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.

Taking a Chance

I wouldn't necessarily consider us "lottery people", but over the past few years we've established a bit of a tradition to buy one ticket on birthdays. It makes for a simple add-on to slip into a card and because we buy the cheapest ticket with the least numbers possible (which I'm sure doesn't affect our chances of not winning in the slightest) it just serves to provide a little extra excitement on the day. We are rational people and understand that there's no real chance in making our fortune through a single ticket, but that doesn't stop us from dreaming of how our lives could change. Putting aside the cliche of blowing a responsible portion of our imagined new found wealth on a new house, new toys and a luxurious round the world trip, we would eventually turn our fictitious life planning towards what to do vocationally for the rest of our lives.

Software Development was something that I took to very quickly once I was introduced to programming in high school. It's something that I enjoy far beyond a means to put food on the table, so in my newly found fictitious state of financial independence I naturally choose to retain this aspect of my work. I dream of working out of a home office with flexible hours and building software and products that I'm interested in and enjoy using. I dream of having the luxury to decide what I think is important to work on and when, so that I can be around to appreciate the early years of my little girl and growing family. I dream of owning something that I can point to and say I've built with my own hands, rather than an organisation that I have a transient relationship with.

At this point I should clarify that we haven't won the lottery. In fact, it's quite the opposite of that. I did however find that following a thought experiment of what I would do if I had won the lottery helped to frame what may seem like a reckless leap in my career. Last week I put my resignation in at Flight Centre with the intention to start a new business in partnership with my long-suffering colleague and frequent supervisor, Chris Perry. Rather than waiting to cash in that winning ticket, we've decided that it's worth acting as if we've already won and to see where that may take us.

I have three weeks left at the company, with Chris and me finishing up on the 20th of September. I'm certainly finding it hard to leave a place where I've invested as much as I have over the last four years. It's particularly difficult with all the things happening at work right now and I will regret leaving a great group of people that are on the cusp of making some very exciting changes to the business. Alison and I already had two weeks of holidays booked for Francois and Sam's wedding so that will be a nice break before we kick into real work. It might just be the last long holiday we have for a while so I'm keen to unwind and relax as much as possible.

The name of the new business is Socket Software and we aim to focus on a combination of developing software products for the market, custom development and consulting. We have a couple of existing products already that have been soft launched and a register of new ideas that we can market test to see what to do next. Unlike the beginning of most Cinderella start up stories that I've read, we don't have a specific idea that we feel is going to change the world. Our intentions are a little more modest. We believe that we might just have enough capability and chutzpah to make a career choice that is going to change our lives.

Here's hoping we have a winning ticket.