Christmas has been and gone, but the memories live on in photos... Hannah experienced a lot of "firsts" while she spent Christmas in Port Dickson (her maternal grandparent's home). She played with wrapping paper (infinitely more engrossing than the gift itself, much to her parents' embarrassment!), she saw roti canai being made on Christmas morning, she saw lots of cute chicks at the market, she went swimming for the first time...

Now, taking Hannah swimming required a little bit of preparation. First we needed a swimsuit. Not easy to find for a 5 month-old baby!!! But we took a chance with a swimsuit for 18 month-olds and, well, see the pictures to judge whether it fitted. All I can say is that Hannah is clearly getting a few spare tyres round her tummy, legs, arms, chin...

Next we needed some kind of float. Well, we had been given a rather cool inflatable baby boat (with leg holes) a few weeks earlier, so Cindy set about blowing it up.

And finally we needed a swimming pool. Now, one of the nicest places in PD (if you ever go there) is the Yacht Club, and rather conveniently Cindy's father is a life member. That means free access to their swimming pool. So we turned up on Boxing Day morning, nice and early to avoid the crowd. So early, in fact, that the pool wasn't really open! Never mind, no-one was going to stop a 5-month old in a fluorescent-orange swimsuit having a splash in the kiddies pool.

Did she like it? I would say she took to it like a duck to, well... water. It was a little cold to start with , but after a while she was happily reclining in her baby boat, waiting for Mummy or Daddy to tug her around. The next time we are in PD, we are definitely going to the Yacht Club again.

The picture below is a link to Hannah's Web Albums. You may have seen the link on the right-hand side that appeared a few weeks ago. You can go there anytime to get a Hannah-overdose. Every few weeks we will add to the collection of photos. They are of a decent resolution, so they should be good enough for downloading and printing, too.

So come and have a look at Hannah' First Christmas. Just click the picture below:

Hannah's First Christmas

And how was YOUR Christmas? Do tell us your stories.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2006

Hannah has a message for everyone who reads this blog:


...and of course Happy New Year for 2007. In due course, we will post pictures of Hannah's first Christmas, which will be in Port Dickson.

Most importantly, we would like to give a little reminder of what we are celebrating. Please take the time to view this short flash slide-show that speaks clearly of the "Heart of Christmas" - Jesus Christ. He is truly wonderful to know, so as you celebrate his birthday once again this Christmas, please make him central to all you do.

Click Here for Flash Video - The Heart of Christmas

Snatch Theft

It's amazing how much difference a day's leave makes.

Tomorrow marks my 7th(24-hour) call of the month. It doesn't take a genius to do the math and figure out the frequency of my calls up to now. Granted, I'm getting several days off at Christmas, but it is still exhausting to keep up this pace of work.

Having today off somehow boosted my energy levels. I decided to experience first-hand the reactions of Hannah's fans (i.e. market ladies) after hearing all about it from her grandparents. Little was I prepared for what was to happen later.

It all started off pretty tamely with curious looks and a few regulars saying hi and making faces at Hannah. When we approached the usual fruit seller, I noticed she had signs suggesting a previous heart sugery and instantly felt I should be nicer to her. Why? I won't do a psychoanalysis at this point; let's just say it was an involuntary emotion.

So, I coaxed Hannah into throwing a few smiles in her direction, which she did, winningly. But the fruit lady did two things which left me speechless, one more so than the other.

"She doesn't look like you at all."

Unfortunately, women have the habit of reading between the lines, often coming up with the most unflattering conclusions. To me, after praising Hannah and fussing over her, saying something like that to the person holding her was almost like saying:

"You're ugly, are you sure this beautiful baby belongs to you, or are you the maid?"

I don't know, perhaps after seeing Hannah morning after morning for the past few weeks, she was expecting a more angelic human specimen as her mother. So perhaps she was surprised to finally meet Hannah's mother - plain old me.

Trying not to take offense, since probably none was meant in the first place, I smiled and allowed my parents to make the appropriate responses. However, I was shocked by what she did next.

As we were about to leave, she stopped us, quickly put away a few things, stepped away from her counter and came up right next to me and stretched out her hands to Hannah. Now, I have never met this lady in my life, and I don't know how well my parents know her since I was convinced she had just overcharged us for the bananas. I kept Hannah close to me.

Sensing my reluctance to release the baby, she slid her hands under Hannah's arms, saying: "Let me carry her!" and literally snatched the baby from my arms.

My heartbeat must have doubled instantly, and I don't know how my parents could have continued smiling. Hannah must have read my body language and her face crumpled within seconds, although those seconds felt like forever. I quickly took her back, but the lady continued to stay by my side and started touching Hannah's hands, even rolling up Hannah's long sleeve to look at goodness-knows-what.

Although it has been several hours since the incidence, the scene keeps playing back as though I am suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). What if someone with less innocent intentions had done that? What was to stop this lady from running away, disappearing into the crowds of the busy market?

How can anyone claim such familiarity and forcefully remove a baby from her mother's arms?

It's just outrageous.

Even if I consider her actions rude and unacceptable, there will probably be more people like her. How do I say NO? Politely, of course. And what if some people won't take no for an answer, like this lady for instance? Should I have just forcefully taken my baby back, at the risk of having expensive bananas for the rest of my life?

It's awful. Now I'm left wondering what happens every morning (when I am away at work) when my parents do their usual market rounds. Although we have all agreed that no stranger should ever be allowed to carry Hannah, the situation this morning was a little tricky, since the fruit lady was not exactly a total stranger.

Call me stuck up if you like, (since I know of parents who would happily let anyone carry their babies, at any time) but letting almost complete strangers hold a small helpless baby IS courting trouble.

I've completely changed my mind about my cousin's baby who cries whenever someone other than the immediate family carries her. It's not fussy behaviour, but smart behaviour. It's the only protection against these 'snatch thieves'.

All I Want For Christmas

... is my two front teeth

So sings the little girl on the Christmas CD.

It has become Hannah’s theme song of the moment as she spends hours every day indiscriminately chomping on anything and everything that wanders near her mouth or hands. Her little hands are perpetually covered with a coat of slime and her chin glistens with happy muck.

The year-end not only brings to mind the joyous Christmas season, but also a time of reflection and thanksgiving.

Not too long ago in the month of September, Hannah made several promises to Daddy. We decided to see if she had done well keeping them. To save you the trouble of rummaging through our blog archives, here they are again:

1. I will wake up only once every night and sleep through the night within a month’s time.
2. Whenever you change my nappy I will not aim or shoot unmentionables in your direction.
3. I will not fall asleep within 5 minutes of starting my feeds.
4. I will stop fussing and fall asleep within minutes of your cuddling or rocking.
5. I will look pretty each time you take a picture of me, so we can land an advertisement deal and earn a lifetime supply of diapers.

Hannah has done well on most of them, except number 5. Despite having a loyal (and growing) fan club at the local wet market, she has still not attracted the ‘right’ type of attention. Many comments have been made about baby contests, but up till now it has been all talk and no action.

Finally, Gong Gong and Po Po decided they were buying too many diapers and dropped a copy of a local parenting magazine in our laps. They declared their grand-daughter could easily outdo the current “baby of the month” and bring home the promised hamper of goodies.

We scoured through our collection of photographs and decided this might impress the judges. What do you think?



Perhaps this Christmas Hannah will have more than just her two front teeth.

Food, Glorious Food!

Hannah has been showing interest in food for a few weeks now. When she sits on someone's lap at the table, she looks longingly at the food laid out. She salivates a LOT, she sucks and chews anything within reach, and she will even 'bite' your finger if you offer it, leaving you with a sore, red mark! So, last weekend, we decided to give Hannah her first taste of baby rice. Here is the result:

And when the parents took a break, Hannah took matters into her own hands:

A week has passed, and we haven't fed her solids since last weekend. So today we gave it another try. Any fear she would have lost interest were allayed when Hannah lurched forward for the first mouthful. You can see the intense concentration in Hannah's eyes (eye?):

So feeding Hannah looks like smooth sailing. Cool. Not what we expected after horror-stories from other parents.And one last thing. Have you ever observed someone else feeding a baby? Ever noticed how instinctively the adult's mouth opens just as they want the baby to take a mouthful? Even if the baby can't see them?! Here is the photographic evidence:

I am sure there will be more interesting or funnier food stories in the months ahead, so sorry for such an enthusiastic blog. But it is just another of those milestones that feels like it is worth celebrating. So what are YOUR baby feeding stories??? Click on comments below!

A 'turning point' in Hannah's development

Here is a sequence of Hannah taken yesterday, playing in her "Playful Puppy Gym." She has made a fair few attempts to turn herself over - even as far back as October when Chris's family were here. But all without success. Well, now we have photographic evidence that she CAN do it! At first, she got her arm trapped under her body and she would just cry, but in this sequence you can see she managed to completely turn over without any help.

So what's next for Hannah? Ah, weaning. Now THAT's another story for another blog...















"Did you get that on camera, Mummy?"

Matters of Life and Death

It was past 10 O’clock at night.

My senior colleague and I had been on our feet since 8am that particular Sunday. We had to ignore hints of fatigue and muster all our energy and concentration in an attempt to preserve the life of a critically ill patient in the Intensive Care Unit.

Consultant surgeons were at hand to perform a rare feat – a major surgical procedure in the relatively unsterile conditions of ICU with minimal anaesthesia. This was our last attempt to bring the patient back from the brink of death. The ICU was buzzing with activity, in preparation and anticipation of a real life drama gradually unfolding.

“Er, excuse me doctor, there’s a film crew outside asking for permission to film a scene.”

My senior colleague and I looked at each other in utter disbelief.

“They are filming the drama ‘ABC’ starred by that famous actor YYY!”

The nurse was clearly excited that her idol was standing just beyond the door. I hadn’t a clue what TV programme she was talking about or who the actor was. Needless to say, we were too busy to entertain such a request and proceeded to focus on our task instead.

Hours later, our patient was stabilized and adrenaline levels had returned to normal. As I sat down to review other patients, a man popped through the ICU doors. I noted his dyed hair, funky spectacles and multiple ear studs and immediately assumed he was part of the film crew. He smilingly returned a few things borrowed from ICU, thanked me, and left quickly.

How frivolous it seemed. On one hand we were struggling to keep not just one, but several patients alive. Ours was an ongoing drama with real consequences. Beyond the doors a team of artistes were creating an artificial world of suspense and romance, promising their viewers an hour of non-stop entertainment on prime time television, week after week.

Hospital dramas have long been a popular genre – just think of ER and Chicago Hope. These productions have been so influential in forming public conception of hospitals and the medical profession that I was a little disappointed to discover, early in my career, the REAL world of medicine – long hard hours, often routine and mundane work injected with unexpected moments of exciting action.

My hospital is located at the heart of “cowboy town”, a place rife with gangster activities, with drivers who manouever their little Kancils through town as though it was an F1 circuit. We see many cases of trauma – bullet wounds, parang slashes, amputated limbs, severe road traffic injuries, severe industrial accidents and burns/explosive injuries. Death, in many cases, is inevitable and real.

I remember a teenage boy whose mother seemed unnaturally calm seeing him hooked up to a ventilator and multiple drips. It was his third road traffic accident and he had recovered from the last two accidents sufficiently to get involved in a third. His mother must have expected the medical staff to perform yet another miracle. Unfortunately he succumbed to his injuries.

At the other end of the spectrum are medical situations where death is inevitable, but through no man-made cause. Not too long ago I was attending an emergency Caesarian birth where I assisted the neonatal team in resuscitating the little infant. Feeling happy that I had done a significant ‘good’ for the baby and her mother, I was crushed to find out later in the day that the little child had passed away in ICU due to a fatal congenital birth defect.

It is humbling to know the limitations of Medicine, but it leaves me feeling a little helpless. Each time a Caesar baby emerges, I think of Hannah and the miracle of life she is. I remember the time when we feared she would have to fight for her life if born prematurely, and thank God over and over again. Although Hannah is growing robustly, I am all too conscious of the fact that as parents, Chris and I are mere stewards of this precious gift of God.

Only God has the key to life and death.

Multimedia madness!

Well, after starting my own podcasts in the last blog, I thought "Why stop there?" So next we have a video clip of little Hannah - in this clip she is getting lots of attention from her grandparents (nothing new there!) This particular clip was recorded a few weeks ago when Chris's parents were here, and there were FOUR grandparents around to spoil her!



If you really want to see more of 'Hannah in action', then feel free to wander over to www.youtube.com and do a search for 'davehomebrew' (That's my Dad's online idenity!!!) I think you can find at least 4 videos there so far. Don't bore yourself silly, though. Videos are great fun for the nearest and dearest, but not exactly prime entertainment for the average blogger-reader.