Saturday, Saturday

Even as we frantically clean the house in anticipation of the Challis Delegation from Singapore, I managed to get a few photos of Chez Narly on this delightful Saturday morning. After his breakfast, the little man visited our bed this morning and had a fine old time, gurgling and smiling and vomiting on himself.  Delightful.

Then the little man had his first nap in his cot (he's been in his laundry hamper bassinet.  I managed to take a little photo of him snoozing and showing off his forehead's "blue vein of discontent")

Also - a photo for my sister... with the Challis family arriving, Rachel just made up the spare room, and used the gorgeous pillowcases that you and E gave us at Christmas:

  

You can see two pictures behind the bed - the top one is Eliot's wedding present to us and the bottom one was a wedding present from Simon (Pope) and Kate (Pope-Barker?  Naaaah that sounds a bit strange).

Anyway, I leave you with a photo (taken from our lounge) of the delightful weather we get to experience today.  Aaaah delicious Hong Kong smog.  How I love the way you invade my lungs and make me hack and cough. Never fear, the government (no capital 'G' necessary there) is holding lots of meetings and writing lots of initiatives for fixing the air quality.  They aren't actually doing anything, but just knowing that they are talking about it makes me feel all warm inside (although that warm feeling could actually be my lungs pleading for mercy).

Edit:  While I'm having a mini-rant, this is from the HK Government website: "Hong Kong's air pollution is mainly contributed by motor vehicles and power plants".

It's worth pointing out that to combat motor vehicle emissions, the government is building more road, refusing to allow cars to convert to LPG, and refusing to allow electric cars on roads (the word "baffling" doesn't even come close...) and to "punish" the power plants (conveniently owned by HK's richest man), the government contributed HK$300 towards every household's monthly power bill for a year. I guess putting the money directly into the power company's account would have been a little suspicious.

Friday at last

Team Challi arrive tomorrow (only the two team captains are coming though - Lieutenant Robin and First Mate Kirstie). Here for 4 or 5 days and then awaaaaaaay to hot and muggy Singapore again.  Birthday drinks for Jim on Sat night in Shek-O, and then on Sunday we're hooking up with Sam and Mary for lunch (starring the Challi family again). Oh, and on Sunday morning I'm helping a photographer friend to shoot a wedding ceremony, which will be a fantastic experience. Anyway - a nice and busy weekend, which is useful for helping us forget that we're not in NZ anymore...

Wonky

In my quest to find a way to show bigger photos, I'm tweaking the templates for this site. Hence, a whole lot of stuff might seem a bit wonky (or, as it is at the moment - completely different) over the next few days. Forgive me while I iron out some kinks... No new photos of the little man (I was too busy playing with him to take photos), but here is one I took of Ben that cracks me up (I like to call it "Alien Abduction"), and a repeat of a photo of a coffee machine that I posted a few days ago (because I needed a lengthways image and that was the first I found in my iPhoto library).

A day of play

spacespacespace George met his mates Thomas and Angus this morning, and in the afternoon hung out with Claudia, James and their respective parents.  Daddy went nuts with the camera, and despite not having his editing software here in New Zealand, there are some very sweet ones of the day.

Firstly, Thomas and Angus tearing up the back yard:

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And then some of Teams Pearce, Hayes and Georgeous at Chez Hayes:

A few photos from holiday

Holiday is passing all too quickly, but I've managed to take billions of photos in any event... The flight was fine, and we sat next to a lovely Kiwi girl Jenny and her 4 month old Isabel on the way here.  George was impeccably behaved on the flight, and with the exception of a pants explosion before the flight, and a minor flipout after we landed, he was an angel. We went to his Aunty Momo's wedding on Saturday, and again he was impeccably behaved.  Slept through the good bits, smiled through the photos, and passed out during dinner.  A few photos from the week and from the wedding. More to come later in the week:

The Daily George takes a short break

Internet access in NZ is suckysucky, and so the updates for the next three weeks until Easter will either be sporadic (at best) or via my mobile phone. But I will be taking plenty of photos of him, and I'll upload what I can whenever I can. Rachel packed his stuff today, and I think it's cute that a 4.5kg kid has a 12kg bag of stuff.  I also think that the days of sprinting to try and get to the front of customs and immigration are long gone, and I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that we'll be needing a luggage trolley for the next, oh... 15 years?  Not to worry - tomorrow will be a wicked learning experience.  Our taxi arrives at 4:30pm and our flight leaves at 7:15pm.  Plenty of time to chill out and settle the wee man - and we get to take the stroller right up to the door of the plane (it magically meets us when the plane doors open, too).

I'll leave you with some photos of post-breakfast playtime this morning:

Of namesakes and lineage (a special post for Granny B and Aunty Jacq)

 Although most people know that little George was named after his great grandfather, not so many know that his great grandfather George was actually an All Black back in the day.  This photo of Great Granddad George is taken from the NZRU website.  An excerpt from his website bio at www.allblacks.com:  "George Adkins was a stocky front row player whose height of 1.80m (5ft 11in) and weight of 93kg (14 and a half stones) made him ideal for the prop when that position became the vogue following the switch in the early 1930s to the 3-4-1 scrum.  Timaru born and a product of Timaru Boys High, Adkins appeared for the South Canterbury union in 51 matches in the decade covering 1929-39. Excellent form in the 1934 and 1935 trials and for the South in the 1934 inter-island match won him a place on the 1935 tour of Britain."

Little George has big shoes to fill if he decides to play rugby...

Much to his mother's disgust, little George arrived in bed this morning dressed in an All Blacks onesie (thanks Aunty Momo) that is about 3 sizes too big.  Daddy couldn't resist, having been given free reign on clothing choices this morning.  I mean, really - how awesome is this?

A better day

spacespacespace Well to be honest, beating yesterday wouldn't have been too difficult.  Today George got a new sleeping technique sampled on him - no more gentle cuddling and rocking for him.  Military school stuff now - in the bassinet, on his side, rocked and patted until he passes out. No more cuddles and lovey dovey crap.  I must say, I was a bit hesitant when I saw Rachel wobbling him like she was making a smoothie, but... he was out cold in well under half the time it usually takes to conk him out.  Not too shabby.

Also - little man did tummy time today, and mummy assures me that he pushed himself up quite happily. He's so clever.

Right - Georgemonster had a great morning on his playmat. And surprise, surprise - I had the camera handy.

Daddy in charge

Little man was left in the sole care of his Daddy today, while his Mummy shot out and did beautiful girly things to her toenails.  Things went smoothly, with the highlight being a duet (starring Daddy and George) of "London Bridge is Falling Down", with the words all change to "Joooooo".  George pitched in with the occasional "Jooooo", of course.  I guess you had to be there. Fourteen days until New Zealand.   Can't wait - have booked domestic flights now; will be in Wellington from 2 April the following Thursday (which is the 7th I think) - in Auckland all other times, including Easter.

A few quick photos of the munchkin today - first was during an iChat (which he rather uncharacteristically slept through) and the second is during a post-bath freakout.

A day of firsts

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That's right - a fist bump from little George for a couple of awesome achievements today.

Firstly - he threw back his first full feed from a bottle.  Took him a few seconds to figure out what to do with the teat, but once he worked it out, he chugged it like a baby possessed.  Well, at least until there was a quarter of the feed left to go, at which point he promptly fell asleep.  Not to worry - a few jiggles and prods, and he woke up and downed the rest of it.  His mummy is shooting out for a few hours tomorrow, and daddy is going to be taking care of the little fella in her absence.  Emergency services have been added to my speed dial numbers.

Second - he laughed.  Not just giggled, not just smiled - but he laughed.  And laughed. And laughed.

It happened in the bath - we were almost done, and I was putting a little bit of soap in his neck folds where his milky vomit usually hides during the day.  I rubbed his neck with my finger, and he started laughing. So I did it some more and he just chortled, and kept laughing. The more I rubbed it, the more he laughed - his face was hilarious, and he was literally going "heh! haaaaa! haaaaaaaaaa!"  It was utterly adorable.  Can't wait for it to become a regular occurence...

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Tonight we have video chats with Aunty Anna, Uncle Kieran and future-girlfriend Bella, and then we saw Aunty Katy and Uncle Sam.  George was ever the performing monkey and was good enough to give Katy and Sam a lovely big smile before totally flipping out due to overtiredness.

And finally, Happy Birthday to ANG! Hope you had an awesome day - here are some family portraits for you (in the middle one we are in fact mocking George's habit of raising his fist for no reason at all):