From three became four :)

Dear Marcella,

You came home today, and I thought we were well prepared this time, lol. Found out that I had forgotten a vital part of your mother’s pump, had to get on to a motorcycle taxi and rushed to Central Chidlom...

It is now coming fast to seven in the evening, you are fast a sleep in your cot that is sitting next to me, Matt is enjoying his supper, and your mother is scoffing down my mother’s cooking... lol. My mother is working overtime preparing food for your mother (which would then be delivered across the city to us), we (Thais) have our belief that certain food help the women to produce more milk after delivery... lol.

Unfortunately your mother’s parents are now in Chiang Rai (to the North of the country), to escape from the flood, the last time your auntie was at their home, the water was just about entering the house, but that was a week ago, we are all still hoping for the best.

Having difficult time choosing which photos to post, in four days I had already counted almost 500 photos... and 450 no one on earth would find interesting apart from me and you mother, haa haa haa, lol.

Love you,


Dad.

Lost for words...

Dear Marcella,

At this very second you are behind that wall being looked after by the nurses. There are crying coming from all side, and I am sure you are an owner of one of those cry.

I only saw you briefly (but took enough photos to write 50 billion posts :), and I was completely lost for words... Another most important person in my entire universe had just arrived not more than 30 mins ago... Can not wait to hold you!

You started crying as soon as you felt the air touching your face, wow strong lungs, I'll sure wake up when you cry at night :)

Got to go just been called to come and see you........ :)

Somehow everything leads to India :)

Dear Matt,

Back in October there was an event at Shrewsbury to celebrate the Diwali festival (Festival of lights (what a name, love it)), and all the children were asked to dress up in Indian clothes. Finding the clothes for you was a simple enough task, but getting you to put it on and keeping it on was amazingly difficult, would have been easier get a pig to grow wings and fly to Mars Pluto.

We still don’t know why you were so difficult, tears were flowing like Niagara falls, somehow it felt like you grew two more pairs of arms and hands, by the time we did up your last button, your extra hands managed to undo all the rest as well as your trousers, it was like pouring water into a cup with no bottom, always remained empty, you by some means managed to always remained naked :)

Of course your mother and I won the battle in the end, but we were far from winning the war (you had a cunning plan up your sleeves although you have only t-shirts in your cupboard :) By the way I think you looked very handsome :)

So what was your cunning plan, to get to school we had to drive (obviously), but lately it was only I who took you to school (your mother needed to have more rest). The routine went like clockwork, you got into the rear seats and started reading your book and I of course was driving. On a good day the journey takes around thirty minutes, halfway through I noticed that you were rather quiet, I mean mouse quiet… Something was afoot :)

During a traffic jam, I turned around and just guess what I was looking at… I was looking at a very young boy at the age of around three and a half sitting with a book on his lap who had nothing on but his white cotton pants… I should have been miffed, but I found myself laughing so much that I almost had to stop the car :)

Dropping you off took more time than usual, coaxing you into your beautiful shirt and trousers took forever, and by the time we got to your class you were bawling as hard as you could, even though all of your friends were also in beautiful Indian’s dress/costume.

Later I called to see how you were, and you were as right as rain. Anyway, that day the school must have taught you something about India, because only a couple of days later you kept mentioning ‘India’ in some obscure type of Monty Python’s sketch, and afterwards you would always fall down laughing.







Matt: “Where is your office, Papa?”
Me: “In the Ladprao area”
Matt: Blank face
Matt: “Is it in India, haa haa haa haa haa, lol x 10 to the power of 100”

Matt: “Where is my pillow, Papa?”
Me: “I don’t know, why don’t you look in the bedroom”
Matt: “India? haa haa haa haa haa, lol x 10 to the power of 100”
(Replace line one and two with whatever you like, but leave the third line the same)

Obvious they must have fed you some funny mushrooms when they told you why you had to dress up in traditional Indian clothes, and I guessed they must have mentioned the country India :)

I have Google+ :)

For some unknown reason Google did not permit ‘Google Apps’ users to have a ‘Google Profile’, consequently this meant that I could not have the much talked about ‘Google+’.

So (very uncharacteristic of me) instead of using the other Google account to create the ‘Google+’, I decided to wait until Google kindly enabled it for all ‘Google Apps’ users (like they said they would).

So for the past couple of days I have been living in the Google+ universe, this isn’t a review, just a penny for my thought here. Google+ is a new social network that uses ‘circles’ to group your flock, with interesting (fresh) UI, it is still a social network at the core (of course), but I think it is as (functional) dynamic as twitter and will probably will be as deep as Facebook but with cleaner and easier layout to understand. I like it, like many, we all have more than one pair of shoes, so I can live with just one more pair for now…

9 Days to go… :)

Dear Marcella,

Nine days to go… the date and time have been set… :)

At the beginning your grandmother wanted you to be in our arms between 07:00 and 07:30, but the Dr. has another delivery, looks like 11.11.11 is quite popular. To say she was disappointed was an understatement, all of us wanted the best for you down to even the time of your birth, lol.

The Dr. gave us an option, either to get another Dr. to deliver you or delay it to the afternoon. Your mother really wanted Dr. Boonchai to deliver you, so we decided to stay with him but at his own convenience, so two thirty it will be :)

Tonight I shall assemble the cot and wash everything… Just hoping that you can hold on until 11.11.11, we don’t really mind when you come, just arrive here safely, we promise to take care of you to the best of our ability, just ask your brother he seems to have the best time of his life every single day, of course until he does something naughty (which is virtually everyday :)

Matt always thinks of you now, when he talks to your mother he always say Mama & Marcella, “Mama and Marcella stay”, “Mama and Marcella sit down”, “Mama and Marcella this, Mama and Marcella that”, wonderful :)

Loving you,


Dad.

Flood Relief Operations Command (FROC): Heartbreakingly incompetence?

Since the beginning of the flood, FROC that was set up by the Government have had more complaints and criticisms than praises, I can not confirm every criticisms but the latest act of blatant stupidity have made me so angry.

FROC’s headquarter was at Don Muang Airport, this was a large scale operation, with tv studios, press areas and other essentials that all centre of operation should have. Moreover it was also a large relief centre where the people suffering from flood in the surrounding areas were fed and put up, its other main function was a depot where a major part of the donations were stocked.

One of the main complaint / accusation (I truly hope this is false), (with several pictures posted on FB as well as on the news) was that some politicians were packing these donations and putting their names or names of their organisation on it! I mean HOW LOW CAN YOU GET! These donations came from the kindness of normal citizens as well as from overseas (such as Japan), most weren’t billionaires or millionaires like these despicable politicians, they just wanted to help, why is Thailand being govern by these #%^$.






Then there were the accusation of unfairness in dispersing these donations, in that only a certain politicians have the authority to release these much needed essentials. While there were requests left right and center, but these essentials still sit in the warehouse because these politicians had nothing to gain from releasing these donations to these group of suffering people, WTF!


Sod’s law, eventually the flood came to Don Muang, so what did the FROC do? They moved of course. But being with little brain and no common sense, they decided to just up and left, the people who were relying on the relief centre were still there, more importantly part of the donations were also left behind.









The news showed pictures of donations (that was left behind), whether they were clothes, make shift toilets and all other essentials (I mean really essentials) just floating in the water! What a waste! Did the flood come like a Tsunami? NO, NO, NO, it didn’t and besides they are the FROC, people go to them to find out where the flood was coming so they should know well in advance that the flood will hit Don Muang. Or didn’t they have enough resources to move all of the donations? NO, NO, NO, come on they are (again) the FROC, essentially and literally they have the whole Army, Air-force and Navy at their disposal, but no, they just decided to leave, were there any planning? Were there any preparation? I don’t know which part of their anatomy they used to make these decisions, clearly it wasn’t their brain (do they have any?).

So far, personally I have not been affected by the flood (knock on wood), but to see these people whom we trust to guide us out of danger, are acting so foolishly is just beyond belief and heartbreakingly disappointed. I am hoping all of these information I am consuming is wrong, and that there are some really good explanations behind it, please.

In readiness for the flooding of Bangkok 2011.

We have moved into the heart of Bangkok for almost a year now, so our house on the out skirt of the city has pretty much been empty (obviously) for the same amount of time, the house sits on the very edge of a sub district named Salathammasop, which is a part of the larger district called 'Taweewattana' and that sits on the top left hand corner of Bangkok, a sneeze away from Nonthaburi Province and Nakornpathom province.

To the North of our home lay two other districts, 'Bang Bua Thong' and 'Bang Yai' (both are part of Nonthaburi Province), both have been hit hard by the flood (so my area should be next). The first floor of a colleague's house is now 50 cms under water, however if you go out onto the main road of the housing estate then the water level is chest high. How can that be that in the year of 2011 any part of Bangkok can be chest high under water! This wasn’t some freak event like a hurricane or an earthquake, I believe there were warnings, several warnings, many are saying it was just poor management by the various authorities.

Yesterday, I had to go back to the out skirt home to pick up the cot, and decided to take a short trip to the local supermarket, talking about being totally prepared, there were make shift walls, sandbags and other water stopping measures everywhere, totally putting me to shame, all I did to prepare for this flood was literally 3 extra tins of tuna, several bottled water and two dozen eggs.

This market is at least 50 to 60 cms below the road, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see this pretty hefty wall (but it was). 

People were selling life jackets and boats on the street; all bridges, even the expressway have turned into car parks, so was the U-Turn bridge near our home.

I am sincerely hoping that these people, who had no choice but to stay, will be safe and that the best case happens for them, that is somehow the water manages to miss them all.

Feeling like a Grasshopper…

I must admit that I have been a bit of a ‘Grasshopper’ so far with the advent of this horrific flood, as time passes and seeing the advancement of the unrelenting flood, together with all of the everyday essentials disappearing from the shelves, is quickly turning me into an ‘Ant’.

My main concern is clean water, with a three year old and another love of my life coming in about two weeks means clean water will be absolutely essential, so I have now started stocking water. To put things into perspective, we went to a restaurant today, and they couldn’t give us any water because they didn’t have any! All they had left was fizzy water (no brand will be mentioned here, lol).
 

That really scared the %$#* out of me, whether it was through panic buying or whatever, the result is the same if the water becomes contaminated from the flood (a very strong possibility here) there is a strong possibility that I shall not be able to find clean water in the near future and this is a good enough reason for me to also start stocking the essentials, just in case...

I wish I have become an Ant sooner than this... Well better late than never... :) Family do come first :) Personally I can live on beer for the next six months, lol.

24 hours later… :)

Matt, all these syringes were a result of about 24 hours worth of your medicine, no wonder people (literally) feel better in hospital, lol.

You are now sitting in the living room, next to my feet, and having a fantastic time with Angry bird on the iPad.

You are still far from 100%, we had a bit of a fright when you came home this afternoon, your temp. climbed up to 39c with no sign of it coming down, and this was even after a dose of your med., instead of the 4 hours gap we decided to give you another dose (after two and half hours), and so far that looks like the right decision :)

Get well soon baby, love you.

Dad.

Oh what an interesting weekend this will be :)

Dear Matt,

It all started with such a great plan, Saturday we were going to take you to your first stage show, ‘Mickey Mouse Show’ at Siam Paragon and Sunday would be another trip with your grandparents, so what happened? Life threw you, your first curve ball :)

Friday morning, you woke up with a slight temperature (didn’t think too much of it at that time), to keep you busy we decided to drop you off at Brain school just for the morning. At the same time, our house keeper turned up looking like death on a stick, she was obviously very ill. So while you and your mother were out, your mother decided to call the house keeper and told her to go home.

By the time you came back your temperature was a little bit higher but nothing to cause any alarm (still in the mid 37), so after lunch you went for your afternoon nap… then everything started heading south, you woke up burning and complaining of feeling cold… It must have been faith, your aunty turned up just as you were getting ready to go to the hospital, your mother did need a helping hand to get you ready.

At the hospital your temperature reached 39.3 (not again), the Dr. decided to do another test on you, and soon after it was discovered that you were suffering from Influenza A Type and that required a special medicine (Tamiflu), you were then sent home.

I arrived at around 18:45 to see you sitting on the black sofa, all wrapped up in your blanket watching Super Why on the iPad, there were no spring in your steps, it was obvious that you were very ill, your temperature was still way above 38. After dinner and a boatful of medicine I decided to carry you for a while, your stomach felt very bloated against my chest, I knew sooner or later you would be sick so decided to hold on until you did.

Call me Bangkok Nostradamus, first came a throat full of water, and I thought that was it… of course I was wrong, about thirty minutes later the full orchestra of rice, pork and vegetables :) decided to follow suit, everything came out, even the medicine… after cleaning you up, we decided it was safe to put you to bed, we were wrong. During the next hour and a half you were sick three times and these were gut wrenching, Papa help me kind of a session.

Considering the Influenza, the vomiting and very high temp. it was decided to admit you to BNH, this time there were no sense of panic just a sense of urgency, and in no time you were again on a table all wrapped up in what I think is the largest Velcro pad in the universe, of course it was needed so that the nurse could put the IV line into the back of you palm.

All that happened last night, it is now almost noon on the Saturday, your Mickey Mouse show had already ran for about an hour, your mother is a sleep on the couch next to you, you are now sleeping on the mattress and I am writing this blog in a your darkened hospital room with a small cup of horrible coffee by my side, all contented that you are now in good hands (although your high temperature still bothers me).



This morning after your breakfast I took you out in one of those special push car just to have a quick walk around the hospital, not wanting to waste a photo opp. I took the NEX 5 with me and promptly dropped it, lens first. Luckily the clear filter took all of the blunt and everything seems ok, of course your mother think I had dropped it on purpose (a couple of weeks back I dropped the lens cap in the river (she thought that was on purpose too)), so that I could get a new camera… of course I denied it wholeheartedly, but after a bit of time, sitting in this darkened room drinking dire coffee I am beginning to think it was my subconscious who had dropped the camera this morning… perhaps I should take this opportunity to catch an appointment with the on duty psychologist :)


Love you,


Dad.