Birthdays, Furniture, Classes & Helpers - Week 29

Well it has again been another busy few weeks, we celebrated Trent's birthday last weekend with a beautiful afternoon at the Yacht club enjoying the view, the cheap beverages and some great company. Thanks to everyone who was able to come and celebrate with us!

But it hasn't all been fun and games, the serious work of furniture and baby supply shopping is underway - we went long and hard, finalising our approach to the room with an Ikea wardrobe (similar to the one here - we'll post photos of the real one when it arrives early September); and we also did the long haul over the Ap Lei Chau for some Level 21 Bumps to Babe action.

Now that's a store to kill your motivation, decisiveness, along with your will to live... But it does have a good range and as long as your credit card is well supported, everything is fine. We have purchased a lovely MacLaren XT Techno 2010 stroller (http://global.maclarenbaby.com/techno-xt?lang=en), a baby bjorn carrier (http://www.babybjorn.com/products/baby-carriers/baby-carrier-synergy/synergy/), a mattress for the cot that we're being given, and some other stuff I can't quite remember now. And in the process got our "minimum spend" requirement to become lifetime members who are entitled to 7.5% discount forever more. Geez I'm glad we spent that much to get a discount!!

But in all seriousness, I feel a lot better now that if this kid turned up early it wouldn't have to sleep in a drawer - still no idea what to actually do with it, but hey.

We are also delighted to have found a helper who we hope will be lovely. Edna is due to start with us on Friday. She seems to be a bubbly, friendly person who just lit up when we asked her to tell us about the children she had looked after previously. She was a bit worried about having to cook western food as she's mostly worked for Chinese families, but as someone said to us, you can teach a person to cook and clean, but you can't teach someone to love children. So we have our fingers crossed we've chosen the right person to become a very integral part of our lives.

Her bed and furniture arrive tomorrow, with our long awaited bed frame, kitchen cupboard and change table. I can't wait to not have to get up off the floor 4 times a night to go to the loo, and to have a little more storage for the big things - linen, baking trays, cleaning products... the joys of HK apartments.

We've also completed our first lot of classes for learning to be parents and what is going to happen during labour - both interesting and disturbing for many reasons. We got the 20 year old video of birth with a lovely American lady who seemed to manage to maintain a lot more decorum than I thought possible - she's set an impossibly high bar as far as I'm concerned - not a swear word in sight! Then again it was her fourth... There were some useful points, especially relating to what happens at the hospital and what we can expect. The hospital tour was also good as it has helped us know where we'll actually be and what we're in for. My only real concern is the size of the bed they want me to labour on, was about foot & half too short! Maybe they've got an extra long one somewhere...

Other than that, we completed the first part of our comprehensive photography course this weekend (http://www.craigsworkshop.com/). Saturday was theory (aka how to use all the settings on your camera rather than just the auto function), and Sunday was the field trip. Its been a lot of info to take in, but very much was I was looking for, after all we have a camera with a lot of capability so it seems a waste to not use it because of pure ignorance. The field trip tested us out, both from a learning standpoint but also a heat standpoint. Yesterday was stinkingly humid and rather polluted. It made for interesting light later in the day but the sunrise was pretty ordinary. I'm now relatively sure I know how to change the aperture when wanting more or less light, what ISO does and how to achieve different depths of field -but don't quote me! Its going to require a lot more practice. We have the next two installments this week, tomorrow evening to look at composition, and next Saturday to do portraits in the studio. And having just selected our 8 best shots for tomorrow night, I'm rather excited to see what everyone else came up with too.

That pretty much sums us up the last few weeks, time is storming ahead to this life changing event, and we are attempting to keep up. Thank you for all the tips, support and just plain listening to us rabbit on.

Lots of love to you all,

Nik & Trent