18 months already

"what a lucky girl she is!" my friend exclaimed when hearing about Sophie's adventures.

"You are wrong" I told my friend. "It is not that Sophie is lucky to have this life, but we (her parents) are lucky to be able to share it with her."



My dear daughter,

I am sure the blinkers of parental bias would have engendered the same passionate love; even if you were not the delight that you truly are.

Inasmuch as we would like to believe that it is down to our superb parenting skills and carefully planned organic menu, I am afraid we only had a relatively small part to play in your development.

Whether divine providence, karmic lottery, or genetic jackpot, I am absolutely convinced that your keen intelligence and extremely intense nature were entirely inborn. So far you've demonstrated that you have an excellent memory and you appear to have a precocious musicality which has sparked a great deal of excitement. Your proud parents tend to waver between finding a way to let you develop your gifts, and protecting you from unnecessary stress.

We are likely to make mistakes, we probably will cause you much emotional pain (although this will probably be nothing like what you are likely to inflict on us). Parenting must be the only job in the world where one undertakes the maximum level of risk and responsibility, coupled with no actual control. You are your own little person. A fact which fills me with wonder each time you remind me of it.

If the last 18 months were anything to go by, the next 18 years of your life will probably be alternately exhausting and exhilarating. We are just so glad to be a part of it, and never wish to forget the unique gifts you've graced our lives with - simply by being in it.

Love always - mama and papa

Eternal Life

This morning I realised that a friend had died.

It wasn't someone I knew really well, but whom I considered fondly as one who brought joy to other people that I knew and cared about. And sometimes that is all you need as a basis - call it friendship by contact if you will, but the sadness that comes afterwards is still a personal one.

Peace be with you.

She actually really does it!!

Some months ago, the nanny quite proudly announced to me that Sophie could now read Chinese. I sort of dismissed it as the prattling of a dear lady who loves and adores my kid to bits, and was probably mistaken.

We went to Long Qing Gorge today with my Mom and Aunt and the windows in the car were misting up, so I idly scratched some characters onto the condensation with my finger. Sophie took a look and went "papa"...

AUGGGHHH.... It is true. She really reads. I tested various words before running out of window space (and attention span). So far, apart from "baba" she can read the Chinese characters for "mama", "horse", "car" and "soup".

I am stunned and also bursting with pride. She reads more Chinese than her dad. I am so glad that I have a good nanny, because I really do not think that I could have taught her all that myself, even if I didn't work. It just wouldn't have occured to me to do it, partly because I believe children should just be left to play and develop by themselves. But that she enjoys reading (and probably all the attention she gets from doing it!) and has so much fun that I begin to reconsider this stand, and I am extremely grateful to her ayi for it.

Curling up with a book

I've been reading "half of a yellow sun", and it really makes me think I should start writing again.

This blog is a way to force me to string words together in a roughly intelligible stream of conciousness, but it is a mostly a medium for my own records. To remember each sparkly magic moment that I enjoyed with much love and laughter.

Writing a book or even a long essay requires a lot more discipline, a kind of rigour which I miss. I don't know if there is any point to doing it apart from the satisfaction of having done so. It's the same motivations for running a marathon or climbing a mountain. Just the feeling of having been able to have done so.

To see the world in a grain of sand

I never intended to take my shoes off and wade into the sea, but clearly underestimated the power of "Mommy Please?".

The need to discover by touching, tasting and throwing stuff at, is something I thank her for teaching me each day.

Notes on the plane

The beauty of having both of us travel regularly for work is that we are less likely of falling into the "marriage trap" of taking the other person's presence for granted.

Our holiday in Japan was so wonderful, it was a real family holiday together and I fall in love with you again as the father of our child. You obviously love being a dad, and our daughter adores all the swinging, Eskimo-kissing, and being tickled to death by you. I was reading that girls are less likely to be in abusive relationships if they grew up with a strong father figure. I have no worries for Sophie on that front, and it is a real blessing.

I used to wonder how people could stay married for 50 years without getting bored. I have an inkling of that answer now. The natural progression of our relationship has not been without its fair share of fights and spats. But it's never reached a point where I ever doubted our love.

It something I am so happy about finding that I wish it for my "still looking" friends *(this kind of love that is, not the husband).

Am going to Singapore tommorrow

I have a conference to meet and greet clients and hopefully learn a great deal about this carbon trading business.

But it will be so fun to see everyone again, I haven't been back since New Year, and I am really excited about seeing everyone again.

It will be comforting since I am still upset about England beating France at Football.

Japan Holidays

We had an awesome holiday in Japan. It certainly did live up to the stereotypes about being extremely clean, well organised and polite. It was also surprisingly baby-friendly.

Some useful nuggets which parents travelling with toddlers might want to take note of:

1) Many parks have diaper changing areas and you can borrow a free stroller in most museums, nursing and rooms for your kid to have a nap can be found in most large department stores
2) Serviced Appartments are half the cost of a hotel, and you can choose a layout which favours an early bedtime schedule because parents can shut the bedroom door and sit in the kitchen to read guide books and enjoy a child-free dinner together
3) We tried a cheap ryokan and found out that co-sleeping does NOT work for us because our kid is so used to associating sleeptime with being alone and playtime with being with parents that when she is on a tatami mat together with her parents, she just can't sleep. Depending on your kid's sleeping pattern you might love or hate this communal sleeping thing

It was really wonderful having a long family vacation together, Sophie has benefited from all that extra time with her parents and learned silly stuff like how to:
1) meditate in a Zen Garden
2) say words like "Cool!" and "Mario! (just like the Nintendo PS2 game) - no prizes for guessing which parent taught her that one
3) also courtesy of her dad, she can say 3 syllable words like "asahi" !! I am trying to get her to forget that one before we go to Singapore, I think she'll freak out my parents if she can name the different Japanese beers before being able to say "elephant"
4) She has learnt that saying "coookie" and signing "please" works wonders, okay so the cookies are organic but I always wonder if I am setting her up for a lifetime of obesity and tooth decay if I start letting her eat cookies at 16 months (my husband thinks I should stop being paranoid and just enjoy both the holiday and our lovely daughter who shares her cookies with random strange dogs)

I think I like my job a lot. There was sufficient cover for my files, and whilst I did check email to ensure that it was still under control, I never had to interupt my vacation to actually do work.

You can see the rest of the photos here on my facebook account.

Although I love using Flickr, the free, unlimited storage space on Facebook draws me like a magnet.