winner!

Drumroll please ... and the big winner is: Gary Crouch, Abi's Grandpa! To see the complete game results click on the image below!

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Baby's First Video :: Welcome Home

2007-08-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

We all had a pretty good night of sleep last night in our own bed as we are back in our home in Chiang Rai. With the "extra rest" we have put a little video together for those of you who are interested (ok, mostly for the grandparents) sharing some of her first moments in our home, her first "bath" and some special time with mom and dad.

Hey, it's a baby blog - if we can't be proud, bragging parents here, where can we?

You can also click here to view this video on your full monitor screen. Thanks for watching!

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Introducing Abigail Hope...

2007-08-10T03:13:00.000-07:00

That's right,everyone - as of this morning Abigail Hope Vernon has been officially welcomed into the family. Lori did amazing and things progressed pretty quickly: we left for the hospital at 6:00 am and were holding our baby girl at 10:30. I will let her share all the details with you over the next week, but here are the vitals:

Date: August 10th, 2007 - 10:30 am
Weight: 3,550 grams :: 7lbs 13ounces
Length: 55 cm :: 21.5 inches
Everything Else: PERFECT

We are overjoyed, ecstatic, awestruck and amazed. Praise God for this beautiful baby girl!

Here are a couple of pictures to hold you all over until we are back home with a camera and computer (sorry, no thumbnails and I didn't resize them so they are pretty big. If you want easy pictures wait for our next posts)

Picture 1 :: Picture 2

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