Wednesday, December 31, 2008

eeerrrr… may be a little too much?

Once you are on the ground, you are just like a little remote control car at full throttle… and Thailand (due to the heat), most of the houses have marble floors instead of carpets (as in England), the hard floor isn’t so kind on your hands and knees. Following one of our friend, we have decided to get some rubber mattresses for you… judging by the pic., may be we went over board “just a little… :)”

IMG_6009 Each mattress is 1.8 by 2 metres, and without much thought we had ordered 5… haa haa haa. I must say, so far your mother and I are enjoying the mattresses more than you have, trying to re-live our PE classes all those many years ago… (I have a vdo of your mother trying to stand on her head… with a ‘perfect’ failure rate of 100%.

Unfortunately, the mattresses are made of real rubber and it is giving a funny smell, so we are going to leave it out at the front of the house for a couple of days before moving it to the back where we have our living room.

I am sure your mother will try yet again to stand on her head, and as you will find out when you are older, your mother can be very determined, especially when I said there was no way she was going to make it :)

Monday, December 29, 2008

Bits of Bangkok, Banjakiti Park

DSC_0065Benjakiti%20Park[9]









We had a few hours to kill after your monthly injection, so firstly we went to Chamchuri Complex (one of the new lifestyle mall), had a quick lunch at the ‘Water Bar’, where you’d slept all the way through. Then we had decided to visit ‘Bangkok Dolphins’, this is where you’ll be swimming next month, :) judging by the way how much you enjoy your bath time, we thought you would love this (by the way, we did find it but it was closed)

DSC_0028 The weather was on our side and with a little bit of time left on our hands, we headed to ‘Benjakiti park’, this park is situated not too far from Bangkok’s most well known ‘Lumpinee’ park, Benjakiti park runs along the Ratchadapisek (ring) Road, next to the ‘Asoke’ intersection.

The highlight is definitely the huge man made lake which took up the majority of the park. But now with hindsight, it was a mistake to take you there after your injection, as there was a small chance of you running a temperature.

We must have spent almost an hour there, at the end of it all you had looked a little tired, so after a couple of more places we arrived home at around eight pm.





DSC_0052(I am not too happy with the pics, to me they are all over exposed, may be it was my fault…)… (3 days later… yes it was my fault, the exposure was set at +0.7… :( )













DSC_0018

It was a terrible night for you (and your mother), your temperature was around 38.2 and you kept waking up and crying every 20 to 30 minutes all through the night (meaning that your mother had no sleep whatsoever). Finally Monday morning came, and just before all of us got into the car, you had a huge number 2… then we understood why you were tossing and turning and crying most of the night.









DSC_0072 (2)You were suffering from a tummy bug… that of course could also explained the high temperature…









 
DSC_0058
Well it is now Monday’s evening, and all seemed to be back to normal (touch wood)… tomorrow is the last working day of 2008, and we get to spend the next 5 days looking after you… oh, what a delight (not being sarcastic at all, haa haa haa).

Love you,

M&D

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Hunger for Speed

25122008[12] After resisting for so long, it was time to be a part of the modern Thailand… and go ADSL… There really wasn’t a need before, but after trying to load ‘Windows Live Apps.’ and having to wait all bloo*y night, it was just too much.

Not to mention that uploading a simple blog took about a minute shy of an eternity…

The signal should be on in a couple of days… True Internet is the number one ISP provider in Thailand, as long as you have a True’s fix line number you are pretty set to go. I have chosen to self install, at least it will keep me amuse for about half an hour…

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Almost 2009 :)

Your mother and I were just talking this evening (while we were giving you a bath), that everything was so different to just only 6 – 7 months ago. When you first got home, it was so easy to give you a bath… Then, all we had to do was to wrap you up in a blanket to keep you as still as a tree, but now I don’t think even Wonder Women’s Lasso of Truth could have kept you still. Giving you a bath is like putting a 8 Kgs lump of Sodium into a bath of warm water (don’t try this when you grow up).

We are very much looking forward to your first New Year, basically because we shall be getting 5 days off, and so we are planning a couple of short one day trips somewhere (originally we were going to go away for a few days, but the thought of packing all of the things that you would need have put us off the idea almost instantaneously)… The infamous Bangkok’s traffic would be just a legend for those coming 5 days, it is almost worth not going anywhere just for that.

Copy of DSC_0057 Today we took you to the Gymboree again,  you’ll be glad to here that next week they are closed, so next Saturday you don’t even have to get out from your pyjamas (again) :)

Each week we could see our progress, the speed that you are ‘caterpillar-ing’ around on the floor (well, one certainly can not call it crawling) is quiet amazing’

Love you.

Mum & Dad

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

No more Blurry pictures... (I hope)

Was looking through some pictures of you, and discovered as of today I have 4,425 pictures/short videos of you. Honestly, I only like about 9 of them... :) I have missed some great shots because you were moving (I have so many blurry pictures of you while you were smiling), or there wasn't enough light to get a good picture of you, so I have decided to use you as an excuse to get a new camera (and probably for the first time, your mother was positively encouraging me to get this new toy).

So this past Saturday I went to AVCamera (quite a well known camera store) to get myself a Nikon D90, it was a difficult choice between this and the Canon 50D... as this was to be my first SLR and due to my photographic need (basically, just taking pictures of you and your mother) the 50D came out second (it isn't really fair to compare these two, different price point and segment)... besides, I think D90's body looks better :)

dsda As far as I could remember Nikon L35AD (QD) was given to me by your grandfather, it was extensively used during my years at Wellington (1986 - 1991) (this is a boarding school, so you can imagine the content of the pictures... arses and fire everywhere).

few Then there was a huge gap until I bought my own (2002), a Canon S40 (somehow there wasn't a need to have a camera for several years)


sefwg Canon G6, obviously came after the S40... (running out of stuff to write). I had actually had 2 G6s... the one that I had bought was stolen when your mother and I went to help out with the Tsunami in the South of Thailand. Your grandfather was kind enough to have bought the replacement

 

we I was in love with the G6, and hadn't wanted to step up to the DSLR (too big), thus the logical step was to move to the G7, this model had a lot of flack from almost everyone... the lens was too slow, the screen was fixed, no raw and etc... Bought it anyway, come on... a black G7...

 

eg So, here it is, the latest toy... having loads of fun with it, it is so easy to upgrade the hardware (as all you need is money), it will be a total waste if I don't also improve the photographic skills. Just bought a book, and have been asking around for tips, no wonder why some people are so addicted to this...





DSC_0173DSC_0176Not too bad…












  
 
DSC_0041Just stuck the dial on P... spruce up the exposure just a little... then click away... there must have been over 150 clicks on the first day... was not disappointed... far better than any pics. from the Point & Shoot... the whole experience was superb... taking a photograph with a DSLR was rather addictive... :) (P.S. the VDO capability is terrible, extremely choppy... maybe needing a faster lens).

Can not wait to be have more skills and needs, to give myself a good enough reason (also to your mother) for me to move to the level of D700 or 5D Mark ii...

Love you.

Dad

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

7 Months and Moving...

Copy of IMG_5283 A few weeks ago, we were wondering why you were chewing so much (carpet, curtains, toys, even the remote control), well, it certainly wasn't because you were hungry. Then we discovered 2 white lines appearing on your bottom gum... Your teeth are coming :), and soon you'll be packing your stuff and head off to University.

Much to our initial excitement, you are no longer just a lump of joy laying (giggling) in one spot (sure, you can roll over from your tummy to your back and spin 360 on your tummy but for the most part you have been pretty much remaining in one spot).

 

Well, no more, it took you about 7 months to co-ordinate your arms, legs and bottom to give you forward motion (it was exciting at first, but now it is just hard work pulling you back every 2 minutes).

IMG_5420The procedures go something like this... 1. Get into a crawling position (on your hands and knees)... 2. Stretch out both legs so that your bottom sticks out in the air... and here is the best part... 3. Remove both hands, and let your body fall forward... 4. Repeat until arriving at the most dangerous location (eg. the edge of the bed)... 5. Reset (this is basically where your mother and I pull you back).

 

 

IMG_5167IMG_5637g



 





This is one of my favourite :), You are still attending your weekly class, and making new friends every week, I must say you and your friends don't talk much but absolutely enjoying bashing each other in the head with any toys you can grab.

You now speak some kind of a forgotten language, which contains only O, U, A and M, well only 22 more alphabets to go... :)

IMG_5229Self censorship on my part... haa haa haa, you have just had one huge doo doo and as you can see on your face, you seemed to be extremely proud of yourself :)

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_5461 This was your first social event, at our friend's wedding, I must say, you were in top form... Besides arriving very, very late... you, a baby who hardly cries decided to have a change of habit and decided to turn on the water work, it was of a Niagara falls proportion, the amount of tears produced could have drown a fully grown blue whale :)

Love you

M&D