I only love Marcella :)

Dear M and M,

A couple of things this week, Matt surprised us again last Sunday, on the way to the car after Matt’s golf lesson and lunch we found ourselves debating which floor we parked the car, your mother said 3rd, and I said 5fh.

Out of the blue Matt shouted out 4, at the same time jumped and slapped the number 4 button, landed with a thud then went silent staring at the both of us. Your mother and I looked at each other and laughed, we let the lift took us to the fourth floor.

Let just say we were both quite embarrassed, because you ‘little monkey’ was right on the money :), your mother took a peek out of the lift and the car was right there on the fourth floor :)

This morning we all woke up late so we had to rushed a little, no play time before shower and breakfast, after Matt was dressed in his school uniform and we were about to leave the apartment, he leant back against one of the wall and said. “I don’t love Papa anymore and I don’t love Mama anymore, I only love Marcella (huge laugh)” then put his shoes on and left the apartment with another huge laugh. He went back to apologise afterwards once your mother had threatened not to be there when he comes home after school :) (“under her thumb, both of you are, she has” it only make sense if you say it in Yoda’s voice :) ).

From the picture above and the way Marcella behaves around Matt, I can see that he will have a lot of influence on her :)

Father and Mother are the hit words at the moment, well, it started off with Papa and Mama, then changed briefly to Dad and Mum, now he had gone all proper on us with Father and Mother… all very strange, he loves to read and I am betting it’s from one of the gazillion books he has in his room that is having this influence.

Center of Everything :)

Dear Marcella,

You are now the center of all attention, from my extensive side of our family, as well as from your mother’s side, and you are showing your good nature self (when stomach is full, haa haa haa) by loads of smiles after smiles :)

And you are much more responsive to all of our attention now, smiling, laughing, looking around and so on. Soon you’ll be crawling, I already have a video of you rotating yourself, we were all cheering you on like a bunch of lunatics :)

Looking so comfortable :)

Dear Matt,

This was taken around the time of Chinese New Year, I remembered throwing randomly a few pillows onto the floor, and the next thing I saw, was you laying so very comfortably on those pillows and watching a video.

Your mother and I can not believe that in just about a month you’ll be four years old :) Scene like this will soon be gone, you’ll be too big, or too cool (haa haa haa) to lay down on fluffy pillows and watch a silly video on the iPad :)

Now it’s Official :)

Dear M & M,

Today your mother and I are now officially husband and wife :) Don’t ask why we had left it so long (after two ceremonies, after two receptions, after six years and  you two later, :) ) before going to the register office, I’d guess it wasn’t important for the both of us. However now that your mother has sacrificed her career to look after the both of you, registering seemed to be quite important, one prime example is the visa application, if we remained separate it would have been so difficult for her.

We went to the district office this morning, arriving there at around eleven(ish), there were tons of people  but the district office and other government offices have improved light years to what it was before, all web based application now :) Registering the marriage took less than half an hour and all we needed was our identification card, the rest of the documents was pulled from the system, such as our housing registration and your birth certificate.

I am more than glad we did it, just to make it official and by the book as they say :) she has already started to threaten me with the “D” word… haa haa haa :)

Must improve!

Dear Matt,

You were a little bit strange yesterday, when your mother came to pick you up she was told by your class teacher that you had an altercation at the pool, apparently you wanted something from your classmate but he refuses to give it to you, because he was playing with it, and so you decided to take it and even bit him (luckily it was not hard). You were clearly in the wrong, the teacher did say that you felt sorry but nonetheless we decided to take action as this was not an acceptable behaviour from our view.

On the same day you had another episode, threw a ball at Chloe then hit Pui in the face, even your mother didn’t know why you were acting up like this. We took this very, very seriously, and we sincerely hope our actions and discussion will help you to improve. I spent most of my life in boarding schools, luckily they were good ones so bullying was minimal but whenever we noticed it we would always intervene.

We shall be keeping an even closer eye on you for the next few weeks, and sincerely hoping that this will not happen again.

M & M: Hello Bob, Hello Marcella :)

Dear M & M,

A couple of weeks ago it was ‘dress up as your favourite character day’ at Shrewsbury, of course judging by the last ‘dress up as your favourite animal day’ I could already tell that there would be some totally awesome costumes walking around, and I wasn’t wrong :)

First of all I didn’t expect it to be such a big event, as it turned out, it wasn’t just Matt’s year that got dressed up, it was the entire school (and a school parade too), including teachers, and oh, they were totally excellent! I just couldn’t stop smiling, there were a million princesses, but only a few prince, some went as character from ‘Car’, one teacher was a mummy (10 points) there were even a couple of Harry Potter in the running around. But to my knowledge there was only one ‘Bob the Builder’ and that was Matt! :) :) :)

 

I didn’t know why Matt had chosen ‘Bob the Builder’ rather than ‘Handy Manny’, essentially they are the same character but on the opposite side of the Atlantic :) but Handy Manny is always on the telly and Bob wasn’t, who knows, but ‘Bob the Builder’ it was. As it turned out your mother was first class once again, my mother got you the tools while Gio found a small dungaree, it was perfect :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt’s belt kept falling off, just like a pit crew at F1 I had to dashed in, tightened up the belt several times. Ms. Rachel (head of class) was a witch (no, just her costume) and I believe her assistant was a ‘Cat’. In class seeing a princess playing with a pirate was a laugh :)

I am sorry but I can not post pictures of Matt’s friends simply because I have not obtained any permission from their parents yet :) but I have loads, Best and Otto were so adorable :)

Your mother wished she had come, the only reason she didn’t because none of us knew (even other parents) that this was such a big event.

 

 

I was away for the entire week last week, Berlin was freezing and I did miss you all terribly, due to the current schedule finding time to hold Marcella was a bit difficult, usually Matt and I would leave  before she was up and by the time I was home she would have already been tucked up in her dream land :) So I never pass up a chance to hold her whenever I could :)

I hope you two get along well as you do now, Matt totally adores Marcella, and I so hope that she doesn’t give him too much trouble, lol.

 

All together in Pattaya :)

Dear M & M,

This past week was Matt’s half term break, so it was the right time to find something fun for the both of you to do, we were a little apprehensive at first because Marcella is so very young, even with Matt, he was at least nine months before we took our first trip to the sea.

Your mother decided to go back to Centara Grand, Matt managed to have a fantastic time there (so many moons ago) even though he had a bit of a run on his tummy :) the water park is superb for children.

Your mother booked a bigger room this time, so all five of us (Pui came too) could be together. The room was fantastic, spacious with a huge balcony and an amazing view. There was a bunk bed for Matt, of course he bagsied the top bunk as soon as he saw it.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Not long after our arrival in the room, Matt disappeared behind the wardrobe’s door without my notice. By the time I heard the ‘beep beep beep beep beep, aaarrrrrrr, clunk’ it was of course too late! He had already locked up the room safe… I wanted to be cross, but from the conversation that we had I ended up laughing my $%@# off :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Me:        Matt can you tell me which numbers you’d pressed? (assertive voice)
Matt:     I don’t know Papa
Me:       Come on Matt, you must remember, what was the first number you’d pressed?
Matt:     Zero…
Me:       And then?
Matt:    eight, five, two, one, three, four, fi…
Me:       No, that is too many, let start again
Matt:    Ok Papa, zero, eight, two, four…
Me:       Ok, tell me again which number you’d pressed?
Matt:     zero, eight, four, five…
Me:       ??? tell me again ???
Matt:    zero, two, one, three…
Gio:     Haa, haa, haa, haa, haa (from somewhere outside the room)
Me:      Come on Matt, let start again… (with a huge smile, which was a sign of defeat)

I ended up pressing different set of numbers each time until the safe locked itself for fifteen minutes, of course I gave up and called the engineer, who promptly came with this huge machine, Matt was impressed :) but he promised not to touch the safe again (and he didn’t too :) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The long weekend was wonderful, Matt ate well and virtually lived in the water park, especially the tunnel water slide, he just couldn’t get enough of it, but surprisingly he wasn’t too keen on the sea though.

We had pretty much spent all our time in the resort, so that Matt could have as much water time as possible, but after about two hours or so he would request to go back to the room, to further play in the huge bath.

Marcella had her first real dip for the first time, and didn’t even cry, the weather was very hot from the searing sun, but the small pool was in the shade, so it was quite cool. The water was warm, just right for Marcella, she looked absolutely adorable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately most of the photos were not of us by the pool, I had decided not to take the camera but to actually join in the fun with the two of you (the pics below was taken using your mother’s BB).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the drive back, we stopped off at this great restaurant, ‘Moom Aroi’ (a direct translation would be ‘Corner Delicious’, well, ‘Delicious Corner’ would make more sense) (your mother’s choice again, ten stars for you, Mama), more than highly recommended. On the GPS, there were two ‘Moom Aroi’, so we picked the one by the sea and we were not disappointed, the service was fast and professional, the food was great and the most important thing for me… there were plenty of parking :) We didn’t arrive in BKK until five, of course my parents were there waiting to see you two.

Thousands of these… :)

Dear Marcella,

Using a camera with a left hand, sounds easier in words than in practice, trust me I should know, I have thousands and thousands of this exact shot of just you and me :) (with different mirrors though, and I am sure there will be thousands and thousands more :)

I was thinking of creating a Yoga class for photographers, I sure could have used it here :)

By the way, your mother and I now know exactly when to catch you smiling. So simple, all we have to do, to be guaranteed with a beautiful huge smile, is to make sure that you are full of milk. ‘Stomach Full of Milk’ = ‘Mogwai’, ‘Stomach Void of Milk’ = ‘Gremlin’.

 

Just got back from Vietnam, lovely place and people, and just found out today that I have to go to Singapore the day after tomorrow… so be a good girl and keep you brother in line, ok. :) Missing you already…

Moment to Remember: Angie’s comment :)

Dear Matt,

Your hair cut was long over due, so late Saturday evening I drove you to your usual place, but this time it was only you and I, so when the lady asked for the style, I’d said one simple word, 'Short', now if your mother was with us, her direction to the lady would have been just a page shorter than the Bible, lol.

Of course your face have totally changed, haa haa haa, and everyone who knew you have since rushed up to you to make all sorts of comments (of course all were favourable, at your bafflement :) ).

Today is Monday, the traffic was terrible as usual, by the time we arrived at your class most of your friends were already busy doing things in class.

Here is the moment to remember, as always you have to take your shoes and socks off before going into the class room, the only separation between you and the class is a huge pane of glass with two huge sliding glass doors. As soon as you sat down, Angie (she was in your class at Noddy, and she has always been one of my favourite, totally adorable with great manners, an absolutely beautiful little girl) came running out of the class, plonked herself next to you, all smiling and laughing!

In her sweetest little voice she simply said "Matt you had a hair cut", no… I got it wrong, it was like “MATT YOU HAD A HAIR CUT!!!!!!!!!!!”, with a laugh and a huge smile between each word, she was more excited than me :) you muttered some kind of an answer that only an elf could decipher, of course I was already on the floor laughing :)

I shall never forget today :) perhaps I should ask your mother to join us for the next trip to the barber (actually I can never imagine your mother letting me go anywhere alone with you again (ever)) :) with hind sight, going from a Korean-ish style to a Dek Wat (Temple boy) style was a bit much, haa haa haa.

Love you (and sorry, lol :)

 

Dad :)

I am a wolf, a nice wolf :)

Dear Matt,

A couple of days ago it was ‘Jungle day’, so all ‘early years’ had to dress up as an animal of their choice, for the past week you felt in love with the ‘song of the week’, “Who is afraid of the big bad wolf, big bad wolf, big bad wolf…” (and kept singing over and over like a broken record), so it was so appropriate for you to go as a wolf, luckily you had a wolf hat (actually its a wolf/sheep soft hat, I can’t even remember who bought it in the first place), so on that day a wolf you will be :)

Of course that morning you had suddenly decided you didn’t like the wolf hat after all, and absolutely refused to wear it. What could I have done, we were running late so there was no time for one of our infamous negotiations, and decided to tackle the ‘no hat’ issue at the school.

Well, you’d won, so instead of being a wolf, you went as an ‘activist’ (your shorts did say “Save wildlife”, it was a good enough excuse in my mind). You jumped out of a car like a young joey (baby kangaroo), all triumphant and all smile having won a hard fought battle (known as ‘Battle of no hat for me, thanks dad’, fought at Shrewsbury’s car park, on the day of 31st 2012).

But soon after, I could tell you were changing your mind :) because as soon as we left the car, there was a tiny elephant in front of us, one of the boy from another class had dressed up like an elephant, and I don’t mean a t-shirt with an elephant hat, I mean a full grey body suit and an elephant’s mask that would have surely won the 2012 Best Costume Design at the Oscar.

You looked at me with your soppy eyes, they were saying “holy crap, why didn’t I just wear that darn hat”, a couple of steps further we saw a wonderful zebra, and by the time we got to your class I had really thought I was in the jungle and was ready to leg it with all those wild animals roaming around.

I just couldn’t let you be the odd one out, I knelt down next to you by the door to your class and asked if you wanted to be a wolf, you’d simply nodded with a gentle smile… After breaking the current 100 metres’ record rushing to the car and back (wolf hat in hand), you had already started your class so I had to call you out, through the large glass sliding door you came running all smiling, in a blink of an eye you had transformed into a wolf and rushed off back to your friends.

Is was so good/funny to see you all smiling and growling at your teachers and friends, just to let them know that you were a wolf wearing a ‘save wildlife’ shorts :)

What can I say :)

Dear M and M,

When you grow up, life will throw you ‘responsibilities’ whether you like it or not and it may not even be just. But however good or bad it gets, we hope it will be us who you think of first in the best and the worst of times.

Matt, I wish you could remain this happy forever, that is all we ever wanted for you and little miss M :)

Missing you, see you both in a couple of days.

Our M & M, one can’t stop talking and the other won’t keep still :)

Dear M & M,

Soon Little M will be 3 months old, we keep forgetting how quickly you all develop at this stage. For the past three weeks, the most noticeable thing with our Little M is that you like to have a bit of a chin-wag, nothing deep like the latest round the cabinet reshuffle (what was our first ever lady PM thinking?), in fact any topic will do as long as we make it sounds soft and gentle, Little M will always join the conversation with very insightful thoughts such as, ooohhh aaahhhhh and back to oooohhh again (by the way, if we don’t talk to you, you’ll start crying :)

As for you Big M, last Saturday your music teacher asked me (right after your morning lesson) what I fed you for breakfast? She thought I must have given you sugar cubes (and about a ton of it too) because you were like a very bouncy bouncing ball for the whole forty minutes.

I don’t know why all the scientists are spending so much time researching into ‘fusion’ as a new form of clean energy, all you have to do is to construct a humongous hamster wheel (link it to a generator), and chuck in just a few three year old kids, and voila, clean energy at a cost of a couple chocolate cookies and a glass of milk. Honestly, I don’t know where you get your energy from, my camera is now permanently on S (shutter speed priority) instead of the usual A (aperture priority) simply just to keep you in focus while you were dashing around :)

Life is amazing with you all :)

I curse you, Continuous Shooting… :)

The rational of the advice made so much sense… “set up your camera, then put it in continuous shooting, keep the finger on the trigger until the story ends, then go back and choose the best ones, that’s how the pros do it”, well thanks Sherlock :)

But no one ever told me how mentally difficult, to darn near impossible it would be to delete a photo, even the cr#ppy ones, lol. I know hard disks are really cheap now, but it would have been more prudent & efficient to delete the bad ones, trust me I’ve tried to delete a slightly out of focus photo of both M and M. As I placed my finger on the delete button, both palms started to sweat, heart rate more than doubled, vision became blurry and the room started spinning, all I could do was just to walk away, and let it be :)

On a serious note, continuous shooting is an absolute must for me, I would have changed my name to Frano Selak if I had managed to catch Matt or Marcella smiling at two months old on the single shot mode. So do give it  a try, trying once won’t do you any harm, honest :) lol.

Preparing for the next best thing :)

Dear M and M,

Your mother said I am up to my old tricks again :), I’ve been pining for a DSLR since the previous one was stolen, the Nex 5 was supposed to be just a ‘halfway house’ of a camera before moving on to yet another Nikon.

But I never did move on to another DSLR, Sony Nex5 turned out to be a mistress I never wanted to leave, never wanting to get back to the Mrs., in fact there was one crazy moment when I thought I wanted to remain with her forever, then came along the D4.

Totally not worth the price and just a tad over qualified for just taking a few snap shots of you two running around. But right now all forms sensibility have left the building, only remained are the hazy impetuous of pure ‘tech lust’, lol.

 

So you both may be wondering ‘what are my old tricks’? Passing on current ‘gears’ to a family member in hoping your mother will give me the nod to get the next greatest and latest (often it doesn’t work, so I think I’ll need to change strategy here).

As you can see here, I am literally forcing Matt to use the camera, well not quite, he came up with the camera wanting to take a picture of me, of course it was a too good of an opportunity to just let it pass, it has lots and lots of buttons and dial that all three and a half year old child could only love, perfect, I began to teach (exaggerate) how each button is so much more awesome than each of his button on his simple point and shoot. Soon he will be running up to his mother asking if he could keep the Nex5 forever… leaving the path open to the almighty D4 and then taking over the world… haa haa haa, all I need now is the ‘ka-ching’ to get the darn thing.

(While reading through the post correcting all the mistakes (there are probably loads left), I came to wonder how on earth did I take this photo, I am sure it will come back to me soon)

Conversation: Matt and Shower

Background:

Matt woke up late and soon I had to leave for work to avoid the dreaded Bangkok’s traffic. No time for our usual play before shower… he was having none of it :)

 

Scene:

Tears, Tears and even more Tears. The two of us standing in the shower and he refuses to take his off his pyjamas and go into the shower, so a little force was used to take off the PJ, which resulted in even more tears…

 

Conversation:

Matt:   “Papa I don’t like shower.” [sob].
Me:     “Come on Matt, don’t you want to be clean?. You need a shower!”
Matt:   “Papa, please Papa, I want to be dirty, I don’t want to be clean Papa” [tears!]
Me:     [biting my lips trying not to laugh]

Broken engine :)

The photo was taken on the 5th of Dec. 11, aka Father’s day here in Thailand (King’s Birthday), being a National holiday I decided to take Matt out so that his mother could have some peace and quiet.

Decided to take him to Suanlum, but never intended for us to end up on a two seater speed boat, lol.

The engine of this fantastic speed boat was supposed to be 4 LP (Leg Power), but unfortunately due to the length of one pair of legs being rather short, the boat ended up with just the 2 LP, and truth be told this 2 LP engine was almost 40 years old so it was a real surprised that we made it all the way across the lake.

He had a great time (his first time), and kept spotting several turtles, I never knew there were so many ‘invisible’ turtles in this lake (probably the same clan as those infamous ninja turtles). My parents came to pick us up, coordinating over the phone for the precise location of where we were was a bit of a nightmare, only then to realised that the last time my parents came to the park was over twenty years ago :)

I wasn’t really prepared otherwise I would have taken a better camera, but the camera on the BB was not too bad, will try to get better shots the next time :)

Saturday’s routine

Dear Matt,

You would have thought that Saturday would be a relaxing day for you, it is a weekend after all :) Of course not :)

I usually wake you up at six, shower and shave (kidding), by six fifteen-ish you would be sitting down to breakfast, but on the weekend everything runs a little later and a bit slower.

We have to be out of the house by around nine thirty, to arrive at Chamchuree Square by ten, that is when your music lesson starts, well it used to be your piano lesson, but the new head of ‘Dek Lek’ division (a direct translation is ‘Children Small’) decided to turn the curriculum upside down, instead of teaching you piano, you are now being taught the basic understanding of music.

Anyway the class ends at ten forty five, it is then required of me to listen to the debriefing of the class for another fifteen minutes, adding the time of us messing around chasing after each other, it would be almost twelve by the time we walk through the front door and straight to having lunch.

By twelve fifty we would have to leave again, this time we walk over the long overpass footbridge to get to your Brain School class (mostly just fun and games that have some hidden values behind it, well that is what we hope anyway, more importantly, you got along very well with the teachers here (Kru Jib and Kru Pia)). The class is one hour, after which I would let you play for a little while before heading back to home.

Once home, probably around two forty-ish we would let you relax just a little before ushering you to your bedroom for your afternoon nap. We only allow you two hours for the afternoon nap, otherwise you would be running around at midnight screaming ‘I am not tired Papa’.

Once you are up (a glass of milk would be waiting), the afternoon is free time, sometimes I would take you to the park, funfair, temple or whatever that keeps you entertain, before returning home for supper, evening television/iPad and then bed… :) Doesn’t sound much, but trust me the hours just fly by when you are having fun :)

Got a new Freezer :)

Dear Marcella,

Got a new freezer, well, just couldn’t find room for the peas and the chickens ;) You have no idea how much your mother is determined to give you the best :)

She is up in all strange hours, mostly half asleep “pumping out”, and the result is what you see here. She is determined to b-feed you for as long as she could, so after your meal she collects the extra and stores them away, at the expense of my peas and chickens… :)

By the way, after reviewing the stock last night, I am already looking for another (huge) freezer, lol.

Got it… <3

Dear Marcella,

Finally today I got a picture of you smiling :) believe it or not I am typing this post one handed while the other is holding you tight, you are looking somewhere to the left probably thinking when I am going to give you the bottle, lol, the answer is 15 minutes.

I carried you to City Viva this afternoon (swapped role today, me & you and Mum & Matt), needed to get some sweets for your brother’s stocking, he kept asking if Santa can come ‘tonight’ (for the past 3 nights) and was always a little frustrated that our answer have been steadfast on the 25th… (awkward now, just turned you around so I am now typing with my left hand… sod this, shall finish later).

City Viva is just a short walk away, I think I made a mistake in putting you in a bright lime green trousers, while your body suit was a very loud candy pink, luckily we weren’t arrested by the fashion Gestapo.

You had a great time, new environment did you a world of good, besides the weather was perfect, seeing you trying to turn your head this way gave me a huge smile, so happy to have a full time role with you today :) (you are fast asleep in my arm, one tiny left hand stretched out palm down & open, resting on my left shoulder, <3 <3 <3).

What a smile :)

Dear Marcella,

Swimming and no afternoon nap was the perfect combination for Matt to fall asleep right in the middle of his after supper dessert (his favourite, Jack fruit of course).

That gave me the time to properly help out your mother and cradle you in my arms, after a while it felt like I was carrying a pregnant whale, my old arms were not what it used to be :) Your eyes were closed, your body was still, then suddenly you gave me not one but two huge smiles :) I wished I had caught it on camera… :)