Dear Jack Kiet,

Here are some of your photos during school sessions.  I always enjoy reading their daily reports to learn about your day - what you do, what you learn, are you happy, did you nap...etc.

One of the thing we enjoyed to do together as a family on Sunday morning was having a picnic at the Santa Clara University Mission church side garden.  There is a pink magnolia tree there with a bench; I called it our family spot.  In spring, the tree would bloom beautifully with all these pink flowers.  The grass is always green and soft for you to walk around.  

This was in August, and you already knew how to walk for about a month now.  You would roam around the garden and checked out all the flowers.  I liked how you never tried to grab the flowers but rather just touch them so gently.  You were Mama's pride and joy.  Of course, my too.

Spring came when you arrived and quickly gone.  Soon without much notice, summer, too, will end as you grow and grow.  In a blink of an eye, you’re now 5 months old.  Time fly!  In contrast, the first couple of months, some nights seem extremely long and last forever.  Looking out at a dark and quite street in the middle of the night while feeding you, I wondered when will all these sleepless nights end?  Here’s life lesson for you: everything looks easy until you actually do it.  How hard can it be to care for someone?  Pretty hard actually.  As the youngest member of the Le, I’ve been spoiled with getting away from providing care to others, until you came along.  And that changed everything.

As you are adapting and learning the new world around you, we are doing our parts to play catch up and outsmart new changes.  From eating habbits to sleeping pattern to diapers blow out, every week comes with surprises.  No two days are the same.  To stay sane, I keep telling myself this is a marathon and not a sprint.  Things will get harder before they get easier.  Some of the things we try out of desperation to keep you quiet or to fall asleep include: bouncing up and down the yoga ball, driving around in the car…etc.  When all songs are sung, I make up a new one.  Here is one of it:

I am little Kiệt with little feet

I will walk million miles

To moon and back

With my little feet

And to be fair to you, each of your new development makes life a little easier for everyone.  For example, when your neck gets stronger, carrying you around is much easier.  When you get used to the carrier, I am able to take you places like hiking, grocery stores…etc.  The biggest benefit for everyone happens when you can recognize day vs. night, and that you can sleep in your own bed from 9-5am without feeding in the middle of the night.  For so long, the only way for you to stay asleep is laying on my chest.  And now that you can sleep on your own, some nights I  awake afraid that I might have dropped you on the floor.  It is quite amazing how little things can have long lasting impact.

This week you start on your solid food.  It’s time to get messy.  You don’t seem to like baby oatmeal so much.  Banana, on the other hand, disappears quite quickly.  It must be the sugar.  Guess what else grows before summer ends?  Teeth.  2 lower front teeth and they are quite sharp.  

Until autumn, stay health and grow strongly little Kiet.