Alpe d'Heuz - Daniel's First Ski Trip

Chalet near Kids' Club
View from 2700m
Playground
What's this, Mummy? It's snow!
Bench a bit cold, Mummy!
Apartment we stayed


Our first ski holiday with Daniel and his two teenager sisters wasn't as bad as I anticipated. Skiing with a baby - utterly madness, it's the words my parents put over the phone when I told them we were going to skiing this Christmas. We are probably not the ones to allow parenthood to get in the way of going on holiday, but we are definitely not the extreme ones like one of my colleague who skied with his baby strapped on his back. He said 'you have to be completely confident that you would never fall...' I thought it's nuts to ski with baby on your back as he/she might get hypothermia. apart from this, I told him that I just consider myself as intermediate skier, so skiing with baby on the back was out of question.

Departure on Saturday( two weeks ago) was a bit shock. Our flight was 8.30 am, The driving to the Gatewick airport only took 45 minutes from Terry Mum's, where we stayed over for Friday night. We were up at 4am thinking we'd have plenty of time at the airport browsing the shops... . However when we got in the check-in hall, we found that the First Choice Check-In queue was lined up outside the building. I was amazed so many peopel were going ski this time of the year considering it was the first week of the season, normally most resorts were not expecting good snow. Daniel was definitely not the only baby going ski though. I did saw other people having their baby tucked in their rucksack on Daddy's back.

Alpe d'Heuz proved to be all-rounders skiing resort, it is youthful with so many sporting facilities on offer yet it was family-friendly resort on many respects. First Choice's Kids club wasn't bad at all with English Nannies and English nursery routines. There were quite a few kids in their creche that week and Daniel was the youngest baby there. Originally we expected Daniel wouldn't settle in there and we expected to take in turn to look after Daniel at the apartment. However, Daniel seemed to be ok with them first day, he did cry on drop-off in the morning but staff said he was ok after 30 minutes. So we went on taking him there everyday as we paid full-day care in advance anyway. Every morning we dropped Daniel 9.30-10ish together and in the afternoon I finished off skiing earlier to pick up Daniel 3pm ish on my own. so i end up skiing virtually everyday apart from one afternoon I picked up Daniel just after lunch. First couple days I felt so-much guilty about tucking Daniel in the Childcare that I stormed off one afternoon (felt bad about it later, it probably to do with my PMS). Terry persuaded me that Daniel would be better-off at Kids Club as there are plenty toys and other children there and they have a routine for him, otherwise what Daniel would be going to do with me in the apartment whole week, we would be bored. The creche staff took Daniel out for walk in town in pushchair everyday so Daniel got fresh air and ended up having two naps a day ( he only has one nap a day at home). So the rest of week I gradually eased off about childcare issue and didn't feel guilty anymore.

For skiing I enjoyed everyday though I got problem on my left knee (it felt painful each time I try to straighten up the knee) just weeks before our ski holiday. Several years ago I had a bad fall in the shower of a hotel in Wakefield and injured my left knee, It didn't bother me that time. But the knee joint always get worse each time when I want to go ski. One year I went to see the doctor. He said it was tissue damage and i need physio. As we all know there was long waiting list for physio on NHS, so I didn't bothered, I just carried on doing a lot stretch exercises on that joint in gym after my work-out and it healed. But since Daniel, I didn't stretch much the knee and the problem came back again. I must love skiing. I forgot the pain once I was on the slope

Cough

Daniel has been ill for a month, he caught cold (or flu) a month ago and started coughing since. Now symptoms of the temperature, running nose and reduced appetite have gone following the treatment of medicine but the cough is still stubbornly persistent. As a result of this bout of illness, Daniel lost weight. He weighed 500 g less on recent weigh-in than he was 5 weeks ago, he weighs 11.2 kg now. we became a regular-goer of the GP surgery. We sat at GP punctually every Monday morning. Now Daniel's germ has spread on me, I started to cough few days ago and now it just turned nasty.

1.5 days to go

One and half days to go before I am finishing off for Christamas. Can't wait!. I'm taking 1.5 days next week, 3 days the week after next one off as Annual leave, now I got nearly whole December off until 2nd Jan 2008. Hopefully next week I can have a bit sleep-in before we hit the skiing slope.

"wife" and "I" in Chinese

Just read this on Internet about some foreigner who is trying to learn Chinese was scared off by the list of synonym for wife and I in Chinese, it's so funny! Thinking I'd better save it. At same time, fear Daniel would never learn Chinese properly as he would never understand all these subtle difference of each word.

据说一个在学中文的外国人看到"wife" 和 "I" 的同义词表，吐血而亡。
　　>>> wife
　　1、配偶 2、妻子 3、老婆 4、夫人 5、太太 6、爱人 7、内人 8、媳妇 9、那口子、10、拙荆 11、贤内助 12、老伴 13、孩子他妈 14、孩子他娘 15、内子 16、婆娘 17、糟糠、18、宝贝 19、小甜甜 20、蜜糖 21贱内 22、达令 23、女人 24、马子 25、主妇、26、女主人 27、财政部长 28、浑人 29、娘子 30、大姐 31、家属 32、屋里的 、33、另一半、34女当家的 35、发妻 36、浑家 37、堂客 38、山妻 39、婆姨 40、中馈
　　>>> I
　　俺、俺们、本人、鄙人、敝人、不肖、不才、老子、某、依、仆、乃公、人家、我等、我、我们、我辈、我依、我曹、吾、吾们、吾济、吾辈、吾曹、小生、小人、小可、小的、余、予、在下、洒家、咱、朕、寡人、孤、奴才、臣

little scribbler

Haven't updated Daniels' development for long time. To be honest, I don't feel there is anything to be write about under this heading purely because he's been ill for so long, all my energy was directed to make him feeling better. Also because, for his days at the nursery, I got little information other than what he ate, what time he slept for how long and how many times nappy had been changed etc. it is not a complain to the nursery, it's just the arrangement we got at the moment, I drop Daniel off in the morning and Terry picks him up at four in the afternoon, I rarely got a full picture of what Daniel's day like during my working-days. Nevertheless, I did noticed some of Daniel's new 'favourite' activities, He's now like scribbling. This must be learned at nursery as we never gave him a pen before. He kept pointing pens on the table making a request to grab it. Initially I was very reluctant to let him hold one due to the safety concern, I don't want him to poke his eyes with the pen by accident. As Daniel was so wilful and persistent I gave up. He seemed to hold the pen well and know that it is to be used to scribble the paper in general, obviously he would scribble things like the book I am reading or my hands. He has enjoyed 'scribbling' for coupe of weeks since he took home his first scribble at nursery.

A few updates

Been back to work for 5 weeks.

Couple of weeks ago when I had lunch with Alison at Joseph Brammer, she asked me if I'd settled back in work, my answer was 'as if I had never left there!' :) It's an honest answer, I don't know why I am so used to a 'corparete life' here in the UK. maybe because it's so mechanical, so predictable...In contrast, Daniel never seemed to fit in his nursery life that well, he still cried every morning on drop-off but not for long, only until last week I saw he got a comment back from staff on his little notebook saying he had the best day so far. The following day I asked them what they mean by 'the best day', It turned out it was the first day Daniel didn't cling on any of the staff and played on his own happily. Couple weeks ago I felt rather sad about leaving Daniel at nursery, especially when I faced the thought of it is a long day for him and for me, we did our best to try to minimise the time he spent in the nursery, at one point, Terry emailed some of the nanny agency website to me and said we think about this over the Christmas... Now I got used to this arrangement more or less. I can't say the arrangement is ideal but sometimes it felt like going to work to have a rest

It is not uncommon for babes who's attending nursery to pick up bug one after another, I was told by our GP, so Daniel was no exemption. He caught cold and cough badly for nearly 3 weeks. I had last Tuesday and Wednesday off, only worked Thursday. Lucky I am holiday-rich at the moment, on top of this year's holiday allowance, I carried over 8.5 days from last Holiday Year (on the condition they have to be spent before the end of the year), so I will take almost whole December off. Also, 2 more weeks to go before we off to ski, The snow started to fall at Alps and it is said it's the best snow in Decenber since the 50 years ago... we just bought Daniel's first skiiing-suit, boots, hat and need to get a sun-glasses for him but the trouble is Daniel don't like anything on his face...

Tuesday night I went to my ex-boss's 50th birthday celebration dinner party at one of the restaurant in Sheffield city center. It's a very enjoyable evening though I had to drive a long way in the rush-hour traffic and leave Daniel to Terry for the entire evening.