Learning Thai

As we were deciding on Silas' name we tried to find something that would have an easy Thai equivalent. One reason we liked Silas was because we could use the nickname "Si." (The Thai version of Silas sounds something like "See-LAAT".) So, his Thai name is ใส - pronounced "sai" with a rising tone (sounds like you're asking a question). This means "clear, bright, unclouded, pure." We have to make sure to prounounce it just right though. By slightly changing the tone and/or the length of the vowel, you can make up to 11 other Thai words with meanings as varied as intestines, fish trap, to put in, to dig for food, left-hand side, late, or sand.

We've enjoyed having a lot of visitors- team mates and Thai friends. Here are a few with Silas....

Anita from our team was kind enough to bring Mom and the girls to the hospital for their first visit. Sharon and a Thai friend also stopped by the hospital but weren't able to hold Silas as he was in the nursery recovering when they came.

It was also fun to have our Latin team mates visit us at the hospital. From left...Aida, Efrain, Nixson, Reina, Eder.

Our landlord and friend Seri, was quite taken with Silas and held him for about an hour. He kept talking about how much he liked Silas's hands. He brought us milk, the traditional gift for those recovering from a sickness/hospital stay. His son also came and checked him out telling us that Silas had long earlobes and long toes like the Buddha which indicate that he will live a long life.

Neno & Oay, a pastor and his wife from a nearby church stopped by with another church member. They approved of his Thai name and passed him all around for cuddles.

Silas meets Dan (who has now moved to Thippawan and is our neighbor!).

Khun Yai is a neighbor of ours who takes a great interest in us and our girls. She stopped by with sweet sticky rice and gave us lots of advice.....one being that I should be drinking only hot water as I recover!
Another neighbor, Nok, came over to hold him and brought us some hot yams of some type.

But of course, our favorite visitor of all is Grandmom! She has been a wonderful help around the house and especially in helping care for the girls. It's also nice to have an extra pair of hands for diapering and burping and bathing a new baby!

We are really enjoying our "month at home" although Tom has gotten back to the "real world" of teaching jobs. Silas is so precious and we all just enjoy holding and admiring him a lot!
-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, August 25 was Silas's going home from the hospital day. We left Bumrungrad International in the afternoon feeling strange taking a taxi home with a baby in our arms, not in a car seat!

Silas says good-bye to a few of his friendly nurses.

Bye Bumrungrad! We had a great experience with the hospital and found the care to be really great. We didn't get much sleep though and were looking forward to getting home for a little more rest.

Introducing Silas to "the real world" at home in Thippawan.

He's enjoying lots of cuddles from his big sisters. They are both seeming really grown up all of a sudden! Claire will return to school tomorrow after several days off to enjoy the homecoming and time with Grandmom.

First bath! We're following Thai advice in caring for this one. :) Baths are okay even with a drying cord, no lotion, keep him in the house for a month, etc. Interesting to see learn the differences.

Adjusting to his crib. The first night was "fun"...he woke up every hour like clockwork hungry for more!

One of his favorite hang out spots in his seat in the living room.

We're all adjusting to the MANY changes in our lives and enjoying him very much. It's so nice to have the extra pair of hands with my mom here and both girls have been very helpful too..so far! :) Thanks for all your comments and e-mails. We wish you could all come over and check him out and give him a squeeze! We've had quite a few visitors already and will post some pictures of that soon.
-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

We're delighted to be able to introduce Silas! He was born yesterday (August 23) after a seven hour induced labor. He's a fairly big baby (especially by Thai standards). His birth weight was 4.27 kilograms (9 lbs, 6 oz.) and he's 53 centimeters (20.9 inches) long. He was pretty beat-up looking from the ordeal of being born, with bruises and a lot of swelling but is looking handsome today. He got a little stuck on the way out and had the cord wrapped around his neck at birth, but recovered just fine. Here are some pictures...

Silas with Dr. Anong, Candice's brisk and efficient obstetrician and great delivery coach.

His big sisters were very anxious to see him and ran into the room to hold him. They loved taking turns holding him and were particularly impressed by his big yawns and small toes. Claire said over and over that she couldn't believe she has a "real baby brother" and Eliza kept calling him "my baby."

We're blessed to have Leanna (Candice's mom) with us for several weeks. She's keeping the girls at home while we're in the hospital. Thanks for all you do, mom!

We're amazed by how much larger our family looks now.

Thanks for all of your prayers. We really felt your love and encouragement over the last few days. Candice had a faster labor than with either of the two girls and we are very grateful for that. We're looking forward to finding out what raising a baby in Thailand is like. We've already learned that the baby is expected to stay at home until it's one month old. I'm sure we'll break some cultural taboos along the way and get scolded by some of our old-lady friends!

-Tom and Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Mom says a big thank you to everyone who prayed for her flight! She arrived safely around midnight on Tuesday. Everything went smoothly. It's been good reconnecting and she's having a good time with the girls and trying to get over jetlag (last night was better). We're so grateful to have her here to help over the birth of the baby!

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today we suddenly discovered that we've been oblivious to a major news item. A week or so ago, a meteorologist warned that our province, along with Bangkok, could see a storm surge cause the worst flooding in 50 years. Apparently this was a rather vague warning, but it's gotten everyone's attention. A friend first told me that the flooding could be 15 meters deep and cover the whole province. I asked another friend and he said that yes, there are reports that it could happen, but he doesn't think our area will be seriously affected. That made me feel a little better - until he went on to say that he did buy a tall bamboo ladder so that he could get up on his roof in case the storm surge does come! Then I found out that our neighbors have built a 2-3 foot high protective concrete wall around their house. Their maid was telling me that our neighborhood once flooded knee-deep for week and we should take our stuff upstairs and raise all of our appliances and furniture up off the floor. Just the thing we need to take our minds off the imminent arrival of our baby!

Tonight I went online and found a couple of articles about this. Every year at around this time our area is prone to flooding because of the sea level. For some reason, if a storm does form this year, it could cause a higher-than-normal surge and could indeed cause major flooding. But this article puts that chance at 10%. Still a little disconcerting (especially since it's raining right now) but not quite the immediate threat I was led to believe throughout the day.

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here are some random updates and anecdotes...Some of these don't warrant their own entry, but maybe when I put them all together they'll amount to something.

Most exciting: Candice had another appointment with her doctor today. Everything continues to look good and the doctor said she'd be ready to induce Candice next Friday. We're ready! From what we've observed, inducing and C-sections are pretty common here. One reason is that because of the strong belief in auspicious days and times, people are more concerned about exactly when their baby is born. The packet that Candice got from the hospital included the following disclaimer: "The Hospital reserves the right not to allow the patient to fix the auspicious birth time during 9 pm until 7 am."

Acculturated girl: On Sunday I took the girls to the library. Afterwards I gave them what I thought would be an easy choice between eating duck guaytiaw (noodle soup) our normal post-library meal, or Burger King (a rare treat). Claire immediately went for the burgers and fries, but Eliza insisted that she would rather have duck guaytiaw. When we ended up at Burger King, Claire tried to get Eliza to acknowledge that the cheeseburger was better than duck guaytiaw, but Eliza would only go so far as to say that "they're both good." And while Claire gobbled her portion down, I had to continually remind Eliza to eat. Their food preferences are one clear way of distinguishing how different their memories of America are.

Teaching kindergarteners: I'm continuing to teach at Claire's school one day a week. I never look forward to it, but once I have the lesson prepared and actually get started teaching, it often ends up being at least a little bit of fun. I'm always intrigued by what causes the classes (especially those that are all boys) to break out into chaos. It could be as simple as something falling off the board or me pulling a stuffed animal out of a bag. Today I made the mistake of asking them how a tiger runs (I was teaching about adjectives and wanted them to answer "fast.") Instead I suddenly had 30 boys all stomping their feet, loudly growling, and pawing the air with their hands.

That's not what they wanted to say: As I mentioned in a previous entry, finding English mistakes around here is an easy sport. But once again, I could not resist sharing this one from the instruction manual for a baby walker we were given: "Please read the instruction before you use the product, and it will tell you how to use the products in order to damage the product and injure your baby."

New bird #2: Last week I bought another lovebird to keep Luuk Geaw (my birthday present) company. The new bird spent exactly three days climbing and marching determinedly around the cage looking for the exit. On the third day, he apparently figured out how to open a door and flew away. So I bought another new bird and wired the doors shut. Here is the new couple (we have no idea what the gender of either one is).

-Tom

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Excitedly anticipating the birth of our new baby in a couple of weeks! Candice is having more and more contractions, but no real progress yet. We're hoping to deliver before the doctor goes on vacation on the 21st. Another checkup is scheduled for Thursday. Both girls are eagerly anticipating the big event and a visit from Grandmom (Candice's mom coming on the 18th).

Claire and Eliza having an ice cream break.

Claire shows Lewis his bunny salad.

-Candice

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We'll miss you REACHers!
We had a going away party Wednesday for our friends who have been with us for the past 9 months. From right:Ashley, Brittany, Deanna, Colleen, Joelle and Beth. We enjoyed being their outreach coordinators and friends. Our girls love them all and will miss them very, very much!

It was a wild party with a big Thai meal, everyone taking lots of pictures of everyone else, singing in Spanish, Thai and English, and an eating contest. The girls hung out until 2:30 and then left in three taxis to make their early morning flight.

Nixon and Efrain treated us to some "ranchera" music from Nicaragua.

The eating contest included such delicacies as dried squid, fermented fish paste, hot peppers, and for the grande finale "horse urine egg" (basically a black, rotten, hard boiled egg with a pink shell). The egg got to almost everyone and Brittany ate the most and was declared the winner.

We are so grateful for the team's time with us and all they contributed- especially in furthering friendships with Thais and ministry to slum kids, as well as lots of English teaching and leading our team worship (learning Thai songs and teaching them to us), as well as the fun and energy they brought! We really appreciated their interactions with our girls too, who loved their new Sunday School teachers, babysitters, and friends. WE'LL MISS YOU!

In other news, a few weeks ago, we had a very exciting development......our friend Pon who has been studying the Bible with Dan and Raul asked to be baptized. For more pictures and a description, please check out our friend Sharon's blog.....

Posted by Tom & Candice Mast at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)