Dear Baobao,
What a busy two weeks it has been for all of us! You did indeed settle into a normal schedule, but it took about five days to get there…you really extended your mother’s and my jet lag a few extra days. And with our calendar packed with seeing friends and family, we weren’t able to take naps when you napped, so we had long days with a lot of hotel Nespressos to keep us going.
When your mother and I attended Auntie Amanda’s and Uncle Jason’s wedding, we left you with my aunt, whom you had only met two days earlier. It was the first time we really left you for an extended period with someone else. So naturally, we were just texting my aunt every ten minutes asking how you’re doing. You didn’t seem to miss a beat. I officiated that wedding (and I must say I think I did a pretty good job) and caught up with a lot of my old university friends – it was funny everyone seemed generally the same as I remembered them even though they had moved on in terms of their life stages. You woke up right on cue when your aunt left and we were back, just in time for a breastfeed, but the funny thing about it was we asked whether you wanted to go to the bathroom and you just let out a long “Nooooooooo.” Your mother and I just looked at each other in shock. First time and you’ve been going strong since.
The rest of the time we were in Hong Kong was making it from venue to venue for meals with friends and finding kid-friendly activities in HK such as going to the science museum or a mall with a soft play. The time in between meals were usually your naps or us dragging you to do some shopping at Uniqlo or Citysuper.
We moved onto Macau which was basically 3 days in a hotel resort; unfortunately the weather wasn’t hot enough for the non-heated pools although you seemed to love splashing around in freezing water. You enjoyed walking around the mall and playing in the kids’ zone. I managed to get two sessions of blackjack in and your mother had some time on the slots. We didn’t win anything, but we also didn’t lose anything! That was important because it really felt like we always walked out big losers, but now we know it’s not always true.
We rearranged our travel plans so that we would fly direct from Macau to Taipei rather than take a boat back to HK and then to Taipei. I don’t think your mom’s stomach could handle any more sea travel in her life. Taiwan was another opportunity for you to hang out with your grandparents. You warmed up to them pretty quickly and showed off your great big laughs to everyone’s delight.
You bit your grandfather twice and he made the funniest sounds when you did it (somehow, he also thought you had no teeth). We were on the road everyday going from Taipei to Kaohsiung to Kending to Kaohsiung to Taipei. Lot of family meals and visits to relatives, and your mother was thoughtful enough to swing a visit to a bookstore I like called Eslite. You got a chance to enjoy the water in the hot springs resort too.
Something in Asia sparked your appetite. You were eating all sorts of table food, which was surprising because you generally didn’t eat much meat prior and you didn’t have any issues which meant you were potentially moving on from your allergies. It was such an amazing transformation that I have to document it here.
Additionally, you must be the most traveled baby to foreign toilets. Every new place we went while on this trip, you immediately asked for the bathroom as if you were searching for a golden toilet or something. All in all, you had a ton of fun everyday – exploring and touching (and occasionally licking) new things, interacting with relatives and strangers, and generally just enjoying life, which in made us enjoy life too.
P.S. You deserve an A+ for the 13-hour plane trip back to London.
Love,
Baba
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