George finally accepts that bathtime is not the same as "waterboarding"

Little fella had a pretty good day, from all accounts.  He came to work with me in the morning and then went to the supermarket with his Mummy.  He was awake when we left here, but by the time we hit the supermarket he was out cold - he does love his stroller. Good thing too - it was pretty damn expensive...! I got home in time for bathtime - it would appear that bathtime is no longer his idea of medieval torture time, and he actually seems to enjoy his little evening dunk in the big green tub.  We still haven't had a "poop in the bathtub" moment, but given how much more relaxed he is in there, I suspect it's only a matter of time.

Final note for today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOMMY! Some special photos for you (including one of your favourite cats cuddling up to each other):

Sleepless in Hong Kong

Poor little fella (and poor mummy by association) didn't sleep so well last night. Perhaps the day out followed by lunch in Stanley was a big much for him. After his 6am feed (preceded by midnight, 2am and 3am feeds), his mummy practically threw him at me as she went back to bed... He seems ok now, but we suspect he's still quite tired, and needs a really long conk out to get back to normal.  Took some more photos of him this morning, but it's becoming more and more evident that my 50mm f1.4 lens needs calibration - the focus is way out.  Stupid Canon.

Happy Valentine's Day George!

Today is: - George's first Valentine's Day

- Patrick and Barbara's anniversary (not that they remembered...!)

- Matt and Kat's wedding day (which sadly, we could not make). Have a great day guys!

To celebrate his first Valentine's Day, George is going out for a walk with his mate Sam and Sam's mum Carolin (weather permitting). Failing that, he's going to see if Aunty Carolin wants to come over for a romantic Valentine's dinner with mummy and daddy (Sam's dad Cam is currently in Dubai).

George obliged and posed for a few Valentine's Day special edition photos this morning:

The narrow photo window

spacespacespace Now that I'm back at work, it's actually quite tough to get decent photos of the little fella. In the morning I only really see him for an hour or so while I'm getting ready - and that's when Rachel is having a shower and getting her breakfast (and when that's not happening, I'm in the shower, having breakfast or getting ready for work). I get home around 6:30pm, which is bath time - and then he has a bit of dinner (in his very quiet room) and sleeps. So, during the week I don't get too much of a chance to hang out with the little chap, let alone take photos of him. Still, we usually get a bit of daddy cuddle time before bath time, and it really doesn't matter whether I get 5 minutes with him or 50 minutes with him - it's all good.

Tonight he was a bit grizzly - Rachel thinks that he slept and settled a bit early today and as a result was fairly reluctant to go down after his bath and dinner.  Still - he's asleep and we suspect he'll be out for quite a while.  He had a big day - he went into town today and met Aunty Sue and Aunty Helen at the China Tee Club (both of whom I am assured are most impressed with him!)

A few photos that I snuck in this morning:

It was almost an uneventful day until...

...George erupted a torrent of brown sludge on Mummy's hand about half an hour ago  :)  The best thing was that I had offered to change him tonight and Rachel said not to worry, that she'd do it.  About 5 minutes later I heard her yelling for me, and went into George's room to see (and hear) his little bottom in full swing.  There was crap flying out of him (all over Rachel's hand) and his little butt trumpet was playing quite a violent symphony.  That's my boy. A few photos from tonight and one in colour to show off one of the onesies that Aunty Katy and Uncle Sam sent him.

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.