Child Labour

The most disturbing thing I have personally experienced while on field school is occuring right here in Cambodia. The children of Siem Reap are being exploited by their parents to work as hawkers around the temple complexes like Angkor Wat. Our tour guide, a Cambodian born in Siem Reap who resisted his own father's attempts to have him drop out of school to become a fisherman or help with the rice crop, has instructed us not to buy from the children. I don't know how much it costs to send a child to school in Cambodia, but the parents feel it's a better investment in their child's future to have them sell beaded bracelets and cheap fans to tourists. I'm not saying Cambodia is bad and the West is perfect, mind you. Child exploitation is probably occuring in nearly every country in the world. By not buying from the children, the hope is their lack of production will make the parents give up the exploitation and send their child to school. I've seen enough adult hawkers at the sites to believe the family wouldn't lose much money by not using the children. If someone has the counter-argument as to why these children should be chasing tourists around, I would like to hear it. The only benefit I can see if that very young children learn how to count three American dollars and enough English to pester foreigners. It's hard to ignore and turn away these small children but I think it's for their own good. I did help one little boy today though by doing a bit more than just ignoring him. He was chasing my group around, trying to sell fans even though he looked to be about the same age as my eldest daughter. He had a runny nose so I got out a tissue and helped him blow his nose. I have troubles even thinking of sending off my eldest daughter to hassle tourists like his parents have done to him. I don't think I could ever be poor enough to consider it.

Things might happen quickly...

Since we were expecting our second child and and our first was born naturally, we were told that this birth might go faster than the first one. It really didn't start out that way though.

On Wednesday, Ying noticed she was leaking. We finally were convinced that it was amniotic fluid and she had a small hole in her membranes. She had a few very mild contractions but it wasn't time to go to the hospital. All our research said labour should start within 24 hours so we decided to wait. Thursday morning brought no change: very slow leak and a few more mild contractions. Ying had an appointment late in the afternoon so we thought we might wait for that. We did e-mail Rob and Tammy so I could let Rob know I probably wasn't going to come to work and, since they have six children and Tammy's going back to being a maternity ward nurse, they're a very valuable source of advice for my young family. Tammy phoned back a few minutes later and said to go to the hospital; there's a risk of infection if the membranes are broken so she thought they'd probably induce us. She was bang on.

My Grade 12 English teacher has a great philosophy on life which I've taken to heart, "start slow, and taper off." I would soon find that my second child is good at the first part of this but needs work on the second part.

9:30 - triage in the maternity ward. Ying's membranes are definitely broken and she'll be admitted and induced. Phoned Mom to come up from Edmonton if she wants to experience the birth.

14:45 - Ying's on a drip and the induction has started. Things should take a few hours so I step out for a necessary run to Superstore.

16:00 - I'm back. Ying had a quick nap. Mild contractions but they're more regular.

16:30 - Mom arrives. No change in Ying.

17:00 - Our nurse goes on break. Ying at 5 cm but was at 4 cm last week at her doctor appointment.

17:20 - Contractions are starting to get quite painful. Ying wants an epidural and the nurse covering says she can get one ready but Ying cannot have it in until our nurse comes back since the covering nurse cannot monitor two and assist with the epidural.

17:25 - Nurse goes to make arrangements for the epidural. "If you feel like pushing, press the call button."

17:28 - Very painful contractions. Ying: "I feel like pushing!" Me: "You were only 5 cm a little while ago. I don't think the baby's coming yet." Ying: "The baby's coming!" I hit the call button.

17:29 - Covering nurse comes in and takes a look at Ying: "hit the call button!" Nursing station over the intercom: "Yes?" Covering nurse: "we're having a baby in here!"

17:30 - A doctor who just happened to hear the call and Ying's screams at the nursing station and three or four other nurses burst into the room. "Hi, I'm Dr. O'Keane" We shake hands quickly as he assesses the situation and I try to hold Ying down during another very painful contraction.

17:36 - After a few minutes of pushing and screaming, Shannon Wei Reynard enters the world.

After the birth, Ying's quite shocky because of how everything developed so quickly. Shannon's cleaned up and presented to her grandma. We were all able to relax in the birthing room. Shannon barely cried the whole time and spent a long, long time suckling on Ying and being content. Ying was moved into a room to spend the night. The evening meal had been served so Mom and I picked up some soup and a grilled cheese sandwich from the cafeteria downstairs. Ying proved she had fully recovered by polishing off both in no time.

The sex

LP and I just returned from an ultrasound appointment. The baby looks healthy and is developing well. It's size indicates the due date is 6 July 2009. We took a little check "down there" and, unlike the groundhog and its shadow a few days ago, we saw nothing.

In a way, that's good. We only can think of one girl's name and no boys names. When they hit puberty, I can send the girls off to have all those difficult talks with their mother. I'm now thinking of building a boys' recreation room and bathroom in the basement. WaiPo might be disappointed because she had three girls and is now expecting her third granddaughter. My only reason for wanting a boy is that Julie is very cute, or so I'm told, and has set the bar pretty high for a little sister.

Julie Walks

After a few little steps this weekend, we finally got some of Julie's first steps on video this afternoon. Two days short of ten months and six days from her first plane ride to China, Julie's getting around on her own two feet. More to come as events warrant.

Photographic tips

I've been listening to Chris Marquardt's Tips From the Top Floor on my iPod while I ride the bus to work and there are lots of useful tips and tricks for aspiring photographers like myself. One trick I learned recently and has become my favourite is using the fully manual setting on my camera when shooting in consistent light conditions.

I like trying to use natural light through windows when shooting indoors and it is relatively consist for Julie's entire attention span while she's being my model. Since my ist D L2 tends to underexpose my photographs in indoor, natural light conditions, I like to correct for this so there is less post-processing to do. I can set my shutter speed and aperture and the camera also indicates if it thinks the settings are correct or not. I typically overexpose by one full stop to get results I like.

Another great advantage comes during the post processing. Since conditions do not change, all the photos I take are similarly exposed. Ergo, if I'm still not happy, I can batch correct all my photos quickly. I use iPhoto for most of my general corrections and Elements for anything that needs particular attention. iPhoto allows me to copy and paste edits between photos.

My only word of warning is to watch the ISO on the camera. If I take a few shots to start with, I use the P setting and then switch to fully manual when I see that Julie is in a good mood and going to give me a lot of cute faces. The camera remembers the P settings when I switch to M but the ISO resets itself so my first manual shot is horribly underexposed if I'm not paying attention since the P setting with an automatic ISO will often select an ISO of 1600 in low light. My minimum ISO is 200 so I'm typically three stops underexposed if I don't force the ISO to something higher or adjust my shutter speed or aperture.

I'm currently switching from Picasa to Flickr so you can check out those sites if you want to see more of my photography (read: Julie). If you use a news reader, you're probably better off subscribing to the Flickr feed. And check out the Tips From the Top Floor podcast.

And if that mocking bird don't sing...

...papa's gonna buy you the Baby Einstein Be Musical activity jumper thingy.

Julie's developing quickly and is meeting almost all the development targets we've heard about from different sources. She's jumped up to the 90th percentile in height and, at three and a half months, she weighs what we were expecting at six to eight months. She also has her dad's massive cranium but that's still on the charts. So, those are the three statistics the doctors and nurses keep measuring and Julie's doing fine.

We were noticing that she wasn't reaching and grabbing or using her thumb when we helped her grab things so we headed out last Saturday in search of educational toys. She seems to have her parents small hands and her thumb is so small it's tough to wrap it around very much. We were looking for something that would help support her upright and have lots of cool things for her to reach for. After having Julie test a few out, we knew we were getting something she'd really like. As soon as we got our purchase set up at home, Julie was in it and reaching for all the coloured toys. Unfortunately, Julie has bad parents because they forgot to buy all the C batteries necessary to power the little piano. Half a week later and they still haven't bought any C batteries. Nonetheless, Julie's swivel seat has three other stations with a bright sunflower, a frog that spins and colourful beads in little domes that spin or pop. Due to her massive weight, she can stretch the springs enough to touch the floor and get herself bouncing.

I'd have to say the colourful chain that you can reposition and bouncing in the seat are her favourite parts of the toy so far. Ying and I love that we can position it near the dinner table so she can see us and entertain herself. Previously, we were eating in shifts since one of us had to distract Julie. She loves facing people, screeching and babbling away in her own little language but can become grumpy quickly if left alone. Of course, sometimes she also loves to just lie on our bed by herself and babble away.

Daddy's little sumo wrestler

Julie's off the scales for weight! On a diet of pure breast milk, she's gone from average to morbidly obese in just over two months. I don't know how she can keep this up. The nurse today would have suggested a change in feeding if Julie wasn't on breast milk but, since she's on it 100%, she can get as fat as she likes. We're noticing that her clothes are quickly getting smaller and have trouble going around her belly. She also has her dad's big, fat legs. If any of that baby fat turns to muscle, we'll have a great speed skating sprinter or track cyclist on our hands. But, for now, she only needs to keep practising sitting up and smiling. She's starting to get the hang of sitting and the smiling and laughing are going great. Sitting up might become tough because her head circumference has also gone from average to 95th percentile. Now we know where all the weight is!

I've also lodged my complaint with Canada's New Government about child benefits. Ying was turned down on a second benefit; again due to residency. I thought about reapplying on-line but it simply asks if you're a citizen, which she isn't, and then lists her citizenship as "not on file." I hope my complaint gets things done because all the literature clearly states that you only need to be a resident of Canada to collect benefits. One of Ying's friends is getting money and she's here on a student visa. She might have already gone back to China and, if so, I hope she's not still collecting.

Non-universal child care benefit

Canada's New Government sucks. I'm not going to comment on their ridiculous insistence on calling themselves "Canada's New Government" and how they're trying hard to prove that absolute power corrupts absolutely after painting themselves as saints while, I guess you'd call it, Canada's Old Government got fried for the sponsorship scandal. I'm not even going to comment on my relief that Bush's invasion of Iraq has gone so poorly that Canada's New Government has forgotten that it would have sent our troops in too if they were in power at the time. I am going to discuss Canada's New Government's Universal Child Care Benefits program.

Now, one would assume "Universal" means that everyone can get it. One would be wrong. Yesterday, Ying and I found out that she didn't qualify due to residence restrictions. Now, I do have some beefs about some of the stories Ying brought back from her English class about all the free programs and cash given to "skilled" immigrants who don't seem very skilled at all. We were also dismayed because of the big push to get people into other courses to help immigrants but we would only run into dead ends as these programs were outrageously expensive. I earn enough money to prevent the organization from hitting up the government for the obscene amount of money required to attend. With all these stories in my head, I am glad you cannot arrive in Canada with a brood and start collecting Stephen Harper's pittance right away. However, I fail to see why Julie fails to bring in the cash for Ying and me. Since Canada's New Government is doing their best to force women back into the kitchen, we had to apply for the Universal Child Care Benefit under Ying's name since she's the primary care-giver. In the obtuse set of documents I filled out in order to collect the benefit, there were questions about Ying's residency and a bureaucrat's dream team of confusing questions if you couldn't just check the "applicant born in Canada box." We were refused and so I called Service Canada to get some answers.

My first call was answered by a machine which told me, "all our operators are busy so phone back later." My second call got through to a bitter, angry Quebecois woman who was determined to do her best to thwart me and ruin my day as well. She was not going to discuss my case at all since Ying was on title. She didn't even want to see if Ying has given me permission to handle tax and other bureaucratic topics on her behalf. I did trap the woman though. Since Ying was denied money due to residency and the woman wouldn't tell me why, I asked her what are the residency requirements. Simple question for one who's paid to answer questions about the Universal Child Care Benefit. She told me she didn't know and put me on hold. I assume she went on to other calls and was hoping I would go away. Since my New Government helper wasn't interested in helping me, I knew I should hang up and fight the Man some other way.

And I am going to fight the Man. I am going to get my Harper pittance. It's only $100 every month but it's Harper's crappy program and I'm going to take advantage. Even though that $100 doesn't pay for 20% of what child care will cost and even though you need to register your child for a day care space one year before the baby is born in order to get in when maternity leave runs out, I will fight to get my pittance.

If only more voters had small children, Stephen Harper would soon be able to call himself Canada's New Opposition. But then I'd have to wait another thirteen years for the Liberals to get their day care strategy underway.

One month

Julie reaches the ripe, old age of one month tomorrow. So far, so good. She's sleeping in longer stretches and she can stay awake for long periods of time as well. She can even be content lying on her own without crying; she doesn't need to be held and coddled every second that she's awake. She has become a bit more fussy lately but she will still settle down fairly quickly. Ying's been making sure that she's well fed so when she cries due to hunger, it doesn't last long. Ying's mom has been doing a fantastic job taking care of Ying and Julie which lets me make sure there's bread on the table and the house is in reasonable order; expect for the cleaning which Ying's mom is also doing.

On the work front, everything is going well. We've been a little slow of late but so has the whole industry and it is usual for a little summer lull. I did write my first useful Python production program though. Following a few examples by Marc, I wrote a time-variant AGC which Rob and Jon wanted. Since the gate length must be recalculated for almost every sample on every trace, it runs very slowly and there are few shortcuts which can be made. I was able to cut down the run time by 70% from my original version as I looked and found some good optimizations. Marc's our Python guru and he had lots of valuable insights as well. Last time I talked with him about it, he was just looking for a little more speed and cleaning up a few minor elements in the program; for example I wrote 1000000 instead of using 1.0e6. I really enjoyed writing that little program and I'm hoping I have the opportunity to do some more. If I had more time away from depth imaging and was using that time for programming, I think I've mentioned before that the job in the company I'd like to be able to do the most is Dale's. He is a TBI founder and owner but he seems to be lining himself up for an early retirement. If he does decide to check out, I'd love to be the Cocoa developer but I don't have the skills; it's a huge step down from Dale's Cocoa and application development abilities to mine. Those with most of the skills inside the company don't know Cocoa and don't really wish to learn. I don't think I'd hire me right now as a software developer but I'll keep reading my books at home for fun just incase.

In other work news, my former company has partially closed their doors. It appears that 4/7ths of the Calgary staff has been laid off. One more seems to have been given one month to finish off some work for the Houston company. That leaves the centre manager and secretary. It seems odd to leave the last two if the company is indeed pulling out of Calgary and not just cleaning house. I was glad to leave there and my experiences at TBI have only made me happier I landed where I did. I became increasingly embarrassed of the product I was sending out from there and my limited experience and limitations of management prevented any real improvement. The technical knowledge around TBI is astounding as is their desire to put in place a system which streamlines the delivery of a quality product. We've got a new accounts manager who'll constantly be shaking the trees for more work. I won't mind being busier; especially if the profit-sharing bonus starts to flow for all of us.

The world keeps on spinning

I know this picture also appears in my TFFTF photo challenge album but I kind of like it. The toys above Julie's head would be clearer with a shorter exposure but the challenge was for a 30 second exposure. I had thought about the typical long exposure of car headlights and taillights streaking through the night but this idea struck me as a good one too.

Julie's reached the age of 15 days. We're all settling in nicely around here and she's doing great. The first night home was a little rough 'cause Ying's milk hadn't come in and Julie was hungry until we gave her a little formula. There's now a plentiful supply of milk especially for Julie and she couldn't be happier. She's a very quiet baby unless she's hungry or her diaper's poopy. Even then, she's pretty calm. She was a major drama queen for the first few days when we were changing her diaper. She'd take her crying to the next level, shed a few tears and even get her bottom lip quivering but it'd quickly stop when the new diaper was on. The latest picture in her album on Picasa shows one such visit to the changing table.

Ying's mom has been great taking care of Ying and Ying's been great taking care of Julie. Ying thinks I need lots of sleep so I can do well at work so she gets up to tend to Julie during the night. Of course, there's nothing I can do about feeding Julie. Sometimes I'm woken up too and I'll do a diaper change or burping. Ying's able to get in lots of naps during the day 'cause her mom will look after Julie and do all the cooking. Once in a while I need a break from the Chinese food so I'll do a little cooking for myself. But, so far, Julie's been a great little baby and we're all doing well.

This is just a practice run...

I'd like to announce the birth of Julie. The girl we expected from our 18 week ultrasound was born today just moments before 3:00 in the afternoon. We had the name Julie picked out long ago and no other names. What started out as a practice run to the hospital at 9:00 in the evening on Thursday turned into the real deal when we asked to have a few minor labour indicators checked out. The official line is:

Julie Wei Reynard. 14:59 25 May 2007. 3.644 kg (8 lbs 0.5 oz). 49.5 cm (19.5 in). Cute as a button but that's a biased opinion.

Mother and baby are doing fine and expected home tomorrow. I'll update more after a little sleep since my last real sleep ended after just six hours at 6:45 on Thursday morning. See some photos!

Julie must have been reacting to events taking place in England with her soon-to-be cousin. My sister was induced on Wednesday but it took until the wee hours of Saturday for Joshua Arthur to make his appearance. We had briefly hoped that the two would share a birthday so Mom would have an easier time remembering dates. Josh is only three hours and 47 minutes younger than Julie but, due to the time change, he'll have to wait that extra day for his cake and presents. Congratulations to Tim and Leslie.

Imminent to six weeks

A big thanks to Rod for coming up for the weekend and driving my Beetle here. We're now ready to sell it. I should've let him borrow it for the entire week as he might have wanted to buy it. It's still available to anyone who wants it. I'll be cleaning it up and putting out some ads right away. While he was here, we did very little. This was mostly due to the bad weather over the long weekend. It even snowed on Monday! Ying's mom did show us how to make zongzi, a Chinese, sticky rice treat. The ingredients are simple; wrapping the bamboo leaf is tough. Still, I'm willing to keep practising until I get it.

On the birth front, there's a doin's transpiring! Monday morning brought some practice contractions and Ying also put on a little bloody show for the doctor to check this afternoon. According to legend, Ying's mom delivered 姐姐 just hours after a show and 姐姐 delivered 倩 a day or two after a show. Our regular baby doctor was away today so we saw one of the other doctors in the clinic. She's young and admitted that she doesn't deliver babies. Our regular doctor's team is at the hospital and it now seems that they all practice out of different clinics. The doctor who saw us said the show could mean the baby will come soon to two weeks. The book Sheila gave us says imminent to six weeks. Of course, there are only nine days before the due date so I don't think this pregnancy will last another six weeks. The nerves kicked into high gear Monday morning before the contractions proved to be obviously false. Feeling unprepared and having a long time to go is one thing; feeling unprepared and having to head to the hospital for the real deal is another.

In other news, my sister will be induced in the morning. Looks like my baby will be the younger cousin as I was the younger child.

Cavalry

The cavalry has arrived. Ying's mom successfully navigated Vancouver's airport and Canadian Customs and arrived here on Monday. Since then, she's cleaned our home while not letting Ying lift a finger, witnessed an extra-chippy basketball game of mine, gone for dinner with her relatives and braved Calgary Transit with Ying. As you can see from what I found when I arrived home for the long weekend a little early, she's either kept busy or is still dealing with jet lag. You'll have to ask Ying what's her excuse. Rod's coming down this weekend and Ying's mom will be giving a lesson in making zongzi. She thinks there are a lot of tall people in Canada and Ying's already let her know that Rod is the shortest of my three best friends. Obviously, Ying and I are extremely happy that she's here. Ying hasn't seen her in a year and a half and the extra help with the baby is most welcome. Ying's mom and sister also bought a lot of baby clothes while in China. The set of drawers which were just given to us are already full.

Need more stuff

Ying and I have gone and done the baby registry thing. We have mixed feelings about it. We're not trying to send a message to everyone that we want some material goods because we're having a baby. If we only wanted material goods, we'd advertise our birthdays a bit better. On the other hand, it is tradition to buy something for your close friends to help their new baby get started. There's lots of stuff to buy for a new baby but we've been lucky to have people lending us lots of things they don't need until they're expecting again or another friend is expecting. We appreciate everyone who's given us something already and all those who've also made promises of baby items. So, IF you haven't already given us something and IF you were going to give a present and IF you don't know what to give, you can surf your way over to Toys 'R' Us and log into the baby registry. We are DarcYing and our registry number is 913431354.

Be sure to stay tuned here for more frequent baby updates as the days count down to 31 May, or so. I suggest a news reader to anyone who follows blogs or RSS feeds as most updates are random at best.

Crunch time

27 days to go...

We're getting down to the end here. We're almost ready too. We still need to borrow a crib, sign up for diaper service and pick up a bunch of creams and lotions and cotton swabs but we're otherwise ready. We've also got some help on the way. Ying's mom got her visa and will arrive a week on Monday. Obviously, Ying's very excited because she hasn't seen her parents since coming to Canada and it will be fantastic to have the help for the first few months. I'm imaging that her mom might be a bit nervous since she's never been on a plane or outside of China in her life. It's amazing how Ying and I have affected others since most of our occidental wedding party probably never thought they'd find themselves in China and would never see a sight like Ying's hometown. I think it was a great experience for them and I hope Ying's mom has a great experience with us in Canada. I feel bad that we didn't get back to China earlier and then couldn't go because we wanted to be on the safe side with the pregnancy. I'm very happy that Ying's mom will see exactly how life is for Ying in Canada and she'll be able to see her second grandchild. In fact, she might be able to see the very beginning since we'll give her the option of being in the delivery room. In that stressful moment, Ying might be comforted having her mom and a Chinese speaker in the room. Of course, I'll be practising the Chinese translations of, "breathe, relax and push."

Welcome to this world

I'm happy to report that Alex and Bobbi welcomed Felix Robert Julian on Tuesday. This one gets special mention because I happened to call Alex on Wednesday and caught him at home during a brief break from the hospital and I got a demonstration of how much the birth of your first child can really take out of you. Here's a snippet of our conversation, to the best of my memory.

Alex: Felix was born last night at 11:37.
Darcy: let me get this all officially entered into my calendar. So, 27 Feb at 11:37.
Alex: No, 28 Feb.
Darcy: today is 28 Feb and you said last night.
Alex: it was last night. Isn't today Wednesday, 29 Feb.
Darcy: it is Wednesday but it's the 28. Plus, this year isn't a leap year so tomorrow is 1 March.
Alex: are you sure?

Alex was never the best at keeping track of dates and times and I can understand that childbirth is a stressful event so his disorientation can be forgiven. It was also kind of amusing for me; especially the 29 Feb part.

26 down, 14 to go

With just 98 days left (± 2 weeks), things are still changing rapidly for Ying and I. We're settling into our new house and making it a home. We still have lots of shopping to do to prepare for the baby. And shopping for others since Alex's due to be a dad tomorrow or so and I've accepted an invite to a first birthday party. Ying regrets not getting her driver's licence as soon as she got to Canada because we're a little further from everything out here. Still, things could be worse.

Things might start getting worse soon if the Brick doesn't get their act together. Despite my hating the Brick, which isn't completely related to Mike Comrie and the Edmonton Oilers, I found myself purchasing a washer and dryer there. In retrospect, I should have gone to Leon's since the Brick only had that deal on in order to match a Leon's price. I almost walked out except we had the least pushy Brick salesman I've ever met; he only tried to sell me the extended warranty three times! They must have sold quite a few washers and dryers since they wouldn't be able to deliver for a while. That while expired yesterday so I'll be calling tomorrow to see where my washer and dryer are. I need them soon 'cause I'm running low on clean clothes. Don't worry, I'm not down to the inside-out/back-to-front thing with my underwear just yet. My closet is brimming a bit more than usual since Mark's has been putting lots of stuff on clearance which Ying has been buying up for me.

The weather has improved enough for me to get in one bike ride to work. In Calgary's continuing infinite wisdom, it was decided that bike routes should wind through neighbourhoods and climb as many hills as possible. Streets with bike routes are also obviously different from other streets since they have the little bike route sign posted intermittently along them. No marked bike lanes, not even a wider shoulder is to be had in my whole 14 km commute downtown. I also live in the void of bike paths as there are few between here and downtown and the ones which do exist around here are short, useless and go nowhere. I'm sure the little bike route signs will prove effective in keeping me from being struck down by some large SUV as I fight traffic. I notice that all motorists are keenly aware of the signs posted beside the road. The car pool lane down Centre St is normally 60% - 70% filled with lonely people, idling their car in traffic while they drive just themselves downtown. Oh well, I should be in shape soon enough that it'll be faster for me to ride my bike than take the bus.

Moved

It's done! Ying and I have successfully moved from our little condo into a much larger home. We're very happy in our new place and we invite all our friends to come visit us sometime. We'll have enough room when the baby arrives to put up a few relatives who'll be in town to help out.

The move into the new house went great. We invited a lot of people to come help and many of them turned out. I rented a big truck and everything was jammed inside in under an hour. The drive took 20 minutes and then everything was out in no time flat. Our movers were paid in beer, chilli and sugar and they all seemed to have had a good enough time.

Today I rode the proletariat chariot into work for the first time. It was actually pretty good. To and from work, I was one of the first people on and off. It was nice to get a seat for the 35 minutes journey. It looks like I'll be riding all week since we're supposed to get some snow for the rest of the week. It's also a little darker than I like while biking. The sun comes up earlier everyday so I don't think it will be long before I'm cycling in. Good thing too. I'm currently sitting in third in the weight loss challenge. I think I'll spend April and May going over Nose Hill so I get 300 m of climbing everyday.

Halftime

Tomorrow marks 140 days to go in Ying's pregnancy. So far it's been smooth sailing through calm waters. Ying did have a few months of nausea but that's all gone now. We've sold our condo and will take possession of our new house in two weeks. We've got a number of brave volunteers set to help us move so things should go well. We'll then have four full months to settle in and get ready for the baby. TBI gave us the wonderful Xmas gift of a stroller/car seat combo, Ying's mom is rapidly buying up baby clothes and my mom's starting with a rocking chair. We're still not ready to be parents but I hear everyone is nervous before their first. But the coolest thing is that we're starting to feel the baby kick! I felt it myself for the first time just four days ago. The ultrasounds were good but to feel the baby thumping away inside Ying's belly is the ultimate.

I should also be a little lighter when the baby arrives. At work, Jon, Dale and Victor decided that they needed to lose a little weight. Greg and I found out and asked to join in. The person who loses the smallest percentage of their original body-weight by 18 May has to chip in $100 for a nice group lunch. The rest chip in $75, $50, $25 and nothing based on their order of finish. At the official weigh-in, Dale was the low man at 84 kg while Victor crushed the scale at just over 124 kg; even after we made him take a pile of change and his cell phone out his pockets. Of course, the weigh-in was after a big lunch, fully clothed and, for me, there was the need to take a bathroom break. I came in second-lightest at just under 90 kg; which I find very embarrassing. I know I've bulked up a little in the past while but that's ridiculous! I hope my soon-to-be new commute which involves nearly two hours of biking a day will help. My goal is to get back to my high school weight of 75 kg. I've got some work ahead of me.

174 days to go

We started late but here's Ying's belly after 15 weeks. She did start out much thinner but her pants are starting to get a little tight now.

We're getting everything in order for our new family. Our condo has sold and we've almost finalized buying a new home. We're pressuring her parents to get their passports and we'll try and have them come to Canada for a little while when the baby is born. It's our first baby so we're welcoming any parenting help.

Ying's at Mark's Work Wearhouse right now and getting tons of hours since they're understaffed going into the holidays. My work is going great and I'm looking forward to two weeks of celebrating Xmas. So far, there are three company parties lined up which is three more than I attended last year. Oh! There's also a little fiesta for our last Spanish class of the year.

We're unable to head to Edmonton for Xmas because Ying will be working so much over the holidays but we'll relax around here. Mom should be happy next Xmas. Her household population might skyrocket from one to seven which would include her two seven month-old grandchildren. Hmm, I wonder if she'll do double-duty on the free baby-sitting so the rest of us could have a night out...