Walkin' and Talkin'

Walkin'
The big news first: Laurel is walking!!! And not just a step here and there but here-comes-Laurel-charging-down-the-hall kind of walking! She thinks it's hysterical to suddenly pop out from around a corner and laugh her crazy little cackle in response to your surprise and delight. As soon as I figure out how to do so I will post a short video clip of her walking expertise.

Talkin'
Some of you may know that I've been involved with a VERY worthy charitable organisation since early last Fall. The organisation is the Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre and what we do is provide free legal advice to refugee seekers who are appearing before the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to have their status determined. We are the only group in Hong Kong that provides this much needed service but we have been really struggling financially. The two wonderful women that dreamt up this organisation and have grown it from nothing have worked their own little miracle in getting 4 of the largest and most respected law firms in the world's Hong Kong offices to partner with them. We now have a large roster of volunteer lawyers, interpretors and caseworkers. Over the weekend of the 21st and 22nd we are providing training to our volunteer lawyers and (here comes the talkin' bit) I'm going to facilitate/teach a session on research. I'm feeling quite fluttery in my tummy about getting up and talkin' research skills to a bunch of skilled researchers (or at least skilled enough to have landed pretty flash legal jobs!). So any words of advice or encouragement will be much appreciated!

In addition to my personal involvement with this project, my firm has partnered with HKRAC to provide funding and pro bono hours. So now I'm getting paid to encourage people to volunteer with us! And if work ever slows down enough, I could even be getting paid to do the volunteer work I was already doing.... Anyway, I'm feeling very pleased about this whole situation. I believe corporate-speak for what we have here is synergy. Yep, I do believe I am leveraging off my prior experience with HKRAC to create a synergistic situation. (Just as an aside - can you believe Microsoft??? "Pro bono" gets the red-line but a dumb-ass word like "synergistic" is totally acceptable.)

So that's all folks, I'm off so that I can ramp-up for the training session and start actioning some of the tasks ahead of me!

Hanoi

Ok, so some of you know that the last month I've been consumed at work with organising a conference in Hanoi for all the Asia Partners at our firm. When I was asked to do it I thought it sounded like a pretty cush job that would culminate in a fun filled weekend in Hanoi. Apparently there's more to organising a conference than just booking a venue and telling people to show up! Especially if you are organising said conference for the Partners (yes, capital P!) of a fancy-schmancy law firm.

The upside to fancy-schmancy Partners is that I did get to stay in Hanoi's most beautiful and historical hotel, the Sofitel Metropole. If you are ever feeling VERY wealthy in Hanoi I couldn't recommend it more. The conference went reasonably well with some predictable (and some unpredictable!) drama from the Partners. Anyway enough said about them.

Steve flew down for the weekend and we got to spend a lovely Sunday wandering around Hanoi's old-quarter. There is a beautiful little lake in the center surrounded by a lush little park. We spent a few hours wandering around there and enjoying an ice-cream while we sat and watched Hanoi's young couples enjoying their Sunday canoodling by the lake. In one of the pictures you can see what the electrical like situation in on Hanoi's streets and it's a little scary! The lines are low enough to touch (should you be that stupid!) and multitudinous!

Words can't really do it justice so I'll just let you enjoy the photos. A funny thing about having a weekend away from the kids is that they truly occupy your thoughts almost as much as if they were with you. Maybe particularly so because it was Children's Day on Sunday and Hanoi made a pretty big deal out of it. We actually felt a little bereft...

PS - the food was AMAZING!!

First Haircut (AKA - Boo Hoo! My baby's Growing up!)

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later..... he was getting awfully shaggy. Josey had his first haircut yesterday and has been transformed from a sweet cherubic little baby with fluffy, semi-curly hair to a short haired little man-boy. Still pretty cute though! SO here you go: Before, During and After.

Breakfast with Fin

Me: Don't use those knives (Relax!! Butter knives!) on the table. It could scratch the table.
Fin: And then it will get mosquito bites?
Me: Not all scratching is related to mosquito bites, Fin.
Fin: I'm Dad. (Continues to try and cut the table with the knives - one in each hand)
Me: Sorry. Dad. Stop using the knives on the table!
Fin: Just use them on your head?? (Starts scratching his head with both knives)

Fin has been insisting that we call him Dad lately. It gets very confusing.

Every conversation with him lately has been like some surreal art movie where I'm too stupid to follow the dialog, so I end up hopelessly confused.

The Year of Living Sleeplessly

Ok – I know I’ve been slack and I deserve a reprimand for that…. but you have to cut the mom of a pair of newly minted one (OMG!! ONE!!!) year olds a little bit of slack. My head is still spinning. I have 2 one year olds!!

So this seems like an appropriate time to reflect on the year that was. Except that I basically have no memories before November. There is photographic evidence that I was around for the months leading up to November but my brain seems to be in denial. Anyway, they look cute in the photos! My brain appears to be missing out on some fun times!

Life has become much easier in the last couple of months especially. They sleep more, they play more, they interact more… They are just plain MORE in so many ways. They both have charming personalities. Laurel is such a sweet, quiet little thinker. Don’t get me wrong, she can lose her little mind like only a one year old can, and she can be goofy but mostly she seems to be giving the world a great deal of thoughtful consideration. We used to think Joe was a real little bull-dozer, always on the go, full steam ahead, but he has revealed that he also has a more considered approach to the world. Joe has the readiest smile anybody we meet has ever seen. Laurel appears to find the world a fascinating and thought provoking place, Joe seems to be constantly AMAZED by it and charmed by the wonderful things in it.

We had a lovely little picnic party for them on the rooftop garden at our building to celebrate their birthday. There were 4 sets of twins in the mix and from how they behaved, I think we gave the impression that life with infant twins is one of sedate and agreeable pleasures. Snort!

We had a little cake drama the morning of the party. Steve went into Central to pick up all the cupcakes I’d ordered and shortly after I got a call from the bakery saying that he’d forgotten one box and that it was so big that it would require two people to carry it. Weird, I thought to myself - those must be massive cupcakes! So I called an already irritated Steve and got him to go back and try and figure out how to get all those massive cupcakes home on his own. The bakery woman was helping him carry the giant box out of the building when he noticed that the order slip on it had someone else's name on it. When they looked in the box it was a GIANT cake in the shape of a rooster. Clearly not our cupcakes. We were a little annoyed by the needless cupcake drama but can you imagine the drama of arriving to pick up your GIANT rooster cake and discovering someone else had taken it home??

The next day, their actual birthday, Laurel took her first wobbly steps. She has been absolutely determined the last couple of weeks to get this whole walking business underway. If you make the mistake of sitting down anywhere near her she crawls right over turns herself around, reaches back for your hands and stands up and she’s off. I have become accustomed to walking bent over from the waist with her and then hobbling around clutching my back after like the old woman I am quickly becoming.

Anyway, Joe and Laurel's birthday: a beautiful day.

Bet you thought I had quit again....

Bwa-ha-ha!! I'll keep you guessing for all time with my sporadicness (this is my blog I can make up whatever words I want!).

Anyway, I think I've deprived the world of cute photos long enough....

As you know (I'm assuming you track these posts despite the sporadicity! See? It all starts with nouns and then the next thing you know, I'm making my own adverbs!), Auntie Sonya was here for a couple weeks and with a boldness/courage that only naivity can breed, we took all the kids to the Philippines for a "relaxing" vacation. What a great 5 days of sleeplessness that was! Ok, it actually was pretty beautiful and sunny, and sandy and oceany and all of the other ingredients that make a great vacation - but I'm not fooling about the sleepless part. I think Joe was up around 3:30 every morning, whereas Laurel just said to heck with all sleep in general. Fin was a real lazybones and never got out of bed before 5am though. Sleepyhead!! Needless to say we are all the first at the breakfast buffet every morning.

Mmmmmm... the breakfast buffet... I should have taken photos of that! It was AMAZING. That's all I can say - words wouldn't do it justice...

Anyway, the days were great and the nights were long. I guess that's holidaying with little ones.

I keep meaning to post this little genderization vignette from bedtime with Fin about a month ago:
The Scene - Fin and I laying in his bed talking before he goes to sleep.

Fin: I like rockets.
Me: I like rockets too!
Fin: No!! YOU like hearts. And flowers. And Butterflies!
Me: Ok, but I like rockets too.
Fin: NOO!! I told you already!! YOU like FLOWERS! and HEARTS!! and BUTTERFLIES!!
Me: Um, ok, I sure do like flowers and hearts and butterflies.

One night later, same scene.

Me: Hey, Fin? I really like cars and trucks and rockets.
Fin: NNNOOOOO!!! I TOLD YOU LAST NIGHT!! YOU LIKE FLOWERS AND HEARTS AND BUTTERFLIES!!!

Much in the same vein, he has been on a big kick about what is for girls (well, in Fin's words "grils") and what is for boys. Pink - girls, blue - boys, etc, etc. Fin was telling me that he has a peanut, Joe has a peanut and daddy has a peanut (I'm sure you can guess...) but Laurel doesn't have one. "You should go buy one for Laurel mom".

Work is going well. My contract was extended for another 6 months with a view to going permanent. Now that I'm on the "other side" of the whole law office dynamic, can I just say how incredibly IRRITATING lawyers are??? One of the partners actually told us (the business development team) that he wants us to be like a nagging wife to him. Otherwise he won't get any of the biz-dev (see? I'm such an old hand that I even speak the hip lingo now!) stuff done. WTF??

In other lawyerly news - Steve belongs in the Guinness Book of Lawyer records for his 120 hour day last week.

Need I mention how much we are looking forward to our week in New York? No, not because of the awesome museums and the cool shopping and the delicious food and our wonderful friends. Because of the hours of uninterrupted SLEEP!!!

Ok - I'm outta here. I made a rash promise to make Thomas the Train cupcakes with Fin since we are stuck inside on this Typhoony ( hey, I told you, my blog, MY words!) day. For those with an insatiable appetite for typhoon trivia - this is the earliest start to the typhoon season seen here since 1949!

Several Thousand Words

Hopefully these pictures are worth the thousand words I'm not typing here! Everything's going well - mostly healthy (runny noses everywhere you look!).

We're all being run a little ragged by the school closures though! Everybody keep your fingers crossed that nobody gets the flu here. I'm afraid that with all the hype in the news I'd probably take them straight to the hospital!

Auntie Sonya arrives on April 1st and Karen, Sonya and I are taking all the kids to the Philippines for a few days of relaxing on the beach. Or as relaxing as it can be with all these darn kids along! ;)

More later - it's 8:30pm here which means bedtime for mom!