To know if someone is a “true” Aussie, he/she must pass the “vegemite” test.  If the person eats it without screwing his/her face up, you have an Aussie in front of you!  Of course, we had to test Michael’s “Aussieness” by giving him some vegemite toast.  To the pleasure of his Dad, Michael absolutely LOVED it.  In fact, he couldn’t quite stop himself from wanting more.

We have been quite busy as well.  Now that Michael can crawl, the entire house is effectively a danger zone.  It just has too many pieces of furniture with glass features plus suddenly the power supply and sharp edges are everywhere!  We are dreading to safe proof the house but it will not be long before Michael has a big bruise on his head and his parents will finally do something!

As the summer heats up, Michael had his first swimming lesson a few weeks ago.  No, Michael doesn’t exactly attend stroke improvement classes but yes, his Dad is there to help him get familar with water and learn a few survival techniques.  Michael went under the water last weekend and they actually taught Ian the technique to avoid the baby from being too scared.  Michael had loads of fun!

As well as the above activities, we reached a few big milestones too.  Number 1 is Michael finally had his first cold.  I got a cold and gave it to Ian, then Ian gave it to Michael.  He was a pretty sick monkey but got over it in no time.  Number 2 is Michael had his first haircut!  Boy his parents thought they were daring.  Check out the results in the photos!

All is well in Hong Kong.  Enjoy our photos and video,

Until next time…

If you have travelled with a young baby for a holiday, you will understand what the title means.  We definitely underestimated the power of a baby and all the bells and whistles that come along with the trip.  Again, I should have listened to my husband more (when will I start doing that?!)  Our key memories were:

- the suitcase for Michael was so big that his dad only occupied 10% of our biggest luggage!

- everything (and we mean everything) was about Michael during our four days… his food, his sleep, his rountine, his play time… we started to wonder if it was Michael’s holidays more than ours!

- group travel can be hard at the best of times. We were lucky enough to travel with two other families that were as chilled and laid back as we are.  However everything was still about the kids (and there were 4 of them!).

Despite the fatigue, we had loads of fun with Michael.  He was such a good boy (gosh, mom can’t help but gloat about her son!!!).   He played with the other babies and had a few swims.  He is itching to crawl but can’t quite get it yet.  In a matter of weeks, he will be zooming around the house for sure.

We got plenty of blue sky and sunshine but vowed never to travel for only 4 days to anywhere again!

Here are the photos for your enjoyment:

 

Until next time, love from Hong Kong.

p.s. Michael will start his swimming lessons next Saturday.  We’re looking forward to that!

It has been 8 months 1 week and 1 day of breastfeeding.  And I am going to miss it.  What I will miss the most is the connection I have with Michael during breastfeeding and while expressing at work.  All the hardwork in the first few weeks seemed like ancient times now, but there were lots of trying and determination to get Michael to be where he is.

I feel less of a Mom when I will no longer breastfeed.  But Ian reminds me that Michael is onto a different stage and he is as healthy a boy as he is now, because of all the “white gold”.  I shall have very fond memories, especially:

- What a cow I was to produce as much as 40oz of breastmilk a day!!!

- How gross to think that I multi-task in expressing milk and talking on the conference call!

- How heartbroken I was when all my breastmilk reserve went rotten due to my broken fridge!

- How my right breast always produced more milk than the left one!

Breastfeeding has been a really really rewarding experience and I encourage any new mother to give it a go and persist with it.  Your child and you will gain as much as the hardwork it requires.

So Long…

Michael turns 8 months this week and here are our lovely photos:

 

This was how Michael was brought to life and We are a BIG advocate of it.  This news clip gives a 101 version of what Hypnobirthing is all about.  If you are REALLY interested, there is a whole blog dedicated to it!  It really worked for us and hope it will do the same for you, if you’re considering a natural, drug-free birth!

Check out our earlier post on Hypnobirthing: http://apprenticelacy.wordpress.com/2007/08/25/hypnobirthing-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%9cohmmm%e2%80%9d/

Enjoy and until next time… love from Hong Kong.

Every year, Nanna Jill and Poppa Rod will take their annual trip to England to visit Michael’s great granddad Fred and great grandma Eleanor.  This year, great granddad Fred turned 90 years old and so it was extra special.  On their way back to Australia, Nanna and Poppa stayed in Hong Kong and hung out with Michael.

What fun they had!  Even though the weather wasn’t particularily great (rained most days), they got to spend quality time playing a lot.  We learned that Poppa can make really funny animal sounds and put together a dog out of some wires.  Nanna was great too as she gave the best cuddles and sang me songs!  Initially we worried that Michael might have “stranger anixety” but that didn’t happen at all (except to Poh Poh who dropped by and she was quite heart-broken!  We’ll try to make it up next week!).

Besides playing at the apartment, they also took walks around the neighborhood and many of the shop keepers gooed and gahed at Michael while his proud grandparents enjoyed their shopping and egg tarts! Of course, Nanna and Poppa also enjoyed all the good aussie meals that our helper May had put together.  They tasted extra nice especially when there was no washing up to do!

Michael behaved like the perfect “Gina Ford” baby throughout their stay.  This behavior continued up until the last evening, when Nanna and Poppa were leaving.  Only then did Michael not want to go down for a sleep!!  Michael must have known that his grandparents were leaving and it was his way of saying “I will miss you guys!”… but this was our way to tell Rod & Jill that Michael isn’t exactly “perfect” either!

Lots of good photos came out of the trip and the long weekend.  Enjoy the two photo albums and we look forward to seeing them soon!

Until next time when we will write about the fun time on the grass… with love from Hong Kong.

As Michael ”wolfed down” his beef casserole (beef with sweet potato & carrot), his Dad talked about the ad campaign he saw as a kid in Australia - ”FEED THE MAN MEAT”… Michael must be a true Aussie!  In fact, he has loved beef since he was a fetus, as all I could stomach during the first 3 months of pregnancy was beef.  Go figure!

Besides beef, Michael has started his solids adventure with gusto!  Thanks to our Aussie children recipes and Gina Ford’s book for weaning, here is the list of food he has had since turning six months old:

1. Carrots – hated at first but then grew to like it

2. Zucchini – loved it at first taste

3. Pumpkin – loved it even with the skin still there!

4. Broccoli – learned to get used to it, but gave him rashes that wouldn’t go away…

5. Sweet Potato – surprisingly, it was just a so-so

6. Cauliflower – loved it

7. Yogurt – it tasted so bad that he wanted to gag it out!

8. Long Beans – barely ok (wouldn’t prefer it in any day)

9. Chicken Casserole – couldn’t stand it the first day but is now having it at every lunch, because we cooked way too much!

10. Fish with baby spinach and potato – like the fish but hate the spinach!

11. Cabbage - just ok

12. Beef Casserole – loved it; ate it all within 10 minutes (it usually takes about 30 minutes for the others!)

13. Apple & Pear – we left it quite late in the process, but of course Michael loves them because of the sweetness

Every morning, Michael has his milk feed followed by breakfast (oatmeal cereal with fruit).  At lunch, he has about 3 tablespoons of chicken / fish mixed with 4 tablespoons of veggie.  Then comes his milk, which he doesn’t like very much, since we’re feeding him half formula and half breast milk.  At dinner, he will have about 3-4 tablespoons of meat and then 4 tablespoons of fruit.  What a life!  I don’t think I am eating as well as him!  However Michael definitely seems to enjoy it, so on we go with offering him more.

He also has two teeth at the bottom now.  Soon, he will be eating vegemite on toast!  We can’t wait!

Until next time, we’re counting down for Nanna and Poppa’s visit to Hong Kong. 

 

What is Mother’s Day, one may ask?!  Well certainly, in the civilized world, it’s nothing more than a day for more consumerism (flowers, dinners at a restaurant, possibly a gift).  Is this all it means?!

To me, my first Mother’s Day was all about being loved and pampered.  Michael wouldn’t know much of what went on, but his Dad certainly took the effort to make it a special first:

- a local philharmonic orchestra concert (more of an excuse to go on a date than anything!  Our first theatre activity since Michael was born.  It was just so nice to get dressed up and be emerged in the world of classical music!)

- an e-card from Michael (with some help from his Dad!)

- shopping without a list (those that know us well will know shopping without a list in this Lacy household is SOOOO forbidden.  However this was my lucky day!)

- my favorite Sunday SCMP in bed (of course, it’s the magazine that I was going after!)

We didn’t have the typical flowers or dinner at a restaurant, but we as a family experienced firsthand a celebration of love, which was way better than I expected!  A photo of us at a housewarming party just prior to Mother’s Day:

So, to all the Mothers in the world – especially Michael’s Grandmas (Nanna Jill and Poh Poh) and the two Great-Grandmas in Macau and England - we hope you had a wonderful Mother’s Day too.  Without you, Michael wouldn’t be here celebrating my first Mother’s Day!

Love from Hong Kong.

Time to finally sit down and indulge myself on our lovely holidays!  We were away for 2 weeks.  Michael was the “devil” child on the flights – he didn’t sleep at all on the way to Oz (though he didn’t scream either) and cried most of the way when we returned (the excuse was that he didn’t take any naps)!  Thank god for him being such a cute looking baby…you tend to get away with really rude stares as a result!

We started off with crashing at Ian’s parents house, which was alot for Michael – a strictly scheduled baby.  Everything was new to him – the bright sun, the smell (the freshness is surely shocking to his HK-adapted lungs), the space and all the different baby gears!  He found it all a bit chaotic to get used to and the first few nights he had lots of waking!  Thank GOD we brought the car seat along- whenever he woke in the middle of the night, out of desperate measures, we would put him in the car seat and he would sleep through!  Thank goodness for that!

He met lots of his daddy’s friends and by the time we reached Lennox Head, we were all a bit tired.  We rented a place by the beach (5 minutes walk) and we could hear the ocean.  It was gorgeous!!!!  We didn’t do much while we were there, except going down to the beach and having too many Flat Whites!  Life was good!  Michael also had a feel of what salt water and sand were like.  He certainly ate lots of sand and had drunken plenty of salt water!  By the time we left, we swore that Michael had a bit of sun tan in him!

Here is our heavenly Lennox:

 

Although it has been a month already, the fresh air and the sound of waves still ring loud and clear in my head!  We can’t wait to be back…

Until next time, Love from Hong Kong.

p.s. it was in Lennox Head when Michael turned from his tummy to back (although we couldn’t capture it on video!)…

Happy Birthday to Michael, who turned 6 months yesterday.  He had his first bite of rice cereal and took a liking to it (we think)… we forgot the bib at first and quickly learned that it was a mistake!  oh well, first time for everything!  The fact that we think he ate more than he spat out was also a good sign.  After a few days, we will probably try out carrot as our first veggie… let’s see how it goes!   

Besides taking his first bite, Michael gave us a huge gift this weekend!  We finally discovered a faint white line on his lower gum!  It’s no wonder why he has been waking up at night and dribbling like crazy.  We were really excited to see that!   

Enjoy our photos and I am still writing about our beach talk blog!

 

much love from hong kong!

I read it on another blog and thought these were great mommy’s wisdom

(1) The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes one a mother-which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.– Sydney J. Harris

(2) Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. ~Meryl Streep

How are you as a musician today?!?!

Michael is well and I have been missing him tremendously this week.  Luckily every morning his morning grin is still the sunshine of my life.

Love from Hong Kong.