The Most Beautiful Girl in the World

Such an exciting week. We picked mum up from the airport on Wednesday and rushed her home to show off all the changes to the house since she'd last been out. She's thoroughly impressed and intends to show her appreciation by fattening us up with great food for the next five weeks. I can already hear the people at work grumbling with jealousy at the packed lunches to come.

The big news this week however has to be our visit to the hospital on Friday for the "big scan". We've been asked a few times if we intended on finding out the sex of the baby and thankfully Alison and I both see eye to eye on this issue. We figure there are more than enough surprises in parenting that saving this one for the birthday seems unnecessary. Just incase the title of the post weren't enough of a clue, the next addition to the Chua clan will be a girl.

The report was once again totally positive, in fact she seems to be growing a lot faster than expected with quite a few measurements ahead of the curve. That's my girl, excelling already.

Biparietal Diameter	44.6 mm
Occipitofrontal Diamater	59.6 mm
Head Circumference	169 mm
Transcerebellar Diameter	20.1 mm
Abdominal Circumeference	142.8 mm
Femur Length	33.3 mm

We were given a DVD to take home that included a recording of the entire scan. Of course I couldn't resist the urge to edit this and put a few highlights on YouTube. Do you need to get a fetus to sign a consent form?



Future baby purchases should be a lot easier now that we have confirmation of gender, as will selecting a name obviously. The final moniker will have to wait till we meet face to face without sonographic assistance; till then we have decided to keep the potential candidates a secret too until the final selection has been made. People seem a little too candid with their appraisal of names if they think it hasn't been finalised and it's enough of a challenge as it is for Alison and me to reach consensus. Regardless, I imagine that I'll continue to refer to "Daddy's little girl" for as long as she'll let me.

Accumulating Stuff

It's funny how life seems to work against your best intentions. I would be the first to admit that my love for all things shiny and new does little to help our bank account or mortgage, but I've honestly been trying over the last few months to keep the gadgetry purchases to a minimum. Sure, it hasn't been that hard given that most of my luxury time has been spent on playing just one game but I reckon I deserve points for effort.

Of course this would be the month that threw us some mandatory roof repairs, a financial screw up where I transferred a significant amount of dosh to the wrong account, a car that refused to start, obstetrician bills, a large dentist bill for a crown to replace my fractured molar and to top it off... our Topfield Set Top Box decided to break. Granted not the most financially damaging event by comparison but I'll put up with practically anything except for a threat to my personal entertainment.

My view on extended warranties has centered around the philosophy that defective products would likely break in the first year, which means that it's a fairly rare case where I pick up the extra two years offered at the check out. Kinda ironic then that the two big purchases that I opted to buy into the extended warranty have both broken down, one of which thankfully was the latest Topfield blow up. There was a moment of panic when I couldn't find the receipt from the Good Guys but I eventually pulled it out of a completely unrelated folder in our filing cabinet (perhaps it's time to get a new system). The warranty company took their sweet time processing the request which meant that we had to cope with the horror of unpausable live TV or recording ability for a good three weeks (gasp). This weekend however they finally came through and we were asked to pop down to the local store to pick up a replacement, not a Topfield but what I hope to be a far more reliable Beyonwiz DP-Lite



The system will take some getting used to but so far it seems to be doing the job. I certainly like the improvements to the EPG and a bump to the amount of storage from 320GB to 500GB is welcome. Hopefully history won't repeat itself but I once again grabbed an extended two year warranty so we'll see if this turns into a self fulfilling prophecy.

Our other purchases this weekend have all been for the bub, and it's kind of scary how much we've gathered in a short afternoon. A colleague of Alsie's has been desperate to offload the majority of her baby gear now that her two sons have no need for rattles and wraps, so we took a drive out to their house to have a peek at what was available. In the end we pretty much picked up the whole lot for a very reasonable price, which means that our place is now filled to the brim with a subset of work tools for parenthood. These include:

• Cot
• Four wheeled super transforming stroller
• Nappy bag
• Diaper dispenser
• Baby bottle sanitiser
• Assorted colourful toys to keep Daddy and Baby entertained

I'm sure there's a good reason for it but surely there must be an easier way to design a stroller. We unfolded it when we got back home and it took the next ten minutes of straining, pushing and twisting to get the darn thing to collapse again. It was a nostalgic moment for me as I thought of my childhood Transformers (tm) toys that required a degree in Mechanical Engineering to work out.

Most of the goodies have been tucked away in the study now, but one acquisition that's made me take stock of this experience was setting up the cot in the back room. We now have a nursery, along with stuff toys that I've had for years to be passed on. It's the first of what I'm sure will be many new bits of furniture and decorations the baby's room and I can already feel the house changing into a family home.



Mum's flying in on Wednesday and this will be the first time she's seen the house since the renovations and changes. Boy is it going to seem different.

Keeping busy

Babies, house keeping and Starcraft. That's pretty much all I've been up to outside of work for the past few weeks. Which is actually a nice change as things have been frightfully busy at work with lots of conferences and activity going on at the office and no sign of the schedule slowing down as we approach the Christmas period. In fact I'm likely going to have to make a trip to the UK in December for a week to gather some requirements for our applications, which would be an exciting opportunity if it didn't coincide with mum's visit and a concert that Alsie and I were planning on going to. Such is life I guess.

This latest Flight Centre conference had us on the ferry to Moreton Island for a nice sunny break and the usual corporate review. Shame that all but the last day had us stuck indoors as the clouds dumped on us, perfect weather for the pub but not all that conducive to dolphin feeding or sailing. Saturday night was a fancy dress buzz night where we had to come as a Tarantino or Spielberg character, so the team rocked up in attire inspired by the Lost Boys from Steve's triumphant work, Hook. Oh how many times I watched that movie as a kid.



Sunday was a little nicer outdoors so we got a chance to do some quad biking. Didn't end up being as awesome as I thought it would be which was a shame. I'd pick go-karting over that any day but it was nice being able to do something in the sun.



Call us overenthusiastic but we somehow found ourselves buying baby Chua's first bit of clothing the other week at Myer. What started out as a trek across this store to find an extra item to purchase to qualify for a discount ended up with the two of us cooing at baby socks and prints of anthropomorphic animals on jump suits. One of which we purchased as it had a cow on it, adding this to the small collection that started with some lovely presents from Krit for the bun in the oven.



The fixation with Starcraft has not begun to wane as yet, with most nights dedicated to frantic mouse clicking in the attempt to best some random 13 year old kid in Singapore that obviously knows what he's doing compared to me. Oh if only one didn't have to work to support a family. Never one to take responsibility for my failures I decided to blame my gross uncoordinated flailing mouse cursor on my wireless mouse, and splurged on getting a "proper" corded gaming peripheral. It glows in the dark and has 10 different options for customization that I don't understand so I'm sure my performance is about to rise to a whole new level of incompetence.



On the odd occasion Alison has successfully dragged me off the computer to do something constructive around the house, or you know... spend some time with the mother of my child. This weekend we busted out the sand paper and started preparing the outdoor table for a future paint session. Even with a smooth finish it's looking a lot better than it did before so we can't wait to see how it turns up after a fresh coat of paint.



Aside from that it's just been normal house work and infrequent yard mowing while we wait for mum's upcoming visit in November. The place is looking pretty established now though neglect has resulted in a few weeds popping up here and there. Personally I blame the warming weather and freakish level of rain we have experienced in the last month. Better get those gardening gloves on again.