Aaaaaah.... aaaaaaaah... aaaaaaaah.... CHOOOOOO!

spacespacespace

My timing was hardly perfect - but here is the little man mid-sneeze.

A good day from all accounts.  As well as being rather angelic during his trip to Central (let's ignore the minor flipout at the baby shop), he also had his first go at taking milk from a bottle.  We had read that it sometimes takes months for a baby to figure out how to drink from a bottle and teat.  It took George all of about 10 seconds.  From what his Mummy said, he took to the bottle like a student to a yardglass at his own 21st.  The little monster guzzled down his half bottle of milk and then consulted his mummy for more.  Touch wood that this wasn't just a one off, but it's good to know that he will drink from one if he needs to.

Apart from that, nothing to report. The little man accompanied his mummy today to pick me up from work. Bathtime was uneventful, and after daddy managed to make a bit of a hash of putting his onesie on, he finally got given his dinner.  As I type this, I can hear the dulcet tones of his mother ("Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.") soothing him to sleep.  He had a brilliant night of sleep last night (save for the nuclear bomb in the pants incident at 3:30am, leading to much screaming and wailing as his nappy was changed), and fingers crossed that the clever little bloke does it again tonight.

When Daddy's late home, the only photo you get is from bathtime

...which isn't so bad, as he is ludicrously cute in the bath these days (as compared to a month ago, when bathtime appeared to be about as pleasurable as being held upside down headfirst in a flushing toilet).  He actually quite likes his bathtime these days, and usually sits there and tolerates it without much more than a random little "cooo".  He doesn't smile in there, but if he's not crying, then I'm going to chalk another one up in the "success" column. Yesterday he hung out with his newest girlfriend, Evie (she of Amanda and Alex).  We had a fantastic lunch over there, and then I took a few photos of Evie while she played games ranging from good old fashioned Hide & Seek to "Make Baby George bounce in the bouncy chair".  George seemed pretty chuffed with the attention, and threw out a few smiles (he's into older women, it would seem).  Looks like Bella Hayes has some Hong Kong competition.

I am once again a bit knackered, so will leave things there.  I got a few photos of G-monster in the bath.  These are the sorts of photos I think I'll save for his 21st.

Speaking of birthdays - 6 weeks today, and we still haven't broken him  :-)

A splash of colour

Little George was a very good boy today (apparently - we're ignoring the bit where he almost crapped all over my hand), and went with his mum to the doctor, to the shops and to Emma and Mark's for a late lunch.  No grizzling, no freaking out - just a little angel with a couple of decent sized cheeks.  The doctor corrected the nurse's measurement of his length, and let us know that we need to start getting boyo to sleep facing the right - or he'll get this big old ugly ridge thing going on at the back of his head. So we're going to get some sort of wedge pillow and get him to sleep in it.  Or something like that. Decided to use some colour shots today - I got the boy in some decent light this morning, and so was able to shoot at a slightly lower ISO (meaning higher resolution, and easier to edit without getting too much grain). Also, someone was asking about some editing (it was a while back), so I've done a quick before / after comparison as well.

Here are the morning shots:

spacespacespace

Here's a before / after of the first shot.  I increased the exposure a bit, then ran a photoshop action through it to fade out the harsher bits of colour on George's skin.  Then I ran another little photoshop action which helped to bring out the glint in his eyes - and that was it.  I don't actually think the first photo is that bad - just a bit dark - but I really like photos with a slight fade / cloudy look. Hard to describe. Also, I shrink photos quite a lot before I load them up here, so the detail is a little bit lost.  Anyway, enough blah blah - here's the comparison:

spacespacespace

Oh - and some words of praise from my lovely wife:  "That sunset photo of yours yesterday was the first good sunset photo you've taken".

I'll take what I can get  :)

It's late...

spacespacespace ...so all you get is some photos.  I'll scribble something tomorrow - but really, it was a pretty chilled out day from all accounts.  As I type this, George has been asleep for about 3 hours, and when I go to bed in about 20 minutes, Rachel will probably wake little Mr Dozy up and give him his late feed. And then later on we'll see if he can actually sleep after 5am (it has eluded him for a few weeks, the little sod).

Here are some photos of him in his ball gown sleep suit (he was just waking up in one of them - and was cooing to himself as he smiled at the side of the bassinet), and the B&W photos were taken when he was hanging with his Daddy in the lounge this morning. Guess which one I call the "Elvis" shot?

Experimentation

Experimentation aplenty today, with little fella getting his very first ball gown sleep sack and his mummy moving from gripe water to the slightly weaker Infacol (for tummy settling).  Gripe water was actually pretty good, but it's for soothing a windy tummy and bottom (i.e. putting out fires), while Infacol is for preventing windypops from actually happening (i.e. preventing fires from happening).  Well, that's what the internet told me this morning and the internet is rarely wrong. The sleep sack was a move to give the little man a bit of freedom to move his legs around as he sleeps - restricted legs is one of the things preventing him from letting out good quality farts in his sleep. No fart = no sleep.  He had a good nap in his ball gown sleep sack this afternoon, but during his evening sleep he kept waking himself up with his own flailing dream-involved arms (I can only imagine that in his sleep he's dreaming of being a fast bowler in cricket - or perhaps a human windmill).

Anyway, as I type this, he's asleep as is his beautiful mummy.

The Quest for New Zealand Citizenship continues, however it seems that the latest delay is our fault (I'm not naming names, but it wasn't me this time).  We need one more form of ID showing that Rachel lives at this address and is known as Rachel in Hong Kong (?!), so to speed things up, our property managers in NZ are going to courier our rates bills to Internal Affairs.  If all goes well, little George should have a passport in about 2-3 weeks. If not... well, we may have to rejig flights.  Hmmm.

I believe it is time for me to bid the kittens goodnight, and to hit the sack. A few photos of the little man this morning - nothing arty farty today, just one of him giving me "inquisitive look #43" and one of him in his bouncy chair (the mustard toilet on the left may give away the fact that he was in the bathroom at the time). I had to get ready for work and Rachel had to have a shower, so little man got to sit in the bathroom for a few minutes where his mummy could keep an eye on him. In return, he kept his eye on the bathtowels (kid has much to learn).

Things we learned this weekend

spacespacespace 1) Little man sometimes just needs a quick burp or a fart in order to get back to sleep.  He had an ok night, except as it drew closer to the morning.  He usually gets a decent sleep after we have our dinner, then a shorter sleep from around 11pm to 2am or 3am, then a shorter sleep to about 4am and the the morning is kind of all over the place (that's just a rough guesstimate - but his naps do get shorter as the night goes on).  This morning after a fairly long stint of non-sleep to 5:30am, I went into his room with my phone and hung out with him while he slept (phone --> so I could surf internet news while he slept).  Whenever he stirred, I gave his bassinet a little nudge and rock, and if he started to cry properly I quickly grabbed him, gave him a burp, and put him straight back down.  He never really got a chance to get into a proper cry, and it meant he got a pretty solid 90 minute sleep when he ordinarily would have been up every 15 minutes.   We had an iChat with Anna (in London) this afternoon, and it turns out that she did a similar thing with Bella (George's potential suitor and "older woman")- she just sat her up and burped her when she grizzled during her sleep.  Hopefully this will help us for future sleep issues... we'll see.

2) Little people between 4 and 6 weeks old have a bit of a grizzly patch.  And he's certainly having a grizzly patch at the moment - it's mostly during the night, but we've been assured that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't far away.

3) The way I walk when wearing jandals annoys Rachel.  Pfffft.

4) George is rather taken with participating in video chats. He's also usually very well behaved when he's sitting in front of the camera.

5) If the nappy is full, it doesn't necessarily mean his bottom is empty (particularly at 3am)

6) Of all of the white noise recordings we have, George likes the vacuum cleaner noise the best.

7) Most babies we know have pooped in the bath.  George has not.  He is clearly more advanced than these other babies.

Right, it's time for the daily dose of ludicrous cuteness.  Note that the photos starring Rachel were taken during George's video chat with his possible-girlfriend Bella in London:

Impersonations

spacespacespace I used to think I did a pretty good Donald Duck impersonation, but this morning I really outdid myself - I did my first womb impersonation.  The little man - fresh from a night where he got all of about 45 minutes of sleep, refused to respond to the usually reliable "Sssshhhhhhhh" noises, so I resorted to making the noises that I remembered from the day that Rachel was in labour. For most of that day we had a fetal heart rate monitor set up, and when you flicked the volume switch on, it made this "waaaaor  waaaaoooor waaaaaaaaoor" noise  (make alternating "OOO" and then "ooo" shapes with your mouth, and blow out loudly as you're doing it).

Anyway, I tried this just now and it seemed to calm him pretty quickly... until he started crying again and flipped out.  After a bit of feeding, shushing, womb impersonating and hair washing (someone managed to puke milk in his own hair), we ended up going into town - which was a brilliant move.  I bought some new clothes (none of my old ones fit - I've shed about 8kg in the last 3 months with all of the lunchtime running), we had a lovely lunch at an Italian place (even George got some lunch, although his mummy provided it) and George had a lovely sleep in his stroller.

Oh - someone asked what stroller we are using (sorry, I can't remember who).  We have a Bugaboo Bee and a Maxi Cosi car seat to go with it. the Bee is pretty good - easily popped up and popped down, the seat bit comes out so you can make it face you or even travel with the car seat only, and it folds down into one piece - which means we can take it right to the aircraft door when the time comes (most airlines require you to check a stroller in if it folds down into more than one part).

Right - enough wibble.  Here's some cuteness from this morning (including some fake-Holga work on Poppycat).  I took another few photos about 2 minutes ago, which have actually defied the Laws of Cute, but I'll psot those later when he's asleep.  He's awake now, and I want to go and have a little play with him...

One day, one month

After the thrill of his one month birthday (he literally pooped himself with excitement), little fella had a nice quiet morning.  He came for a walk to work with me, and from what I am led to believe, had a quiet day.  Naps, feeding and sleep.  Lucky little sod - sounds like a good life. We've just had bathtime (bearable, it seems) and Rachel is currently either feeding him or putting him to sleep. Sometimes the two events are simultaneous, as the little man has a penchant for falling asleep on the job. Wait - I can hear some "Sssssssshhhhhhh" and a little voice registering his displeasure with his mummy's decision to put him to bed - the real question is whether Rachel can finish in 33 minutes - when the final episode of Masterchef is on.

Speaking of stupid reality tv, was anyone else totally and utterly confused with how American Idol's new format works?  I didn't think they could get more ridiculous that little Frodo Seacrest's effort last year: "You, stand over here. You go and stand over there. You, stand waaaay over there.  Now you, go and join him over there, and then two of you go and stand over there.  No, wait - stand here.  Then stand over there.  Now, you - standing over there. You're eliminated."   Now they've managed to turn hacking the number from 36 contestants down to 12 contestants... into a four week exercise (I could do it for them in about 3 minutes). And then presumably it's another 12 weeks after that until they crown the winner of what really should be called "The American Under 35 (but over 16) Karaoke Championships".  I must admit, keeping the talentless prozac-filled Tatiana in the final 36 was a masterstroke.  Painful to watch, but brilliant car crash television.

Right - back to George.  A few photos from this morning.  He was of course asleep for most of it (he was actually asleep in my arms while I was eating my breakfast - bless!), and I got a few of him before we took off to work.  Before you ask - yes, I think he's smiling (he does it a lot these days), and no we haven't put rubber bands around his neck.  They are his newly developed neck folds.  They're all the rage, you know.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, the little fella finally hit the big O-N-E.  One month, that is. it's quiet in the house - Rachel and George are both asleep, and having done the dishes and edited today's photos, I thought I'd pop up a quick entry here before scooting to bed.

Rachel has started coming to meet me at work after I've finished - for those of you that don't know, I work about 15 mins walk from home.  Meeting me after work serves two most excellent purposes.  Firstly, I don't really see George much during the week, and it gives me a chance to see him and hang out with him for the 20 minute walk home (it's uphill, hence the extra 5 minutes).  Second, between 4 and 6 (just pre-bathime) is George's grizzly session. He's not quite day and not quite night - and is apparently a bit of a handful at home at that time. So, popping him in his stroller after a quick feed is a brilliant way to knock him out for an hour, and calm him pre-bath (which he seems to like now - go figure).

His sleep is still a bit iffy, but he is sleeping - just not for the long stretches of time he used to, and not exactly when we want him to.  Apparently this is the growth spurt time, so his sleep and feeding patterns are supposed to be slightly out of whack.

I leave you with a million photos from this morning, of course taken on the morning of his one month birthday:

50 minutes

That's how long it's been since Rachel disappeared into George's room for post-bathtime changing and dinnertime.  Unfortunately there has been a lot of crying (from George) and it appears that he's just not ready for bed yet.  Unfortunately, he doesn't feel like doing anything else either.  I'm sure that he'll get back into a good evening routine soon, but at the moment, he's just not following the night time rule book.  He's taking quite a long time to settle after some feeds and is rather disinterested in his bed after dinnertime. All good things in time...

Here are a few photos from this morning - I got a good half hour with the little monkey, and he obligedby dutifully posing:

George finally accepts that bathtime is not the same as "waterboarding"

Little fella had a pretty good day, from all accounts.  He came to work with me in the morning and then went to the supermarket with his Mummy.  He was awake when we left here, but by the time we hit the supermarket he was out cold - he does love his stroller. Good thing too - it was pretty damn expensive...! I got home in time for bathtime - it would appear that bathtime is no longer his idea of medieval torture time, and he actually seems to enjoy his little evening dunk in the big green tub.  We still haven't had a "poop in the bathtub" moment, but given how much more relaxed he is in there, I suspect it's only a matter of time.

Final note for today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOMMY! Some special photos for you (including one of your favourite cats cuddling up to each other):

Sleepless in Hong Kong

Poor little fella (and poor mummy by association) didn't sleep so well last night. Perhaps the day out followed by lunch in Stanley was a big much for him. After his 6am feed (preceded by midnight, 2am and 3am feeds), his mummy practically threw him at me as she went back to bed... He seems ok now, but we suspect he's still quite tired, and needs a really long conk out to get back to normal.  Took some more photos of him this morning, but it's becoming more and more evident that my 50mm f1.4 lens needs calibration - the focus is way out.  Stupid Canon.

Happy Valentine's Day George!

Today is: - George's first Valentine's Day

- Patrick and Barbara's anniversary (not that they remembered...!)

- Matt and Kat's wedding day (which sadly, we could not make). Have a great day guys!

To celebrate his first Valentine's Day, George is going out for a walk with his mate Sam and Sam's mum Carolin (weather permitting). Failing that, he's going to see if Aunty Carolin wants to come over for a romantic Valentine's dinner with mummy and daddy (Sam's dad Cam is currently in Dubai).

George obliged and posed for a few Valentine's Day special edition photos this morning:

The narrow photo window

spacespacespace Now that I'm back at work, it's actually quite tough to get decent photos of the little fella. In the morning I only really see him for an hour or so while I'm getting ready - and that's when Rachel is having a shower and getting her breakfast (and when that's not happening, I'm in the shower, having breakfast or getting ready for work). I get home around 6:30pm, which is bath time - and then he has a bit of dinner (in his very quiet room) and sleeps. So, during the week I don't get too much of a chance to hang out with the little chap, let alone take photos of him. Still, we usually get a bit of daddy cuddle time before bath time, and it really doesn't matter whether I get 5 minutes with him or 50 minutes with him - it's all good.

Tonight he was a bit grizzly - Rachel thinks that he slept and settled a bit early today and as a result was fairly reluctant to go down after his bath and dinner.  Still - he's asleep and we suspect he'll be out for quite a while.  He had a big day - he went into town today and met Aunty Sue and Aunty Helen at the China Tee Club (both of whom I am assured are most impressed with him!)

A few photos that I snuck in this morning:

It was almost an uneventful day until...

...George erupted a torrent of brown sludge on Mummy's hand about half an hour ago  :)  The best thing was that I had offered to change him tonight and Rachel said not to worry, that she'd do it.  About 5 minutes later I heard her yelling for me, and went into George's room to see (and hear) his little bottom in full swing.  There was crap flying out of him (all over Rachel's hand) and his little butt trumpet was playing quite a violent symphony.  That's my boy. A few photos from tonight and one in colour to show off one of the onesies that Aunty Katy and Uncle Sam sent him.

Saturday at Stanley

Spent midmorning and lunch out at Stanley on the South of the island to do a bit of shopping and have a final lunch with Grandma Barbara.  Little guy was extremely well behaved, although we timed the trip home about 10 minutes too late - and the hunger crying kicked in just as we were hitting rather slow moving roadworks traffic. Not to worry, we all survived and George got more than his fill of lunch when we made it back to the apartment. We've just had bathtime (which was surprisingly peaceful) and now we're sitting down with the little man and teaching him about Grey's Anatomy. Oh what an education he's got in store for him.

Of course, a few photos from this morning:

Friday I'm in love

spacespacespace Or something like that (I'm running out of interesting titles for each day).

George had a good day, and survived a day of shopping with Mummy and Grandma - he was apparently a little angel (of course... he is my son).  Nothing else really happened today, although we're having a delicious roast leg of lamb tonight (with all of the trimmings - omnomnom).

The only other thing worth mentioning about today is... that it's Jacq's birthday!  Happy Birthday Jacq! (If you don't know Jacq, check out the link with her name on it on the left side of the page).  Anyway. here are some photos of George just for Jacq - I was going to pop him in an All Blacks jersey, but he has somewhat selfishly gone to bed. Tomorrow perhaps...

Bathtime - tantamount to child torture, it would seem

Bathtime appears to suck in the eyes of little George.  Any peace and tranquility that may have been present pre-bath is abruptly ended and once dunked into the tub-o-death, the screaming begins. Stage 1 is the yelling - which is usually the first dunk, the tummy wash and the start of Daddy washing his hair.

Stage 2 is the bottom chin quivering while the yelling continues, and you really know that he wants to harm you by then. This is usually the end of the tummy clean and the flip over for the back clean.

Stage 3 (the final phase) is when the chin quivering magnifies and the little high pitched squeaks of resignation start.  Unfortunately for poor George, this is also the Stage that Rachel and I find most hilarious, and his squeaks and grunts are highly amusing to us. Not so much to him.

Stage 4 is the good bit - he loves getting placed in his little towel and wrapped up. The Earth returns to normal at this stage and life on Planet George is once again bearable.  He also looks ridiculously cute wrapped up in his towel. The photos I got today were a bit crappy, but I'll post them anyway. Two of bathtime with Mummy (featuring guest hair washer, Grandma) and one of him just chilling out on Rachel's lap after "dinner". I may have cropped the bathtime ones to hide the fact that he gets bathed directly over the toilet (so we can pull the plug in the bath out and the water drains away down the loo - handy!)

The Daily George

spacespacespace A short one today, I'm going to be late for work...

I just had a lovely cuddle with the little fella while his mummy had a shower. He has this hilarious little face he makes when you take him down the dark corridor - a face you'd expect from someone telling a scary story.  Cuuuuuuuute...

A quiet day planned - Rachel is coming to work to get some Citizenship papers witnessed, and then I think it'll be a lazy afternoon at home for them.

He's officially "George" now...

...because he has a birth certificate.  Apparently Rachel, Barbara and George encountered the slowest Births Registry Customer Service guy in the world, and spend almost an hour completing what should have been a 15 minute task. Not to worry - George only needs one birth certificate (ever), so now it's done, it's another one-off task crossed off the list. The trip to get his passport photo taken was slightly less of a success, as despite him wearing a nappy, nappy cover, onesie and trousers, he managed to wee all over the photograph shop's grey backdrop that they use for passport photo backgrounds - destroying it in the process. Ooops.  Other than that, he behaved impeccably (so his mummy says).

Unfortunately, since he wasn't born in New Zealand, we need to have his citizenship sorted by the NZ citizenship office before he can get a passport, which means his passport application form may have to be done using the express service (which doubles the cost - ouch).  We'll find out tomorrow how easy it will be when Rachel calls the NZ citizenship people tomorrow. Best case scenario is that we can get both the citizenship thing and the passport sorted out at the same time.

Nothing else to report really - yesterday's peaceful bath was indeed an anomaly; today he completely popped a fufu valve at bathtime.