Saturday, Saturday

Even as we frantically clean the house in anticipation of the Challis Delegation from Singapore, I managed to get a few photos of Chez Narly on this delightful Saturday morning. After his breakfast, the little man visited our bed this morning and had a fine old time, gurgling and smiling and vomiting on himself.  Delightful.

Then the little man had his first nap in his cot (he's been in his laundry hamper bassinet.  I managed to take a little photo of him snoozing and showing off his forehead's "blue vein of discontent")

Also - a photo for my sister... with the Challis family arriving, Rachel just made up the spare room, and used the gorgeous pillowcases that you and E gave us at Christmas:

  

You can see two pictures behind the bed - the top one is Eliot's wedding present to us and the bottom one was a wedding present from Simon (Pope) and Kate (Pope-Barker?  Naaaah that sounds a bit strange).

Anyway, I leave you with a photo (taken from our lounge) of the delightful weather we get to experience today.  Aaaah delicious Hong Kong smog.  How I love the way you invade my lungs and make me hack and cough. Never fear, the government (no capital 'G' necessary there) is holding lots of meetings and writing lots of initiatives for fixing the air quality.  They aren't actually doing anything, but just knowing that they are talking about it makes me feel all warm inside (although that warm feeling could actually be my lungs pleading for mercy).

Edit:  While I'm having a mini-rant, this is from the HK Government website: "Hong Kong's air pollution is mainly contributed by motor vehicles and power plants".

It's worth pointing out that to combat motor vehicle emissions, the government is building more road, refusing to allow cars to convert to LPG, and refusing to allow electric cars on roads (the word "baffling" doesn't even come close...) and to "punish" the power plants (conveniently owned by HK's richest man), the government contributed HK$300 towards every household's monthly power bill for a year. I guess putting the money directly into the power company's account would have been a little suspicious.

Friday at last

Team Challi arrive tomorrow (only the two team captains are coming though - Lieutenant Robin and First Mate Kirstie). Here for 4 or 5 days and then awaaaaaaay to hot and muggy Singapore again.  Birthday drinks for Jim on Sat night in Shek-O, and then on Sunday we're hooking up with Sam and Mary for lunch (starring the Challi family again). Oh, and on Sunday morning I'm helping a photographer friend to shoot a wedding ceremony, which will be a fantastic experience. Anyway - a nice and busy weekend, which is useful for helping us forget that we're not in NZ anymore...

Wonky

In my quest to find a way to show bigger photos, I'm tweaking the templates for this site. Hence, a whole lot of stuff might seem a bit wonky (or, as it is at the moment - completely different) over the next few days. Forgive me while I iron out some kinks... No new photos of the little man (I was too busy playing with him to take photos), but here is one I took of Ben that cracks me up (I like to call it "Alien Abduction"), and a repeat of a photo of a coffee machine that I posted a few days ago (because I needed a lengthways image and that was the first I found in my iPhoto library).

A day of play

spacespacespace George met his mates Thomas and Angus this morning, and in the afternoon hung out with Claudia, James and their respective parents.  Daddy went nuts with the camera, and despite not having his editing software here in New Zealand, there are some very sweet ones of the day.

Firstly, Thomas and Angus tearing up the back yard:

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And then some of Teams Pearce, Hayes and Georgeous at Chez Hayes:

A few photos from holiday

Holiday is passing all too quickly, but I've managed to take billions of photos in any event... The flight was fine, and we sat next to a lovely Kiwi girl Jenny and her 4 month old Isabel on the way here.  George was impeccably behaved on the flight, and with the exception of a pants explosion before the flight, and a minor flipout after we landed, he was an angel. We went to his Aunty Momo's wedding on Saturday, and again he was impeccably behaved.  Slept through the good bits, smiled through the photos, and passed out during dinner.  A few photos from the week and from the wedding. More to come later in the week:

The Daily George takes a short break

Internet access in NZ is suckysucky, and so the updates for the next three weeks until Easter will either be sporadic (at best) or via my mobile phone. But I will be taking plenty of photos of him, and I'll upload what I can whenever I can. Rachel packed his stuff today, and I think it's cute that a 4.5kg kid has a 12kg bag of stuff.  I also think that the days of sprinting to try and get to the front of customs and immigration are long gone, and I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we'll be needing a luggage trolley for the next, oh... 15 years?  Not to worry - tomorrow will be a wicked learning experience.  Our taxi arrives at 4:30pm and our flight leaves at 7:15pm.  Plenty of time to chill out and settle the wee man - and we get to take the stroller right up to the door of the plane (it magically meets us when the plane doors open, too).

I'll leave you with some photos of post-breakfast playtime this morning:

Of namesakes and lineage (a special post for Granny B and Aunty Jacq)

 Although most people know that little George was named after his great grandfather, not so many know that his great grandfather George was actually an All Black back in the day.  This photo of Great Granddad George is taken from the NZRU website.  An excerpt from his website bio at www.allblacks.com:  "George Adkins was a stocky front row player whose height of 1.80m (5ft 11in) and weight of 93kg (14 and a half stones) made him ideal for the prop when that position became the vogue following the switch in the early 1930s to the 3-4-1 scrum.  Timaru born and a product of Timaru Boys High, Adkins appeared for the South Canterbury union in 51 matches in the decade covering 1929-39. Excellent form in the 1934 and 1935 trials and for the South in the 1934 inter-island match won him a place on the 1935 tour of Britain."

Little George has big shoes to fill if he decides to play rugby...

Much to his mother's disgust, little George arrived in bed this morning dressed in an All Blacks onesie (thanks Aunty Momo) that is about 3 sizes too big.  Daddy couldn't resist, having been given free reign on clothing choices this morning.  I mean, really - how awesome is this?

A better day

spacespacespace Well to be honest, beating yesterday wouldn't have been too difficult.  Today George got a new sleeping technique sampled on him - no more gentle cuddling and rocking for him.  Military school stuff now - in the bassinet, on his side, rocked and patted until he passes out. No more cuddles and lovey dovey crap.  I must say, I was a bit hesitant when I saw Rachel wobbling him like she was making a smoothie, but... he was out cold in well under half the time it usually takes to conk him out.  Not too shabby.

Also - little man did tummy time today, and mummy assures me that he pushed himself up quite happily. He's so clever.

Right - Georgemonster had a great morning on his playmat. And surprise, surprise - I had the camera handy.

Daddy in charge

Little man was left in the sole care of his Daddy today, while his Mummy shot out and did beautiful girly things to her toenails.  Things went smoothly, with the highlight being a duet (starring Daddy and George) of "London Bridge is Falling Down", with the words all change to "Joooooo".  George pitched in with the occasional "Jooooo", of course.  I guess you had to be there. Fourteen days until New Zealand.   Can't wait - have booked domestic flights now; will be in Wellington from 2 April the following Thursday (which is the 7th I think) - in Auckland all other times, including Easter.

A few quick photos of the munchkin today - first was during an iChat (which he rather uncharacteristically slept through) and the second is during a post-bath freakout.

A day of firsts

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That's right - a fist bump from little George for a couple of awesome achievements today.

Firstly - he threw back his first full feed from a bottle.  Took him a few seconds to figure out what to do with the teat, but once he worked it out, he chugged it like a baby possessed.  Well, at least until there was a quarter of the feed left to go, at which point he promptly fell asleep.  Not to worry - a few jiggles and prods, and he woke up and downed the rest of it.  His mummy is shooting out for a few hours tomorrow, and daddy is going to be taking care of the little fella in her absence.  Emergency services have been added to my speed dial numbers.

Second - he laughed.  Not just giggled, not just smiled - but he laughed.  And laughed. And laughed.

It happened in the bath - we were almost done, and I was putting a little bit of soap in his neck folds where his milky vomit usually hides during the day.  I rubbed his neck with my finger, and he started laughing. So I did it some more and he just chortled, and kept laughing. The more I rubbed it, the more he laughed - his face was hilarious, and he was literally going "heh! haaaaa! haaaaaaaaaa!"  It was utterly adorable.  Can't wait for it to become a regular occurence...

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Tonight we have video chats with Aunty Anna, Uncle Kieran and future-girlfriend Bella, and then we saw Aunty Katy and Uncle Sam.  George was ever the performing monkey and was good enough to give Katy and Sam a lovely big smile before totally flipping out due to overtiredness.

And finally, Happy Birthday to ANG! Hope you had an awesome day - here are some family portraits for you (in the middle one we are in fact mocking George's habit of raising his fist for no reason at all):

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

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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:

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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:

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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: