The first tooth appears!

Yup, Jackson has his first tooth, the lower right central, which means that the left one is close behind!

The drool is profuse, but these teeth are just in time! Jackson is loving his cereal, right now limited to rice, and fruits--bananas and applesauce. He will be a 'foody', and fit in perfectly with his gourmet cooking parents!

At the restaurant on Monday evening (7/21) the server first produced a high chair which Jackson actually disappeared in, and a plate of cucumber spears for him to eat. This food offering was probably an introduction to the foods that Turkish babies eat. With only one tooth, we let Jackson suck on one of the spears for just a moment, and then did not push the 'gift' to him. That the server thought of this little one was not unusual here. Turks love babies, yet one never sees them in restaurants. So, Jackson becomes quite a novelty. Fortunately he is very good in these places, all more high end restaurants, which allows us the opportunity to dine with little difficulty.

New glitch to this routine is the fact that Jackson is now on a regular schedule, with bedtime between 7 and 7:30pm. That's just about the time that the Shiao family would be heading out to a restaurant. So, unless it's a very special reason for us all to go, Jackson and I will stay home and let David and Mandy, his dad and mom, have a date with friends! Good plan!

Mandy's had Fridays off, although that may change, so we--Mandy, Jackson, and I--go out and run errands. Big plans for this weekend: Get me behind the wheel to drive in this challenging traffic and get myself to the U.S. Embassy here in Ankara. All this in preparation for next week's 6-month checkup for Jackson. I will be responsible for getting him there safely and on time. So, this weekend is 'driver training' for me, along with allowing the directions from here to there to become solid in my head! This should be interesting!

Next week you'll get the update on my first attempt to drive here and actually arrive at my planned (that's the key word) destination.

Jackson's goal? Double his birth weight and get out of the 25th percentile. We'll see if that rice has helped him toward his goal!