Even when we lived in Pennsylvania we were far from most of our family. So, for Charlotte and Catherine, I did weekly Google photo albums up to 52 weeks. Then, since we already had the photos all together, I printed a photobook for the girls and the grandparents.

I thought about sharing the weekly albums here but Crystal cautioned me about turning our Cambodia blog into the baby blog. So, instead, I’ll occasionally one of the weekly albums here – particularly when it highlights life in Cambodia.

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One Week of Caleb Daniel

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We need a mosquito net over the crib here in Cambodia. This camping rocking chair was the best we could find in Phnom Penh. It works so, no complaints, we just think it makes us look like we’re camping out.

In the United States, the hospital provided everything we needed in the first weeks of the newborn’s life and sent the information directly to the pediatrician. It didn’t quite work that way here. So we had our first pediatrician visit a few days after coming home. Our pediatrician, Dr. Agathe de Lauzanne, is French and runs a small independent office near the Central Market. She’s been in Cambodia a long time and use to work at Institut Pasteur du Cambodge.

After the first visit to the pediatrician, we walked over to a pharmacy to pick up infant vitamin D drops. The maternity clinic had told us just to sunbath him but every time we do in view of a Cambodian friend they’ll run over in a panic and warn us that it’s too hot for the baby. So we decided to do it the American way and buy a supplement to prevent jaundice.

By International New Years and Chinese New Years, Caleb was born in the year of the Rabbit. But Khmer New Year isn’t until April so he would be the year of the Tiger instead. Crystal, who is a Tiger herself, decided that he’s a Rabbit. In the Chinese Zodiac, which is broadly followed here in Cambodia, the Rabbit is a sign of longevity, peace, and prosperity. But it also means we have an excuse to dress him in cute little hats with bunny ears.

Some gentle sunbathing in the early morning. We’ve switched to vitamin D drops now but we still get some sun in.

Ohm Pheap, our housekeeper, and Pou Cheang, the MCC office guard, greeting Caleb after we arrived home from the maternity clinic. Our friend, Clivia, was also there after spending the night with the girls but she had to leave to help one of the YAMEN participants move.

Sitting out on the balcony. I think we’ll be spending a lot of time out here with him as he grows and begins to get interested in the world.

It’s not a real smile, he’s just flexing his muscles. With the girls real smiles didn’t come until five or six weeks. It’s still cute though.

He was vaguely aware that something was moving up there but can’t quite see/track it yet.

Caleb’s first official visitor was Sokvisal, our former PMER Coordinator who left MCC in October to work at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Visal was the first person we hired in Cambodia back in 2019. He brought a huge fruits basket with him.

Crystal commissioned a doula to help with labor, delivery, navigating healthcare here, and registering the baby (the hospital/clinic doesn’t issue the birth certificate here, there’s a whole process, which we need to go through to start the process with the US Embassy to get him his passport). The doula’s name is Erin and she’s an American who did Peace Corp in Koh Kong province for two years. The experience convinced her to become a doula, so she studied in India and now has her own business here; Susu Birthing.

Sitting down with Mom while she has breakfast.

Good big sisters. They’re both so excited and are trying so hard in their own ways.

Burping after feeding. My Uncle Daniel shared the following poem with us, on the birth of Caleb, that captures the essence of life with a newborn.

Mundus et Infans
Kicking his mother until she let go of his soul
Has given him a healthy appetite: clearly, her role
In the New Order must be
To supply and deliver his raw materials free;
Should there be any shortage
She will be held responsible; she also promises
To show him all such attentions as befit his age.
Having dictated peace,
With one fist clenched behind his head, heel drawn up to
thigh,
The cocky little ogre dozes off, ready,
Though, to take on the rest
Of the world at the drop of a hat or the mildest
Nudge of the impossible,
Resolved, cost what it may, to seize supreme power, and
Sworn to resist tyranny to the death with all
Forces at his command.
A pantheist not a solipsist, he cooperates
With a universe of large and noisy feeling states,
Without troubling to place
Them anywhere special; for, to his eyes, Funny face
Or Elephant as yet
Mean nothing. His distinction between Me and Us
Is a matter of taste; his seasons are Dry and Wet;
He thinks as his mouth does.
Still, his loud iniquity is still what only the
Greatest of saints become—someone who does not lie:
He because he cannot
Stop the vivid present to think; they by having got
Past reflection into
A passionate obedience in time. We have our Boy-
Meets-Girl era of mirrors and muddle to work through,
Without rest, without joy.
Therefore we love him because his judgments are so
Frankly subjective that his abuse carries no
Personal sting. We should
Never dare offer our helplessness as a good
Bargain, without at least
Promising to overcome a misfortune we blame
History or Banks or the Weather for; but this beast
Dares to exist without shame.
Let him praise his Creator with the top of his voice,
Then, and the motions of his bowels; let us rejoice
That he lets us hope, for
He may never become a fashionable or
Important personage.
However bad he may be, he has not yet gone mad;
Whoever we are now, we were no worse at his age:
So of course we ought to be glad
When he bawls the house down. Has he not a perfect right
To remind us at any moment how we quite
Rightly expect each other
To go upstairs or for a walk if we must cry over
Spilt milk, such as our wish
That since, apparently, we shall never be above
Either or both, we had never learned to distinguish
Between hunger and love?

(October 30, 1942) W.H. Auden

One of the things I enjoy about babies is – no offense is them – that they start off so ‘not smart’, just a bundle of needs, but they grow, explore, and learn so fast in the first year. Day by day, week by week, becoming more and more human as they go. It’s a wonderful experience.

This big as of March 16th. Charlotte and Catherine took weekly photos on my baby blanket, but we left it in storage in the US. So, instead, we got a locally made quilt from a non-profit called Mekong Quilts for him.