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!)

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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:

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the belcher

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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.

i promise not to build a nuclear weapon using my iphone

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i had never spotted this before - the EULA (end user license agreement) that flashes up before you update your iphone software.  it makes me promise that i won't use it to make nuclear missiles or chemical or biological weapons.  that's right, nuclear missiles or chemical or biological weapons.  seriously, it's a great phone - but what the hell is inside it?  and to think i was once concerned with radiation from cellphones. click on the pic to see it bigger:

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just a quiet saturday.  i just had the afro trimmed, we walked down to the post office to pick up another birthday present for rachel, and we're heading to mark and boo's tonight for dinner (that's 5 floors down in the same building we live in, so it's a nice easy commute in the elevator)

saturday morning laziness

ola!  what a week - barack obama voted president-elect of the united states of whatever george bush left behind, and i managed four lunchtime gym visits (i skipped the day of the us elections - i might have been watching coverage at my desk). we are cruising along in the runup to xmas.  xmas day we have the challis clan here for dinner - and that means ALL of them:  robin, kirstie, paddy, arabella, kate and aurora.  it'll be a busy day, but it will be fantastic - funnily enough the challis clan came for xmas lunch in 2005, and at that time it was just robin, kirstie and 'bump'!

today we've got cam, carolin and little sam coming down for some coffee and pastries - we haven't seen them for ages, and then we're heading out to discovery bay to sort out some employment papers for charise. a quiet night tonight - sweet.

tomorrow john s and i are heading out early morning to nine eagles golf course by the airport for a cheeky 9 holes.  after that, not sure what the day holds.  i have my eye on a new camera lens...  of course it's absolutely necessary to buy this lens in order to photograph brand new baby. not buying it effectively means that i don't love the child.  so i have to buy it, see?

next week is rachel's 30th birthday (thursday, in case you've forgotten), and we're heading to bangkok for 4 days on friday (it's not very far away).

time to go and clean myself up and get the coffee ready.  a few photos which i may or may not have uploaded before (click on them to enlarge...)

an expat onboard smoothes the ride

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a real conversation with a coworker about an hour ago:

her: "are you catching the bus again tonight?" me: "no, i only caught it last week as i had to pick some tickets up from kowloon" her: "oh. it is good when an expat gets on the work bus. the driver drives more slowly and carefully if there is an expat on the bus."

crikey.

mr bum

spotted in a toy shop this afternoon. sometimes price tag placement is critical (click on the picture to view it bigger, and you'll see what I mean).