Callum John Huang Yu Chua

Once again it's taken me longer than I would have liked to write something about the birth of our children. After a much longer than expected labour (especially after our experience with Eleanor) we welcomed our son, Callum John Huang Yu Chua, into the world at 16:16 on Sunday the 16th of March 2014. Our boy bested his sister's initial measurements with a birth weight of 3.25KG, height of 51cm and head circumference of 35.5cm even though he had less time in the oven (born on his due date no less, I like punctuality!).

It was a comparatively relaxed birth this time as we even got a chance to have breakfast at home and say goodbye to my mum and Eleanor before driving into the Mater. Alison had her epidural and waters broken early on in the morning as we expected things to move a lot faster for a second baby. The next six hours of playing trivia games on the iPhone with our obstetrician gave us plenty of time to reset our expectations.

Of course once things started to move they did so quickly and in a handful of pushes we were able to meet our son. He announced his presence to the world with a quiet and considerate wail that we found to be rather adorable. Callum also emerged with some of the longest fingernails I've ever seen so I'm taking that as a sign that he will follow in his dad's footsteps to take up fingerstyle guitar when he grows up.

So onto the name. As with Eleanor we found it hard (even harder actually) to come up with an English boy's name that would be well suited with Chua. We had very few real options that both of us could agree on, and in truth we had "Callum" on the shortlist way before we knew Eleanor was a girl so it's been locked in for over three years now. The name is derived from Alison's Scottish side of the family with the most recent inspiration being Alison's mother, Sheena McCallum Snow. One doesn't have to look much further than Alison's dad to see where his other middle name comes from.

As with Nell, we entrusted the responsibility of coming up with a Chinese name to my mum once more. Again she has delivered with something that we feel summarises all that we hope for our little boy, Huang Yu (煌愉). Huang is directly translated as "bright" while Yu can be interpreted as "happy" or "pleasant". I think that's a reasonable goal to strive for in life.

Our stay in hospital wasn't as hectic this time around as we enforced a moderately strict "No Visitors" rule. The family and Eleanor were allowed to come and see us on the second day of course to meet the new guy, an event which Nelly was extremely excited about.

In fact I can't believe how well she's coping with the new addition to the family. It would be a turbulent and challenging time for anyone to adjust to and she's been an absolute darling over the last week with helping out around the house and looking after her little brother. Hard to believe that our ridiculous expectations of our three year old are actually being met if not exceeded. What a beautiful girl.

It wasn't long before we were packing up to head home with a new child. We used the same blanket that we had for Eleanor, which was actually made by my mum for me when I was a little baby. He was perfectly content in the car and continued to sleep for another two hours in his capsule when we got home.

The last week has been tiring though it feels different to what we went through with Nelly. Having mum here to help out with cooking and entertaining Eleanor has obviously played a role but I think the key difference is that we already went through the midnight debates and dilemmas last time around so it has largely been a matter of executing the parenting playbook we already have. Every kid is different and Callum seems to be a lot more laid back as well which has been fantastic for settling and feeding.

We're trying to enjoy the moment with this little guy and not get too excited about what he's going to be like as he grows up. If he's anything like his sister we're in for a real treat.

What's going on?

Wow, I've been pretty slack with keeping up to date with posts in the past but it's been almost five months since the last one which has to be a record for me. Sad thing is I've had more than enough material to write about in that time but haven't been able to get around to doing it. Given that we hope to welcome a new baby into the family in the following week I thought it would be best to briefly catalogue some of the recent big events before I hopefully descend into newborn minutia again.

A new car

Our civic has served us well for many years and we were sad to see it go. The upcoming influx of family members however demanded some adjustment to our transportation so we had to do something. Getting a second car was something we considered but we didn't like that idea due to the additional operational cost and the need to travel separately. In the end we got a pretty good deal on the run-out design of the Honda Odyssey - what some would argue is the ultimate Asian family car. We certainly don't feel out of place at Sunnybank and can now fit mum and dad along with the children when we need to.

Alison had an operation

Just in the lead up to mum coming out for Christmas we had a bit of a health scare with Alison and the baby. Alison took a trip to the GP which turned into an ambulance ride to the emergency department and ended with an emergency appendectomy.  Not the easiest 24 hours but the family and baby all came out of it unscathed thankfully.

Mum over for Christmas

So it was lovely to have mum out here to spend time with Nelly and the family. Had a lot of fun and ate heaps of good home cooked food, which was a relief for Alison who was still recovering from her operation.

The baby's heart is fine

During our morphology scan last year we were told that our baby boy had a small hole in his heart. It was nothing life threatening but still a small concern for us understandably. In January we had a follow up appointment and were told that they could not detect any abnormalities much to our relief. The doctors still can't be 100% certain that the hole isn't there anymore but it's certainly no longer something that will have an impact on his health.

Aussie Aussie Aussie

I suppose it was just a matter of time before I got my act together (or Alison would force me to get my act together), but I've finally applied and successfully completed my test for Australian citizenship. I did miss out on one answer on the exam but thankfully they have a pretty lenient passing grade. Unfortunately there's a bit of a back log so it's unlikely that I'll be able to attend my ceremony and officially become a citizen until September this year. Even so it didn't stop us from having a great Australian day out with friends.

Got a new job

The last year and a half of owning my own business with Chris have been really exciting. The reality of self employment and new ventures however mean that sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect them to. We are still keeping the business going but I've decided to focus on the product side (What Bin Day and Nose to Tail) in lieu of the service arm of the business. This comes with a new position as a developer at Wotif Group, a role that I've been enjoying quite a bit if only for the comparative simplicity. I never got around to that blog post about Socket Software so I won't make promises about discussing work in more detail, but who knows.

Imminent Baby

It's now day minus 6 till we are supposed to meet our boy, not that those estimates are anything to go by. We're enjoying the time we have left as a small family and can't wait to welcome the new bub home. Mum will be flying out on Wednesday to help us out and we're ready to have our lives changed all over again soon.

It's a Boy!

I'm sure Alison would disagree with me on this point, but having gone through the paces of pregnancy once it seems like this second one is just flying by. Of course I don't have discomfort and nausea to deal with so what would I know. Either way we had our 19 week morphology scan this morning and discovered that Eleanor is going to have a baby brother in March.

Measurements were actually quite similar to what we got for Eleanor at her scan, with the exception of leg length. While Nelly was in the 98% percentile for her femur, our new little boy is just a little below the average. Got to blame dad for inheriting stumpy asian legs I guess.

Biparietal Diameter	43.6 mm
Occipitofrontal Diamater	59.2 mm
Head Circumference	164.3 mm
Transcerebellar Diameter	19.6 mm
Abdominal Circumference	143.1 mm
Femur Length	29.8 mm

Not everything went smoothly for this scan however. The sonographer detected a small (2 mm) hole in the heart and classified it as a minor Ventricular Septal Defect. Apparently these things are pretty common and have a high likelihood of fixing themselves before term so there's nothing to worry about. Even so we've been called back in for an additional scan in January to make sure that everything is going alright.

Aside from that the baby seems to be developing perfectly fine. Just like his sister, he refused to perform and sit still for photos during the scan. None of the "4D" photos were decent on account of obstruction by two or more limbs with an umbilical cord in the way. Nothing new I guess, but if I can use Nelly as a guide I can now rest assured that it doesn't mean that this kid won't want to have his photo taken when he's out in the world.

So there you have it. Of course we would have been happy with a boy or a girl, but in some ways we're quite pleased that Nelly won't have to compete with another for the title of our favourite daughter. Now we just have to prepare ourselves for an entirely different nappy changing experience.

Waste in Melbourne, a New Nephew and Potties

Last week was super busy. Socket Software have been preparing for a big expo in Melbourne to present a new What Bin Day product for Australian councils. At the same time Alison and Nelly were spending the week up in Toowoomba with the rest of the family, including James, Dora, Thomas and new baby Andrew who had all just come in from Singapore to visit.

Chris and I were pretty excited to head out on our first interstate Socket Software trip. Packing everything we needed for the expo booth into one check in bag and carry on luggage was a challenge but we just about made it under the weight limit. Even so, it wasn't much fun carting the stuff around the airport and the streets of Melbourne until we could dump most of it at the exhibition centre.

We were glad to see our AV equipment and furniture had already been delivered and set up for us to use when we arrived at the expo hall. Finishing the rest of our prep would have taken less than an hour if we didn't have to contend with the dodgy power cable we were provided. In the end we didn't have many other technical hiccups so I guess we should be grateful, though I must confess that I won't be paying for overpriced and slow internet connections at these things in the future. Live and learn.

Standing on your feet and talking to people for over eight hours a day for two days straight is pretty tiring. There were about 1500 attendees registered for our expo and a lot more in the two affiliated expos next to us so we saw a fair bit of traffic. Things started off pretty slow but by the end of the two days we were happy with the number of councils that we got to meet and show our product. With some luck and perseverance we might even be able to get some decent conversions too so I'd rate the whole exercise as a success. In talking with the other exhibitors we discovered another conference for councils that takes place at Coffs Harbour in June so we'll probably try and attend that next year.

I drove up to Toowoomba the day after we flew back to Brisbane, eager to spend some time with the family. It was lovely to meet Andrew and hold him, a reminder of what we have to look forward to in our little family come March next year. He's very different from Thomas and we're very lucky to have two beautiful nephews. While Nelly seemed a little concerned about the attention we were giving the new baby, she soon warmed up to Andrew and was very loving and gentle as we hoped she would be.

Thomas and Nelly also had a chance to play a lot more than they have in the past. It's great to see them growing up and interacting with cuddles and toys. Sheena arranged for a quick visit to a nearby farm to see some animals which the kids loved as well judging by the shrieks I heard when they came home.

Dora was kind enough to let Nelly play on the piano which would be the first time our little girl has had a chance to use a full keyboard (I'm not considering the little toy pianos we've given her in the past). I was curious about how she would react to it and pleasantly surprised that she didn't just bang on the keys mindlessly. I'm probably biased but I'd say she was enjoying herself which only strengthens my resolve to get us a digital piano once we have the room for it at home. Of course Daddy wouldn't mind playing on it too.

We have been trying to encourage Eleanor to use the potty/toilet for the better part of 6 months now with not a lot of success. In hindsight we probably started trying a little too early which didn't combine well with our daughter's stubborn personality. Our reward system (a sticker and chocolate for a wee and two stickers and chocolates for a poo) started off well enough but lost steam pretty quickly. Playing her off friends at school that had been toilet trained wasn't getting us anywhere either.

Just a few days with Thomas however ignited the competitive spirit in Nelly as she saw us praising and clapping whenever Thomas went to the toilet. Before long she was trying to do the same in Toowoomba and since returning to Brisbane I'm pleased to say that not a day has gone by without something being deposited in our little potty. It might be too early to say that she's cracked it but I think if we keep up the momentum it shouldn't be long now.

This is a picture of her sticker chart. Most of those have only come in the last week and I think we might be running out of room. The other worrying development is the amount of chocolate she's now ingesting as a result of regular success. Small price to pay for progress I suppose. Here's hoping we'll be out of nappies in the next few weeks!

Another Bunny

I already gushed on about how Eleanor has changed my outlook on life previously. While I consider myself a fairly imaginative fellow I cannot begin to fathom how special we are going to feel with the addition of another baby to the household. Thankfully I'm not going to have to try, as Eleanor is going to have a sibling in March 2014.

We officially broke the big news to Nell when we came back from our 13 week ultrasound and she's been running around the house shouting "I'm a big sister" at the top of her lungs. It's gorgeous and we think she's going to be nurturing and caring as long as we avoid giving her blankets to put the baby to "sleep".

The scan was uneventful, which is exactly what you should hope for at this stage I suppose. I must have been confusing the 19 and 13 week scans that we saw with Eleanor as I expected to see a little more on the screen. Even so it was so rewarding to see the baby moving around and listening to a strong heartbeat. Seems like all the bits are there so I guess that's a good sign.

Once again this baby refused to perform for the 3D pictures. I guess we'll just have to wait a couple of months till the next scan for more happy snaps.

Current due date is the 16th of March so I guess we should be getting ready for a Pisces in the family. Still no new Taurus but I'll learn to live with that. Grand Parents are of course ecstatic and mum has already made plans to come out for the birth and stay on until Eleanor's birthday.

Sounds like we're going to be pretty busy next year.

Second Year of the Father

I've never really paid much attention to Father's Day before. It's not that big a deal in Malaysia as far as I knew and my family situation at the time didn't leave much cause for celebration. Of course as one would expect, Eleanor has changed my outlook on this point. Though I have only had the fortune to mark two such days in my short period as a parent, I've come to appreciate the opportunity for reflection and thanks to all the wonderful intangible gifts that children give you.

So to commemorate my second Father's Day, I thought I'd share some recent musings and observations of my daughter.

A Shared Love for Food

I can't imagine how any child in our family would grow up without an appreciation for food and dining. Even so I'm grateful that Eleanor has exhibited a healthy (matter of opinion) interest in different types of food and ingests most new dishes with gusto, albeit with minor protest initially at times. Sharing a favourite dish is especially rewarding whether it is a bowl of ramen (or noodles of any sort), pancakes with bacon or in this case; a mountain of shaved ice, sliced mango and ice-cream.

An Interest in Games

Eleanor's dexterity for using the iPad has come leaps and bounds in the last six months. I can play a half decent game of Fruit Ninja with her now and she has grown quite adept at finishing puzzle apps that I have downloaded. Introducing Nelly to board games was something that I've been looking forward to though I imagine that I'm going to have to be patient for a while longer. Initial tests with Snake and Ladders proved to be challenging but to my delight she seems to really like playing with my Go stones and board. She isn't learning any Joseki yet but she does enjoy building pictures with the black and white stones so I guess that's a start.

A Great Sense of Humour

It's a constant surprise to me to discover how witty my two year old is. She takes delight in making us laugh and exhibits what I think is a sophisticated sense of humour for her age. Eleanor always seems to find interesting ways to showcase her creativity, whether it's coming up with new lyrics for a song or twisting the rules of a game that we play. Something that we find rather amusing is her peculiar and somewhat morbid technique for putting her dolls to sleep under "blankets".

We had a really nice Father's Day weekend this year. It started off with a special dress up Friday at Day Care for the kids with Superheroes being the theme. I'd like to say that we put a lot of effort into Eleanor's costume but it ended up being a matching top and bottom with red underpants and a safety pinned tea towel. Budget and effort aside I think she pulled off the look with moderate success.

On Saturday we drove up to Toowoomba to spend the weekend with the Grandparents. I woke up on Sunday to receive a hand painted mug, new jammie pants and a trendy belt from my girls. Most of the morning was punctuated by shrieks of "Happy Father's Day Daddy!" from Eleanor which was just wonderful. I couldn't be luckier or happier.

Climbing into Bed

As mentioned in a previous post, graduating from her baby cot to a full grown single bed has in the planning for Eleanor for a while now. A few weekends of hunting through bed shops and we found something that will hopefully serve Nelly for many years to come. Being the practical sort we opted for a more conservative bed head and style over some of the sickeningly saccharine selections we were offered. Let's hope our little girl doesn't make us regret that decision by asking for a princess themed bed head for her fifth birthday.

Weeks of planning lull you into a false sense that you're prepared to see your little girl take another step to growing up. It was rather surreal experience to clear her bedroom of furniture and stand back while the delivery boys assembled her new bed in place. The emotional whiplash occurred when we finally made the put on the sheets and watched our baby girl lie in it for the first time, causing us to wonder if we made the right decision upon seeing her tiny frame swallowed by the expanse of duvet around her.

It quickly became obvious that while she could descend from the bed easily enough by sliding down, getting onto it was another matter entirely. Thankfully we had a spare step that we bought from Ikea lying around which has served comfortably as her "ladder" to climb in. While we were initially concerned about the amount of space we'd lose I think we managed to shift enough furniture around to settle at a comfortable if somewhat spartan arrangement for the bed room. At least it's reasonably child proof now compared to the cluttered mess we've ignored for the last two years.

The first night was trying as expected. To Nelly's credit she never once requested her dummies that she had just relinquished that afternoon. As a reward for donating her "dodos" to the possums, she woke up the next morning (after a respectable night of rest) to see a thank you present left by her furry friends. Fascinating that they knew Nelly is enamoured with Peppa Pig.

It's been a week now since the bed has been delivered and I cannot begin to describe how proud we are of how well Eleanor has made the transition. The week had not gone to plan either with Mummy spending the majority of it in hospital (everything is ok thankfully on that front) so our girl has put on a brave face in pretty adverse conditions. In a few short days we have progressed from distressing bed times to a pretty comfortable routine and I can only imagine that she will grow more comfortable with her new arrangement. Even more amazing is that she still hasn't asked for a dummy. Not once.

What a great daughter we have. She's growing up so quickly.

Poo Poo for You

We have been meaning to try toilet training Eleanor for a while now, but with family visiting and holidays planned we just haven't had an appropriately long uninterrupted stretch to try. With the birthday events complete and the house to ourselves again we pressed the advantage and encouraged Nelly to try her potty whenever possible.

Though we weren't particularly disciplined about enforcing potty use over the last month, we've certainly been talking to Eleanor as much as possible to get her used to the idea. A few of her friends at day care use the "koilet" so it's not a foreign concept to her. Even so we were taken by surprise when she proclaimed in the car last week that she'd like a big girl bed, and would do so when she learned to do a poo in the "koilet". 

As an aside she also decided that she'd voluntarily give up her "do dos" (pacifiers) that she uses to go to sleep once she has a big girl bed. We're optimistic but a little skeptical that she'll follow through as she currently requires three dummys and a coterie of trusted stuffed animals to complete her nightly ritual.

Anyway, back to the point of this entry. We had just returned home from lunch with Sheenie and Grand Dad when Eleanor decided that she needed to do a poo. Nothing too exciting as we'd had many false alarms before but we obliged and let her sit in the corridor opposite Daddy who also had business to attend to. Perhaps it was the joy of company or maybe she was just old enough and it was time, but she stayed still long enough to produce a magnificent turd in her white plastic receptacle. Whoops of elation all around and I think more than a little relief.

I'll spare everyone a photo of the actual deed, though rest assured that one was taken for posterity. We celebrated by changing Eleanor into some toddler training nappies and pants... which she promptly wet about half an hour later while watching TV on the carpet. I guess it's a start.

Now we have plans to go shopping for a bed to replace the cot in her room. I wonder if we can still put bars on them to prevent her from coming into our room to wake us up at five in the morning.

Nelly Turns Two

Holy crap where has the time gone. Our baby girl turned two years old this month which is just crazy when I think about it. Maybe if I posted on the blog more I wouldn't feel obligated to start each entry with a whinge about how time is flying by so quickly. Hrm...

Mum, Dad and Mak Long flew out on the Saturday before Nelly's birthday to spend the week with us. Most of the time we had together was spent talking about food, cooking food or eating food so it's no wonder that my pants are feeling a little tighter as a result. Our first task at hand was preparing for the little girl's first party on the 16th with all her friends (and accompanying mums).

We were quite pleased with the result of our cake last year so once again we selected a recipe to attempt from the Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake book (vintage edition mind you). Eleanor helped pick out what she wanted and only changed her mind three times before settling on a rather cute teddy bear cake that didn't look too difficult. The trickiest part was managing the different coloured icing for the mouth and tummy compared to the rest of the cake, which we achieved with the help of plastic cups.

The rest of the icing process was a delicate operation that raised tension between Mummy and Daddy in the kitchen but in the end we pulled together to produce a reasonable facsimile of the bear showcased in the book. Except ours is arguably superior for the use of pink icing and a children's vitamin C tablet sliced in half for a tongue.

The cake went down a treat with the kids though we were left with the better part of a head and shoulder at the end of the day. Normally I'd be happy to have something sweet to snack on in the fridge but with three women shopping for food every day for the week our ice box was packed to capacity.

Being the first to blow the candles out was more challenging than we expected for Eleanor as all her friends wanted to help out. John seemed quite keen to lend a hand as he had lots of practice at his own birthday a couple of weeks before hand. Relighting the candle a few times a allowed our girl a chance to do it herself with minimal assistance from Callista.

John and Sheena drove Mary down as well to see the birthday girl on the day so we took an opportunity to photograph the four generations of girls. Nelly as always was very happy to see her great grandmother though I unfortunately failed to take a single photo with everyone looking at the camera properly. Here's the best of an odd bunch.

Eleanor received a lot of very exciting presents for her birthday but I think one that I found quite special (especially since I helped to assemble it the night before) was her first bicycle, bought by her Ah Kong. I didn't think she'd be keen to wear the safety helmet but she's surprisingly accommodating. We all took great joy in pushing her around the house while she applied the brakes and rang the bell with glee.

The day after her birthday was reserved for a family trip out to Alma Park Zoo. We had been talking about the zoo for months before hand but wanted to save the experience to share with Mum, Dad and Mak Long when they were out. The zoo was pretty well looked after but we were assaulted by swarms of mosquitoes that must have just hatched after the downpour the night before. Nelly was quite severely attacked but that didn't seem to bother her that much and she liked looking at the animals.

The following day was actually Mak Long's birthday so we decided to hit the road again and head down to the Gold Coast for some fish and chips. The weather was absolutely brilliant and we had a really nice day driving up and down the coast with a few stops to walk on the sand and gobble down an ice-cream.

The last event we had planned was another party on Saturday to celebrate the two birthday girls for the week. In a rather self serving gesture I suggested to Mum and Mak Long that we cook up a Malaysian inspired feast for the family to share, which they generously agreed to do. Alison helped cook (and will hopefully continue to cook) a smorgasbord of malay dishes including; beef rendang, pulut kuning, nasi lemak and large helpings of sambal. Absolutely divine so we all indulged and left very little for left overs.

It was a really short trip for Eleanor to see her Nenek but I think she had a great time seeing everyone out here. I'd hope that we can try and make it back to Malaysia soon as I really have a hankering for some more nasi lemak now. I think Nelly would happily brave the flight over to get a chance to eat as well as she did that week again.

We have had to re-structure her toy area and buy a new box to cater for the influx of presents for Eleanor. Some would say she's starting to get a little spoilt. I'd say she's worth it.

Christmas and Growing Children

My posts have been even more irregular than usual over the last three months, which is a crying shame because a lot has actually been happening in our lives. Between the sapping responsibilities of being a parent and trying to launch a fledgeling business, I haven't been able to find the energy to sit down and chronicle our recent activities. Heck, it's now four months into self employment and I haven't even done a blog post on how Socket Software is going... mental note, do blog post on how things are going.

This post isn't going to be a status update on the business (which I promise to save for another time) though if anyone is interested I did write a blog post on the company site about our latest foray into mobile applications. Instead I'll just keep to the handful of milestones that we've enjoyed over the last couple of months, of which there have been quite a few firsts.

In the lead up to Christmas we've been struggling with keeping Nelly's hair looking neat as it grew longer and unmanageable. Anticipating a few photos to be taken over the holidays and armed with the knowledge that we would have a professional photographer over to take some family photographs, we decided to take Eleanor out for her inaugural hair cut. Given how fidgety she usually is we were quite pleased with how well Nelly sat still. Perhaps the car seat along with Tom & Jerry on TV helped keep her occupied.

It was nice to have a week off from "work" to spend more time with the family. Ironically Alison had picked up a couple more shifts over Christmas so we still had to bounce back and forth between Brisbane and Toowoomba. Still we had a great time being looked after by the grandparents so that we could just focus on being together.

Another big first was John entrusting yours truly to cook the Christmas ham. Hams in the Liley household have traditionally been unglazed and lightly cooked if at all. I think the scrumptious results we achieved on Eleanor's first birthday may have helped convince him that glazes aren't really all that bad. Thankfully I don't think I screwed it up this time either.

Nelly wasn't particularly interested in unwrapping presents last year, so she seemed quite keen on make up for it this Christmas. In fact she was happy to help everyone else to open their presents too. One of the more popular acquisitions were two tea sets, one from Grandma and another from Auntie Dora. A day hasn't gone by since where she hasn't offered us a cup of tea which is just adorable.

Cousin Thomas was surprisingly interested in the tea set too and it was really cute to see the two kids play together over the holidays. I can only imagine how amazing it's going to be next Christmas now that we are expecting another niece/nephew in June. Such happy news and we just can't wait!

Nelly has been growing up so quickly. She seems to be understanding more and more each day and is becoming a very confident young lady. I'm sure the teachers at day care say this to all the parents, but it's nice to hear how well she is doing in class for her age. Even so, we're tiger parents and expect that she will have to start counting past her current numeric plateau of "two" as well as give this whole toilet training caper a red hot go before her upcoming birthday. No rest for the wicked!

We have ways of making you talk

We've been waiting for that "magic moment" where Eleanor spontaneously sprouts a fully formed sentence from left field. Chalk it up to being a naive parent but I actually thought it would be a distinct and easily recognisable milestone, though I'm beginning to realise that drawing a line in the sand on the beginning of speech is rather subjective. It might also have something to do with my high expetation that it's not good enough until we hear a full sentence with subject-verb-object out of her mouth.

The thing is, even with the impartial assessment of a doting parent, I am comfortable categorising our interactions with Eleanor over the last couple of months as valid bi-directional conversation. We aren't discussing the finer points of life quite yet but we aren't certainly enjoying little chats with our baby girl.

If pressed to admit what I think her first sentence was, it would be "Daddy do work". A little sad but indicative I suppose of what I have to look forward to being self employed. Here are a few choice quotes that we have saved for posterity. I may share a few more from time to time.

Eleanor staring at Blub Blub, a fighting fish we were looking after for some friends

Eleanor: Bah-lub bah-lub. Nummy nummy! (Nelly's current word for hungry or food)
Daddy: Yes, mummy is getting Blub Blub's food
Eleanor: No! Nummy nummy! (Pointing frantically at the fish bowl)
Daddy: What... do you want to eat Blub Blub?
Eleanor: *pause* (Smiles slowly) Yes...

Eleanor was being grizzly one evening and kept asking for a snack

Eleanor: Ga ga! (Eleanor's word for sultana) Gaaaaa gaaaaa!
Mummy: Your'e not behaving yourself Nelly. Only happy girls get sultanas
Eleanor: Hap-pee! Hap-pee! (Tries to smile) Gaaaaa gaaaaa!

Eleanor playing on the computer keyboard on the weekend while Daddy is checking email on the laptop

Daddy: You having fun? Are you doing work?
Eleanor: Yes. Work! (Continues to type away)
Daddy: That's good. (Finishes checking email and goes to pick up the guitar to play)
Eleanor: No! No! (Shakes finger angrily at Daddy) Do work!

While on the subject on language oriented exchanges, we've been delighted to see Eleanor really take to music and songs. She's fond of the guitar and often wants to play along or dance with Daddy and Mummy as we go through her favourites (my finger muscle memory have Old McDonald burned into them for life now). It's particularly gratifying to see her anticipate and preempt parts of the song that she knows. So cute. One day I'll have to actually tune that ukulele.

Tea and Family in Malaysia

We're back from two weeks in Malaysia and Singapore where we spent heaps of time with family. So much that we didn't manage to fit in our usual catch ups with friends this time around, though I guess we did just see most of them in February during our last visit. After all, our main purpose for this trip was to be there for Francois and Sam's tea ceremony, which also served as the first mostly full Chua gathering I can remember in over 10 years. It was good to see the UK contingent though a few absent cousins kept it from being a truly complete meet up.

I didn't end up taking that many photos of the event itself but what I did manage to snap can be seen here. Eleanor was dressed in the same Chinese outfit we had her in for CNY earlier in the year though I think she's fitting into it a lot better. Very cute and it's nice that we got another wear out of it.

Coming over from Brisbane with Nelly was a little more tiring than our last flight as now that she's grown to big we didn't have a basinet for respite. I usually get at least a few hours of sleep on the flight but I don't think either of us managed much rest this time. At least we had a bulk head row and two lovely old Italian grand mothers next two us that offered to look after the little girl for a while. The trip back to Brisbane was far worse with no sleep until we arrived home at 3AM so here's hoping that our next international flight with Eleanor in her own seat will be a little easier. I'm sure we still have it easy as far as crying babies on airplanes go.

Eleanor has always been a good eater and chowed down on heaps of local faire on her first visit to Malaysia. This trip she took it to a new level as she inhaled dish after dish, often unassisted. With so many aunties around she had lots of people putting food in her mouth as well and they were only encouraged when Nelly happily consumed a stream of tiny morsels. All of her Lau Ma (elder aunties) were particularly impressed with her ability to tolerate spicy food for someone her age. My favourite photo was one we snapped of her shovelling in a mouthful of fish head noodles. That girl sure loves noodles.

Yvonne acquired a dog since the last time we were back in Kajang in February. A cute little tea cup poodle named Elmo who resides in her room upstairs most of the day. Nelly seems to be developing an affinity for dogs and she particularly enjoyed saying hello to Elmo every day. It was particularly adorable at breakfast each morning, watching her struggle at the top of the stairs about whether to stay and play with Elmo some more or to descend slowly down the steps yelling "Nummy nummy nummy" (which is her word for food) at the top of her lungs. Most of the time food won out but I think it was a tough decision.

The second leg of our trip involved a drive down to Johor to stay at my cousin Ivan's house for the Moon Festival. I haven't had a mooncake in Malaysia for some time and this was Nelly's first chance to play with a lantern, not that she really seemed all that fussed about it. Not even the big bear lantern than played music and blinked lights when you turned it on, shame. We deflated the bear and brought it back to Australia on the off chance she might like it as much as we did one day.

Ivan's house had a fleet of toy cars that Eleanor became enamoured with. "Car" seems to be a new favourite word now as well and she loved driving the house around with a little assistance. I blame the Giggle Mobile for this fascination as she was certainly fond of tooting the horn and turning the wheel.

Our stay in Malaysia seemed to fly by pretty quickly and it was quite sad to leave Ah Ma and Ah Kong at the airport. At least they'll be in out with Mak Long next April for Eleanor's second birthday (yikes that's approaching quickly!). Ah Kong couldn't resist buying Nelly a toy she wanted before getting on the plane.

Next stop was a short stay in Singapore for a few nights to see James, Dora and little Thomas. We had seen Thomas just a while ago when he came to Toowoomba but James and Dora did not get a chance to see Eleanor then, so this was the first time the six of us have been together since Christmas at Coolum. It was really nice to see the kids play together and how they've changed in such a short time.

My most recent trip to Singapore had me staying at the Marina Bay Sands hotel, which is right across from the new Gardens by the Bay but I didn't get a chance to check it out. Not wanting to miss it again we woke up early on Saturday to spend the morning walking around the trees. The Cloud Forest and Flower Dome looked interesting but we didn't feel like coughing up $28 each to go in, maybe next time when Nelly is a little older. The $5 for the elevated walkway was fine and well worth it for the view of the gardens and the surrounding area. 

For lunch that day we stuffed ourselves silly at the Regent high tea buffet. We'd been looking forward to this for a while and there were certainly a great selection of dishes to sample. Perhaps the only disappointment was the absence of the chilli crab sauce which was a previously available item. The kids were very well behaved and won a few admirers by the end of the day, including the head chef.

It was wonderful to have such a long uninterrupted break to spend time with Nelly and Alison. I really feel like she's grown up during our little trip overseas. I still wouldn't say that she's talking conversationally yet, but she's certainly speaking with new words and a vocabulary that grows by the week. In the back of my mind throughout the holiday I was thinking about how different life will be now that I'm home all the time with the new business. Given that I'll be able to spend more time with this little angel I'm so pleased that we decided to try a change in our lives.