Flying solo again | George's little "oooooh!" face

Grandma B has now left us and we're flying solo again.  Hopefully it's just a coincidence that George had his worst night of sleep since the day before Grandma B arrived in Hong Kong, but we'll see... Could Grandma B's presence next door to George be the secret behind long nights of sleep? Another lazy Sunday - after the trip out to Stanley yesterday, George stayed at home today.  He had a lovely visit from little Evie, and her parentals Alex and Amanda, who spoiled little G-monster with a most excellent activity bee (which he was staring at and playing with dribbling on a few minutes ago) and a cute little farmer teething ring which we hopefully won't need to use for quite a while...

Sadly, nothing else worth reporting from out here in the Far East, other than the Australian commentators that I'm currently listening to (NZ v Aus cricket) are still as annoying and one-sided as can ever. Sooo painful to listen to, but I have no other option, as I scrapped my subscription to the "live cricket channel" when they decided that "live" was coverage from 1993.

Photos - nothing too exciting, although George is gradually perfecting his "Ooooooh!" face, and I have to admit that I had to bribe Poppy with cat treats to make him stand right in the middle of the sunset scene:

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.

Tearless bathtime, and meeting the coworkers

Little dude came down to the coffee shop near my work and met some of my coworkers today.  He was an absolute dream and cooed and gurgled on cue - they were absolutely smitten with the little chap.  He only cried when I tried to kiss him (weird, that's what Rachel does when I kiss her...) I only really got to hang out with him for bathtime today, but that was pretty cool - it was the first time he didn't completely freak out in the bath. In fact the crying didn't really start until he was almost over the nappy change.  Sweet!

I only got a few photos today, and both were from the change table after his evil parents dunked him and dared to shampoo his locks:

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:

Pooh face

Apparently he has one.  A face he reserves for the times he's producing a mushy little number 2. Euuurgh. He makes a little 'O' with his lips, gets a look of extreme concentration on his face... and BAM. Onto cuter things, some photos of the little monster:

The "Oh no, it's Aunty Momo" face

spacespacespace I took a few photos of the little guy this morning, but they're sitting on my camera at home.  Will upload those tonight, but thought you'd like this photo we snapped of George last night - it's the face he used when we were chatting to his Aunty Momo in Auckland, NZ.  It's a face a lot of us use when chatting to Aunty Momo...