Milk Volcano

Little chap has turned into quite the milk volcano over the last few days (in fairness, he's also turned into a mustard / chocolate hybrid volcano, but I won't go there).  He did an awesome powerchuck right past Rachel's shoulder yesterday, and all she heard was the splatter as it hit the deck in the lounge.  Too awesome. His night feeds are actually getting quite good - he was only awake for 30 mins and 60 mins in last night's feeds, and he tends to stir at about 6:45am for his breakfast.  Evenings are a tad grizzly, as he sleeps a lot during the day and then wants to hang out with us in the evening after dinner.  I'm cool with that, as I don't get to see him during the day...

I took this photo a few days ago on my phone. Pretty sure I haven't't uploaded it before - it's not the greatest quality, but I like it anyway:

Lazy Sunday

Sadly, the weekend is almost over (well, for Daddy - Mummy's weekend ends in July). George had a pretty cool night last night, with a couple of feeds and then some good sleep stretches.  I sat with him for the last one, from 6:45am until about 9:30ish. Was rather nice - I just sat in his room reading, and gave him a gentle rock and a "ssshhhh" when he grizzled.  He's currently passed out on Rachel's lap after another feed. We're doing nothing today - we're literally sitting around the house just doing chores and having a quiet one. As good as George was yesterday, not every shop or location is going to be "feeding friendly", so an outing every couple of days is quite enough at this early stage.  He's a good little fella, but when he's hungry he lets us know - and the words "Can you hang on for a few minutes?" don't really go down so well.

I took a few photos of the little chap this morning - there was some nice light coming through the main window.

End of week 2 (well, almost)

Well, although George isn't quite two weeks old, we've managed to get him this far without any real damage (the little face scratches are self-inflicted - little dude needs fingernail trimming). He came down to Daddy's work again, and once again was practically comatose until the final stretch home, at which point he rather vocally reminded Rachel that it was his lunchtime.  There are some lunches you just can't have in an elevator, if you know what I mean. Ned is popping over tonight for a drink and hopefully he has time for a spot of dinner too (Grandma Barbara is cooking!).  Ned and his wife Thais used to live in Hong Kong, and although they now live in London, we've managed to catch them a few times since their departure - both in London and in Hong Kong.

Tomorrow we're heading to Kowloon for a spot of shopping for Barbara's belated 60th birthday present, and then we might have a few people coming to visit the little chap.

Naturally, a few shots of the little pooping and burping angel before I sign off.

Weight gains, heel pricks and sleep

Little dude has been sleeping up a storm - went to the doctor's today (apparently he's regained his birthweight), hit Pacific Place to do some shopping, and then came home - and pretty much slept through the whole experience.  This could explain the reluctance to sleep at night. Oh dear. He had his heel prick test today, and Rachel said he was a little miffed at that. Other than the odd needle-induced flipout, he's a pretty cool kid. Mummy uttered a few choice words under her breath at around midnight when the little fella wouldn't go to sleep, but he made up for it with an impressive four hour sleepfest in the night somewhere.  Rachel says she woke up and found herself patting my chest in her sleep (she was burping me).  Crikey.  I wonder if it worked.

A few photos of the little boy and the big boy:

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Happy Chinese New Year as they say!  George narrowly avoided being an Ox and was born in the last week of the Year of the Rat.  I wouldn't have a clue what characteristics a Rat is supposed to exhibit, but I'm imagining "hairy" is one of them.  The little tyke's hair is as bushy as it was on Day 1 and I'm quite enjoying trying to part it when it's wet... We had a pretty lazy day, although George has his first official house visitor today - Alice came over for a bit to say hi and to gift George several awesome and cute presents (including a little Lion from South Africa, now christened "Harrice" (Harry + Alice). It's gorgeous and Daddy is considering stealing it.  Harry and Alice also gave George some lovely bibs and accessories and some cute little foot and hand animals so that he can locate his feet (you have to see it to understand what I'm talking about - but they are seriously cool).

We're heading upstairs for dinner tonight at Cam and Carolin's - technically George's first dinner outing.  Babysteps, babysteps - it's in the same apartment building as us.  If George pops a valve we're close to home!

Naturally, a few photos of the little fella to finish up - both with his Mummy:

The Daily George - Tuesday

We're in the middle of Chinese New Year, and it's pretty cold outside - although on the plus side, I have most of the week off and it's lovely and warm inside the apartment. The little chap is coming along nicely, and has learned to simultaneously burp and fart at the same time (I'm so proud). Sometimes when he really wants to impress me, he burps, vomits, farts and poops himself in quick succession.  His mum is slightly put out by the four-for-the-price-of-one performances, but only until she realises that he really is quite a happy and content little chap after one of his legendary pants explosions.

Tomorrow is the last day of Chinese New Year, and on Thursday I'll head back to work for perhaps half a day, and then half a day on Friday.  The day after CNY is "lai see" day where people give "red packets" (of cash) to people who either work for them or to unmarried friends. It's a bit strange, but hey - when in China... Anyway, I usually give cash packets to my secretary, the IT guy and girl who do a bit of work for me, and the building staff in the apartment building we live in. Plus, I'm supposed to give little cash packets to the unmarried people at work, but I wouldn't have the foggiest who is married and who isn't.  Oh well.

Naturally, I'll leave you with a few pictures of the little guy:

Nope, still no baby.

Spacespacespace We even indulged in a bit of curry last night.  Nada, nothing, not a bean.  Oh well. It's only a day or two late, and according to our doctor, the due date is today going by his calculations.

The boys are showing solidarity in these cold winter months:

American Idol

Spacespacespace I wonder if American Idol would be as popular as it is now if its name described the show a bit more accurately.  For example, would a bunch of judges and auditioning singers be as famous if the series was sold as "The American under 35 Karaoke Championships"?  I think not.  Oh marketing types, how ye mocketh me.

That said, despite my annual promise not to watch this crap, I found myself glued in front of the tv watching the endless stream of car crash contestants making international dorks out of themselves.

Highlights of last night's episode were surely the contestant with no shame who auditioned in a bikini (at least it wasn't an overweight hairy man), and this gem of a scene...

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...where the host Ryan Seacrest attempted to high five a blind contestant.  Unsurprisingly, the blind guy didn't respond to the high five.

Our last weekend as a two person, two kitten family?

SPACESPACESPACE If the doctor's estimation of Rachel's due date is correct, then this time next weekend we could be up at the hospital with a brand new baby.  How utterly freaky.  And a little bit scary.  Gone are the days of our lazy Saturday morning lie ins, hours with the newspaper and a coffee (well, ok - the newspaper is pretty crappy, so make that "minutes"), and lovely toasted croissants.  Hello to poop, vomit and screaming. Everything is going well, little Cracker has a new trick of kicking Rachel's ribs (or something around that region) and it's quite fun having a play with his/her foot when the game is on...

We had a lovely evening last night - Mark (my boss) is leaving Hong Kong, so we all hopped on a boat (well, three boats) and went to Middle Island on the South Side of HK Island and had a BBQ and dinner. It was frigging cold, but was actually ok in the end - there were plenty of gas heaters and there was also an inside area where we gathered for speeches and whatnot afterwards.

Today we're off to Discovery Bay for afternoon tea at Sue and Steve's (parents of the gorgeous Hermione and Phoebe) and we'll also get to meet their brand new puppy - woohoo!

Not sure what else the weekend holds - perhaps some trampolining... (apparently it induces labour)

I leave you with a few photos from last night's trip out to Middle Island:

Lazy Sunday (again)

We actually managed to get out of the house today, believe it or not. Admittedly we had a lazy breakfast of toast, hashbrowns, bacon (narly) and baked beans (Rachel) first - but then we took a nice walk down to Kennedy Town just a few kilometres away.  Ok, so maybe we watched another episode of Mad Men before we left. Bought a big silver bin which appears to have the sole purpose of storing dirty nappies pre-washing (yup - it's cloth diapers for these not-yet-parents) and not a lot else.  Ok, maybe we had a Snickers bar too. Was digging through some old photos that I found on some old CDs - here's a self-timer one of Rachel and I in our old HK apartment, and one of the dearly departed Chloe at Christmas about 5 years ago:

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Oh - and for Aunty Momo... here's a picture of the baby bag that you bought for Evilspawnofnarly.  It looks full because it's already packed and ready for an emergency trip to the hospital... only 12 days until the official due date - can't be too careful:

1 January 2008 ends

SPACERSPACERSPACER It was a pretty lazy day in Chez Narly today - I got bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast and then after some messing around we ended up having lunch at the Press Room on Hollywood Road with Mark and Boo (who live downstairs - Mark works with Rachel).  Had a good feed and subsequently am replacing dinner with a mini Toblerone (it's healthy because I say so).  Didn't achieve a lot really, although go this photo on the street. I don't like the edits - might try and fix it later.  It was a guy and his wife roasting and chestnuts and selling them in Sheung Wan.  Pretty cool:

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Oh - we've booked flights for NZ. M&E we're leaving on 21 March and arriving in Auckland on 22nd - so your wedding had better be on the 28th...  We're there until the end of Easter weekend, and will hit Wellington for a bit in the middle somewhere.

Nothing left to report - but had to share this great "spot the differenct picture". Can you tell what the University of Wisconsin belatedly added to the cover of their undergraduate application form in 2001/2?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  [Edit - stupid website clock is set to US time... I'll fix it later] It's still a bit weird waking up to a cold New Year's Day, after spending most of them in a New Zealand summer. I've only ever had one white Christmas, and that was in Canada when I was living there in 1996/7. Shyte that was colllld. We had a lovely night at Paul and Leslie's last night - they put on some great food and we saw a load of their friends who we met at their Australia Day BBQ earlier in the year.  We were the only childless ones there, so got lots of good advice about babymaking in Hong Kong (including quite a handy warning from one guy who got hit with a HK$350,000 bill after his new son spent 10 days in intensive care - must check our insurance terms and conditions).

Lazy morning here - I woke up early, but couldn' force myself to leave the bed as Poppycat was snuggled up next to me under the blanket.  Rachel just made us bacon, eggs and hash browns, and we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves.  Called and texted everyone we wanted to, and now we're listening to a NZ radio station (thanks to the clever old internet and Wifi iPod magic).

Rachel has recalculated her due date and seems to think it has slid forward by a few days - now 16 January.  Who knows when the little mite will turn up.

A few photos of the boys that I took this morning (I only took them so that I could upload something):

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And before I shoot off, Happy Birthday to Tim Ma(n)hood who turned 33 yesterday.  Here's an old photo to revive some bad memories Timbo (from Taupo golf weekend in 2006 - that was the year where I managed to have a sleep between dinner and dessert):

random sunday night facts

. .

1) Rachel doesn't have to go to work again until July

2) I have to go to work in the morning

3) Cracker (aka evilspawnofnarly) now weighs 6 pounds (just over 2 kilos)

4) Cracker (aka evilspawnofnarly) is due to grace us with his/her presence in 3 weeks

5) Although we don't actually know it, I firmly believe - as does 99% of the HK population that has seen Rachel - that Cracker is a boy

6) There is absolutely no scientific basis for 5)

7) The names are pretty much sorted.

That's all really - I'm about to go to bed, so I leave you with a photo of little Freddie Cary sleeping peacefully under the NZ wool blanket that Uncle Narly and Aunty Rachel sent him (thanks to Daddy Cary for sending us the photo!)

A few more photos from today and last night

Nothing to report - the Challis clan have successfully departed and as I type this, they should be sitting on a plane waiting to take off.  We had a lovely dinner at the Peak Lookout Restaurant last night - just the grownups - and this morning the clan came upstairs for coffee, banana, biscuits and a bit of TV action. Now it's just the four of us again (I include the cats in my calculations).  Rachel is lying on the couch reading, and I'm just sorting through some photos from the last few days. Nothing planned for the next few days, although we have a few baby things to purchase.

I had a play with the baby monitor yesterday, and it appears that the only thing it can't do is make my coffee in the morning. There is this super weird 'tic' feature on it that makes a little 'tic' whenever the movement sensor goes off - the same movement sensor that screams like a banshee if it detects no movement for 10 seconds.  Hell it's loud.

Right - I'll leave you with some pictures.  First two are of course Robin and Kirstie at the restaurant last night, and the last three are Arabella and Paddy in various positions while watching cartoons on tv this morning.  I love the huggy one - Paddy is transfixed with some stoner running about in a colourful costume, while all Bella wants to do is give her big brother a hug.  Sweet...

getting closer to christmas

...and that deserves christmas cat photos, and a random photo of a cool coloured cup (from FUEL espresso, here in HK). but before that, big news. just kidding - nothing really going on at the moment.  challis clan arrives on saturday night and before that we have a whole lot of nothing going on. shopping is almost done and rachel is down to 5 days of work before her extended "vacation".  we got woken up by baby crying in the apartment upstairs at 6am this morning. good practice i suppose...

as i type this, rachel is lying on the couch with poppycat purring away (pop is doing the purring, not rachel), and ben is skulking around the room, looking for attention.

right, those photos i was talking about:

ben's remarkable aim

our apartment has about 1800 square foot of space we have three main bedrooms, a "half" bedroom and bathroom out the back, and two main bathrooms.

the lounge is large and joins onto the dining room.

for two cats, it's practically a luxury penthouse - there is sooo much space for them to run around in and play.

so, when ben decided that after breakfast he needed a little bit of gut purging, where in this vast expanse of apartment did he choose to vomit?

in rachel's handbag.

i love that cat so much.

the belcher

. .

i currently live in a culture where blowing one's nose is considered to be gross - but chewing loudly, chewing with your mouth open, sniffing 40 times in 2 minutes and burping are absolutely fine.

i of course struggle with this weirdness, but am particularly struggling someone burping outside my door at work.

every three minutes for the last week or so, this colleague of mine (let's called her belchy wang) lets out a loud and proud burp.  no apparent reason, she just does it. ALL DAY LONG. she doesn't even look vaguely embarrassed. just sits at her desk and burps. and burps. and burps.

i am at a loss as to what to do.  my current strategy is to close my door, gently rock myself to sleep in fetal position, whilst praying that belchy wang's little spasms will soon come to a halt. i am not a violent person, but i'd consider throwing furniture at her if it stopped the burping.

EDIT: in the time it took to type this, she burped three more times.  i kid you not.

brrrrrrrrrrrrr

the temperature dipped below 20 degress celsius today, and the wind has picked up to around 8km/h, so i fully expect the local folks to be wrapped up in layer upon layer of wool, down clothing, fluffy pom-pom hats and - strangely - shorts accompanied by long velvet boots with all manner of dangly things wobbling off them. i also predict that the Hello Kitty store will completely sell out of their nose-warmers by the end of the day.

reason why i'll probably go to hell # 23

this website that went live last night. you thought i wasn't serious, huh?

(rachel is somewhat bemused by the lilac tones that made it into the colour page, but i ran out of skin tones. oops)

a few photos from saturday in the sun at discovery bay

today we're on a mission to go and get me some new sneakers (i'm going for some chucks this winter) and we have a few things to get from stanley market - it's a nice day, so it should be ok out there. had a great day yesterday in the sun at discovery bay. saw some of lisa's awesome jewellery, and then hung with the DB clan (sue, steve, calvin, rachel, helen and pete) and their respective sproglings.  here are some photos from the afternoon / evening of the little people (hermione, kiri, che, sue & che, sue & hermione):