While Jackson (from what I’m told) is saying all sorts of sounds and “words”, his actual first word was Balk. Which, as we all know, is a baseball term. And it’s quite amazing that while Jack and I talk about baseball, I haven’t gotten to the point of explaining the balk to him. Yet, he instinctually knew that a pitcher intentionally deceiving a runner is wrong. (To see just how bright our son is, I’ve included the exact rules on what is a “balk”, which he apparently already knew.) I told Kristen that I think we either have a pitcher or an umpire on our hands.

Of course, Kristen thought he might have been trying to say “bock” since they were working on the sound a chicken makes. We’ll let her keep thinking that.

8.05 If there is a runner, or runners, it is a balk when—
(a) The pitcher, while touching his plate, makes any motion naturally associated with his pitch and fails to make such delivery;
(b) The pitcher, while touching his plate, feints a throw to first base and fails to complete the throw;
(c) The pitcher, while touching his plate, fails to step directly toward a base before throwing to that base;
(d) The pitcher, while touching his plate, throws, or feints a throw to an unoccupied base, except for the purpose of making a play;
(e) The pitcher makes an illegal pitch;
(f) The pitcher delivers the ball to the batter while he is not facing the batter;
(g) The pitcher makes any motion naturally associated with his pitch while he is not touching the pitcher’s plate;
(h) The pitcher unnecessarily delays the game;
(i) The pitcher, without having the ball, stands on or astride the pitcher’s plate or while off the plate, he feints a pitch;
(j) The pitcher, after coming to a legal pitching position, removes one hand from the ball other than in an actual pitch, or in throwing to a base;
(k) The pitcher, while touching his plate, accidentally or intentionally drops the ball;
(l) The pitcher, while giving an intentional base on balls, pitches when the catcher is not in the catcher’s box;
(m) The pitcher delivers the pitch from Set Position without coming to a stop.

Every so often it hits me that a little over a month ago we were told that Jackson had a deadly cancer that could require amputating his leg, meds that would cause him to never be a father, and the worst, possibly not responding to meds at all. That was our reality for a short time. It’s hard to believe.

The day before Jackson’s surgery to remove the “tumor”  we finished at MD Anderson early and decided we wanted to go to lunch just the three of us before we started what we thought would be a long journey. We decided to go to our favorite restaurant in Houston, Lupe Tortilla. You have to check it out if you are ever in town. They have the best queso and fajitas. Anyhow, when we arrived I put our name in and let the hostess know that we needed to sit at a table that would fit the stroller next to it. She asked if Jackson could sit in a high chair and I explained that he couldn’t because he had just gotten out of the hospital and was pretty dizzy. She asked more questions and quickly rushed us to a table because she didn’t want him to have to wait.

Yesterday, my friend Kima was visiting and we decided to take her to Lupe. When we walked in I told the hostess, “this is the baby you met before he went in for surgery, I don’t know if you remember us.” She replied, “Oh yes, it’s Jackson, right?! I have been praying for him every day since I met you! She was just thrilled to hear that Jackson’s thought to be cancer ended up as a benign vascular malformation.Her friend walked by and she hollared, Mary (don’t know her name but let’s just say Mary), this is the baby I told you about. You know, the one who had cancer, It’s benign!!”

I think in my own life God will be revealing his power through other people’s reactions for years to come. People from around the world prayed for Jackson by name.

On a side note, Jackson is trying all sorts of new words these days…he says “hola”,  “quack, quack”, and now nods and shakes his head for “yes” and “no”. He made attempts at other animal sounds today but I can’t say they much resembled the animal sound. Cute for sure, but not quite there yet! By the way, chickens in Colombia say “pio, pio” and dogs say “wow, wow”. Who knew that animals in different cultures produce different sounds?! My friend Kima (from South Africa informed us giraffe’s don’t say anything!) Anyhow, Jackson is growing up so, so fast!

This is a short video that we caught of Jackson “dancing” at Johnny Rocket’s. We went this afternoon with my friend Kima so she could get a taste of what we American’s love to eat. Jackson has a real love of music and for those of you that aren’t familiar with JR’s it is a diner that has dancing and singing wait staff. It was empty when we went because it was afternoon, but Jackson got a show!

I am thinking that we will go to Johnny Rocket’s instead of Disney in coming years. He just loved it! I was laughing so hard that I was crying. Every time a new song started up on the juke box Jackson started the jive again.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7hOp-I5mDA]

I’m back in Bogota, while the rest of my family is in Houston, enjoying friends and family.  One of our South African friends (actually, they’re really our only South African friends) is in Houston with Kristen right now, stocking up on baby stuff.  As pretty much all our readers know, baby gear is very expensive.  But it’s even more expensive overseas.  She’s told us that a stroller in SA costs about $600.  And we’ve seen firsthand how much baby clothes and toys cost in Bogota.

Anyway, a couple of days after I returned, I tried to start our car, to no avail.  I guess the battery had died during the month-plus that we hadn’t used it.  On Saturday I was meeting with some friends and asked one of them to come back to my place to jump my car, which he did.  Knowing that I now needed to drive around for a while, I took the car out for a spin.  Actually, it’s never quite a “spin” in Bogota traffic.  Nonetheless, I drove it for about 10-15 minutes and then went to get the oil changed.  I turned off the car to see if the gas station could change it (there are no Jiffy Lubes here), which they could in 20 minutes.  So I turned back on the car to fill it up with gas.

Uh oh.  The car wouldn’t start.  I tried to start it a few times, at which point it finally turned over and I pulled up to the pump.  Everything is full-service here, so someone filled up the car.  When I started it again, yep, wouldn’t start, but finally did, so I parked it while I waited for them to change the oil.  I asked if they sold batteries there as well, and they did.  But for whatever reason, they didn’t have one that would fit my car.  Bummer.  But he referred me to a store about 20 minutes away.  They changed the oil, and that guy referred to me a store much closer.  He gave me a specific address, as since the car was barely able to start again, I figured I better go now to get a new one because who knew when I’d have another chance.

Off I went, and of course, there were no stores that sold batteries at that address.  I went a few blocks down to a store that had pictures of car batteries on the storefront, but that guy said that they didn’t have any batteries today.  I’m not sure what that means.

I kept on driving, asked someone else who referred me on to another store, which did have batteries but none that would fit a Honda CR-V.  Meanwhile, I’m having to shut off the car and go into the store each time I go into a store.   (I thought about leaving it running, but that is not a safe thing to do.)  Sometimes it would give me trouble, but the last couple of times, it was starting right up.

I got referred to another store, which although it was only about 8 blocks away, took about 10 minutes to get there.  I pulled up in front, turned off the car, and thought maybe I should try to start it again to see if the battery was working again.  Started just fine.  Turned it off and started it again.  Just fine.

So, I decided to drive all the way back home hoping that the battery was now fully charged.  I got home, turned it off, started it again, and, graciously, it started.

I haven’t tried using the car again, but I’m hoping that it needed more than 15 minutes to charge, and is now working.  We’ll see.

Nevertheless, I was clearly reminded about just how bad Bogota traffic is and how everyone tells you what you want to hear.  They speak authoritatively, but most of the time, don’t really know.

Lesson relearned.