Thanks for your prayers!

Dear All,

First, I need to give thanks to everyone, anyone who took some time to pray for us during that challenging year and a half, anyone who took the time to give us a call, leave us an encouraging word, stayed with us as we went through this year. I also want to thank all of Living Love Fellowship for their support for having prayed for us weekly during our pre-study worship. I want to also thank doctors (Dr S. Leung in partcular), bioresonance therapists for their care.
I want to also thank my family, during this year, I haven't been the best husband, I haven't been the best son, I haven't been the best dad, I asked for your forgiveness and thank you for your support.

To all of you THANK YOU.

This year, we settled on continuing Lémuel's bioresonance therapy, we moved home and since then, Lémuel has been constantly showing progress, now he walks, he talks, he sings, he says "Aiyyaaa" like a true Cantonese speaking kid. He still has some development delays, we hope that he will be able to get into a kindergarten, next year K1's resources are pretty limited. We leave it to God, we'll pray and see.

Here are some pictures summing up what we went through:

April 2013, his body was completely trashed, red everywhere, swollen, injured, he started to lose weight dramatically, feeling very itchy, suffering from his multiple wounds.

At that time, he was all covered by wounds as you can see:

May 2013, start of his steroid topical treatment. That's what I call bleach for the skin, his body went from reddish to snow as white, but he was swollen ALL over his body, he looked fat, but his body mass went from 50 percentile to under the curve.

As we continue using steroids, we could not get rid of certain rash attacks, he would have  the eyes all swollen up.

Lémuel prepared to sleep in his wet wrap, a real little mummy. That's every night, from May to November 2013.

Up until May this year, he remained tied up when he was sleeping. That's when he was also having wounds on the cheeks.

If he could get his hands off of his wrapping and reach his face, it would end up like this. In order not to shock my readers, I decided against publishing pictures of his face. Believe me, having to clean up massive amount of blood in the middle of the night is the last thing I wish to anybody.

April 2014, we were at the beach and you can still see his skin not completely restored, his cheeks took a VERY long time to heal, arms and legs rashes would come and go.

After a year of treatment:

So again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your prayers and support.

Now, he still has allergies, he still has a very long list of forbidden foods that is veerryyy slowly reducing, he still has sensitive skin. I'll keep you up to date. I'll also try to find time to write down treatment we did in details for people looking to help their kids if they are suffering from the same thing.

This would not be complete if I don't also give thanks to our Heavenly Father who placed Lémuel amongst Myrtille, Yukyin and I. We learnt a lot, we shared a lot, we grew a lot. Thanks to You. I need to admit that a few months ago, we could not envision the fact that Lémuel could live a normal life but Thanks to your healing hands, I see him a living testimony of your Love.

Growing out of allergies?

Dear Reader,

Nearly half year I haven't posted anything. A lot has changed. Myrtille is growing, her relationship with me has not changed, I am always expecting too much of her, it's like the lack of care from my own parents has turned myself into a freak. I don't really know how to work on myself, but when I see her, and hear her... especially when she complains and she does complain a lot, I really want to scream out loud.
So, I took a decision, don't know how long it will last, but I need to be a better father... I need to think of ways about making her feel proud of herself, proud of me and I need to learn how to be proud of her... maybe I should also say it... it might help her.

Anyway, started to learn how to tie her hair in a different way than a pony tail... It's growing on me and she likes it.

Being a Dad... is difficult, being a girl's dad... is even more demanding, our brain does not just work the same way. I need to be even more delicate than with my wife. I don't know how friends having two or three girls are doing it... I wouldn't.

Lémuel....

He changed, now he walks and copy us. His vocabulary is still very limited but he quickly catch those habits we have. He is still walking drunkard style, that's very funny to watch and he does not care about hurting himself.

Allergies? Yes... they are still here, we moved flat and since then, we are using steroids a lot more often, as we want to be able to control their skin condition, that makes them sleep better, prevent them to sneeze like crazy. Inside us, we still want to chase, we want to know why? But sometimes, it's seems like we will never know and we should just spend our time on creating memories with the kids and wife.

But, I do thank you for your prayers, Lémuel is way way way better than last year. It was around May last year that he was depressed and nearly died of infection. Now, he is always walking around and smiling, hoping to catch a cuddle time with Mama. We came a long way from that.

Thanks

Myrtille, 5y


Lémuel, 20m



The watermark is wrong, it should be 2014.

Seeing Light

Dear Reader,

Here is our family last update, Lémuel has been under detox medication for around 9 weeks now, at his last doctor visit, the doctor decided to switch his medication from IV injection to oral intake, it allows the treatment to be given in a more stable way. We received Lémuel's food allergy test and Yukyin took the loving decision to live on rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes so that she does not trigger his allergies through breastmilk, I really thank God for such a loving wife, she is a model for me. In the same time, Yukyin got her heavy metal test result and she has 12 times the reference value for Lead, which is quite astonishing. Hence, she picked up on the treatment too, we'll see how she fares but her rashes has been under control so far.

Lémuel's skin is a bit better, we went from daily steroids to steroids once every two days, it does not mean that he is completely clean from rashes, it is just that his rashes does not peak suddenly one day to the other. First day after steroid application, he usually get a lighter tone, second day one would see clouds of red rashes a bit everywhere. In the last 3 weeks we have seen a slight improvement as on that second day, he has a bit less rashes every time. So we keep praying that he will get completely clean one day. Also, his rashes are a bit different from before, we do a lot of efforts to keep his rashes disinfected, as we moist them with a lot of greasy product and do a wet wrapped treatment at nighttime, it is important that his skin is free from bacteria before doing so, luckily, the doctor prescribed a disinfecting ointment that we can freely apply on his skin. That helps his skin being free from bacteria and avoid infection. His rashes are drier now, they don't ooze liquid as we could have in the past, which is a good thing.

Improvements... but at what cost? Yukyin's diet is boring and we are just staying home every week... hence you don't see a lot of pictures of them. Hopefully, we will finally have him off those medication and he will be able to start eating like a normal person.

Myrtille, on her side, is growing too, she is now in K2, she does love her brother, but we see some hints of hate and love relationship growing. She loves it when she manages to get him laughing non-stop, but she does not like that all of our time is spent taking care of him which is not so surprising but in the mid of despair, she surprisingly started to act like him in an attempt catch our attention. Anyway, we know her needs, we will address it, we just need help from above and from your prayers as always.

Thank you for your prayers and support to us.

Ah! Last thing, we are all sick, it started with Myrtille, then Mama, then, Lémuel and now me... Our helper is the one next on the list. Nowadays, our bodies are just unfit to fight against a simple flu.

Rashes, 2nd run

Dear Reader,

Today, I need to pour out my sorrow into this blog... Lémuel is suffering from rashes that covers approximately 95% of his body. It started maybe in January, at first, we did not care as we thought it would slowly disappear, but as time flies, rashes started to spread, more and more. Around Chinese New Year, his skin was rough, like sandpaper, completely opposite from what we should expect from a baby skin. When he took bath, he was scratching his knees, scratching his tummy, and as he has some pretty sharp nails, it bleed. We thought that we would never have to go through this again after our first experience with Myrtille and her dust mite allergy... we were wrong. Lémuel has a wider spread rash and he is developing that a lot more early than Myrtille.

As his condition did not improve, we went to see a doctor, he gave us some steroids and bath oil. After a week, we did not see any improvement, so we tried to treat him the same way as Myrtille, wet wrap method with a low let down ratio of corticoid cream. It cleaned his body, but we forgot about the small injuries he inflicted himself and they started to get infected. So we went back to the doctor again and I got yelled at because I should not have treat him the same way as Myrtille... having the same symptoms does not lead to the same treatment, so I clench my teeth and took it all. Lémuel developed an infection and we got a cream for that, we stopped the corticoid and continue the wet wrap, but after two days, rashes were back again. We were lost. The rashes even spread wider in area. :( Things were getting out of control, so I contacted the fellowship, and Yukyin contacted Myrtille's classmates mom and have them prayed for us.

One of the mom called Yukyin back, she shared a similar experience and advised a dermatologist. We went to consult him on Monday, he told us that we made a lot of things wrong, we should not have used the corticoid, we should stop using paraffin based cream, etc... he gave us a bunch of bath oil, moisturizing cream and we started a new treatment. He noted that Lémuel had a bunch of microbes on his head so gave us plenty of disinfectant soap. He stated that baby should be healed by 1 year old, but that's still sooo far away!

4 days through the treatment, Lémuel is peeling around the exposed area (neck, face, head) and the non exposed area are still reddish with little bumps around. For the last two days, Lémuel started to cry in pain every time we would apply his cream, like something is stinging his whole body, he moves his body so as to avoid our touch. His whole body feels like burning hot.

We feel helpless. In top of that, Yukyin has a blocked milk duct following a yeast infection.

God I know that you read that blog... because You know everything, anything that I write, think, You know them even before it reaches my mind, some of these thoughts, some of my acts, You are the one who suggests them to me, plant them in my mind as we plant a seed on the ground. To let you know, I would rather live with Lémuel's skin issue than look at him everyday going through that pain, living with an ever itching skin, living with the stinging reaction of moisturizing cream applied on his skin. I know that he is meant to be one of your child, I know that it breaks Your heart every time You hear him cry, I know that You are with us when we hold down his four limbs as we apply his creams. I know that You are there bearing his suffering with us. Give us patience O Lord, so that we can go through this, strengthen our faith in you. 
In Your Holy name, Amen.

Brother and Sister.

If you have 2 minutes in your busy schedule, please pray for us. Thanks for reading.

100 Days in!

Dear Reader,

We are 100 days in. Lemuel is still growing at a relative high pace, and so is Myrtille, she definitively got accustomed to her brother, exception when he is crying a lot, she is there, talking to him, trying to calm things down but she sadly realize that nothing is working... while he keeps on yelling.

Growing with Lemuel and Myrtille as a father is a lot different. Usually, people tend to believe they could stay away from comparing their kids, but I know that's impossible, no matter what we do, we'll end up comparing our relationship with each of our kids, God might be the only one who succeeds in this. Although I love them the same, as for now, it's true that Myrtille gives me more headache than Lemuel, even when I try to remember Myrtille at the same age. I think it will be an ever evolving relationship with them, that's the fun part of being a parent.

Myrtille started to seriously learn French... ahaa... Up until now, she only knew about some simple words, like "fromage" and "yahourt", now she understands when I tell her to put on her backpack. Still a long way to go before she says something in French, but it's growing at its pace. I do hope that she'll learn French so that she can understand English grammar a bit more easier. Hong Kong people has a lot of difficulties with English grammar. Even if I take the risk of being criticized for what I am writing here, I do supervise quite a few university graduates here and their English really needs some polishing, I don't pretend to have a perfect English either... but I do believe that I express myself in a very understandable way (I think it even sounds a bit French). When I talk about it with Yukyin, she tells me that she only understood English grammar in France, when she actually learnt French grammar... :). So, if Myrtille can get a bit better in French, we might pull it off. However, I am not so worried about her, God will end up giving her something to do as He does with all of us.

Another topic though, during one of our daily Bible reading with Myrtille, we were talking about Lazarus who died and got resurrected, he was mummified and placed in a dark place, he could not see anything, that time, it was a bit weird because, I might have read this with Myrtille 3-4 times, but all of a sudden, she asked me "why?". I never approach the topic of death with her, I was surprised and in the same time concerned about the kind of answer I could give her, and then, I went to ask my wife, she replied bluntly that she never approach that because the book never says anything about that. :) see how unprepared we can be sometimes...

So at the end, I went and ask their school teachers. They were happy enough to tell me: "Just say that he is dead"... at that age, they don't ask beyond that, just say that "he is dead", that's all, no big deal... Because this is part of the story. But if it was something happening among family members, she reminded us that we need to treat sorrow and carefully in clearly explaining them what's happening. This month theme is Jesus Resurrection at school... so they will take care of the situation.

For once, I felt lighter. :)

So, back to Lemuel, 100 days... and yesterday night was the first night I slept from midnight to 7h45 without opening my eyes. I hope I can keep on leading Myrtille and Lemuel on the right path.

Thanks the Lord for helping me and thanks for you if you got to the end of this post.

Next will be pictures, been a while I did not post but my flickr account is still staying active!

Two Months in.

Dear Reader,

We are two months in and we are slowly getting used to our pace. We went to the birth registry and we are pleased to announce that our little guy's name is Lémuel, which means "devoted to God", because that's the way our Lord taught us to live our life. In Chinese, his name is 讚熙, "Praise Splendor" reminding us to always praise our Lord.

As I said earlier, we are slowly setting ourselves into baby sitting pace, Lémuel sleeps quite a lot, he does not need us to rock him too much, a big difference from his sister, Myrtille had us rocking every time before her nap/bed times up until 6-7 months and even now, she is somebody who easily feels unsecured about things. She easily get mad about things that she can't accept right away, she would yell on us because things does not go as she expect. She has her character... We just need to learn how to live with it and raise her in a way that she understand her limits. Lémuel is already different, actually, he is more playful, he smiles a lot more than Myrtille at the same age and he communicate a lot more with us, he likes to talk to us, he likes to be with us, and when we let him alone, he will make us understand that he is the poorest baby on Earth.

One of our biggest fear about having two kids was the fact that we would prefer one over the other. I think it's difficult to avoid and through the short paragraph I have written, you might think that there is something that changed between us and Myrtille, but I don't feel this way. Maybe I am just convincing myself, but relations are just different. One thing for sure, we continue to love them with abundance. 

Myrtille changed a bit since Lémuel's arrival, at first, we were over busy taking care of him, Yukyin was exhausted from breastfeeding and the fact that he was in and out from the hospital did not help her at all, so she felt put aside, she went as far as saying that she did not want little brother to be home, but when he was at the hospital, she was worried that we came back without him.

Time passed and she started slowly to get a better temper and play her role of big sister, bringing us the changing mat when we need to change her brother's diaper, talking with him, reassuring him when he is crying, telling him that we are quickly coming to take care of him etc... a playful big sister.

So, two months in... Thanks to the Lord, we are still in one piece. This week, we will have the Chinese New Year, that will allow me to rest a bit and work a bit on my speakers project that did not move for 2 years since I talked about it.

Sick sick and sick

Dear Reader,

This fall, flu has taken down some of our family members... It started with me, a while ago, then, our helper, Myrtille and went back at me again. Myrtille is the one who suffered the most. Her fever got very high, she had some hallucinations and her appetite is near ground level, she does not eat, does not drink...
But since she started an antibiotic treatment, she has felt a bit better, at least, she does not have fever during the day anymore, only during her sleeping time.

As she stays at home, she easily get bored and is constantly requesting people to play with her. We are not too sure how to develop her interest in playing alone for some time. Maybe it's in her. So, we are rapidly pushed into our limits... Mom this, Mon that, Dad this, Dad that... Yukyin is tired as baby is relentlessly asking for milk...

Anyhow, we need prayers... for different things, first, we are all sick, so it would be good that we reach 2013 in good shape, second, we would like to found a way to have Myrtille grow more by herself, not reaching for our presence/help at all times. Sometimes, she is is really used to rely on us.

In the meantime, some pictures:

Myrtille and her friend during last Saturday outing (before she got really sick)

and her little brother, playing... behind his towel.

Thanks for reading.

10 days into a 4 Pax family

Dear Reader,

It's been 10 days since God gave us the joy of having a new baby home and what a gift! :)

Lil'bro does not have a name yet, but he is growing. The first half of his life was spent between hospital and home. He was born on the 22nd of November and they spent 2 nights at the hospital, as Yukyin wanted as best as possible to breastfeed, Lil'bro was not allowed any formula supplement, but we might have done it wrong at first. Lil'bro was a bit hungry and after two days, he was suffering from jaundice. He had quite a yellow tint but they still allowed him to be discharged. On the other hand, Yukyin needed an extra day to recover as she did not eat on the delivery day and could not eat afterward at all, she lost too much blood and did not have the energy to put her back in shape, she was feeling dizzy and uneasy with food. On the next day, appetite came back and she started to eat and regain energy. So, by Saturday afternoon, they were both home. But, Lil'Bro appetite dropped and we started to be a bit worried. Yukyin did not have milk in yet, so we were a bit concerned.

On Monday, we brought him to the Medical Health Centre, they told us that he needs to go back to the hospital for further checking. Through those events, I became angry about how wasteful the government can be in some cases, devices to check jaundice there have a 30% variation in readings and at the end, we were asked to go back to the hospital... somehow, I am just thinking if we should not have all those checking done in one same place instead of running around. Anyway, we got to the hospital in the afternoon and Lil'Bro needed to stay in for the night. I was kind of heartbroken... I know that jaundice is common but it's just sad seeing that little guy half naked in a plastic box lit by a powerful lamp. Just a feeling of loneliness. Besides that, they needed to feed him formula, bottle after bottle... they had a fixed amount of milk he needed to eat so that he could flush toxines and other bad things responsible for his jaundice... After one day, he was sharp awake when we visited him... 8) At home he has always been a bit sleepy, there he wanted to eat... So, somehow, we were disagreeing with the hospital's way of doing things, but in the same time, they got him his appetite back.

Another night passed and lamps when out, he was in observation, his jaundice rates were back to lower readings and he could go home on holiday for a night :). So, since Wednesday night, he is back home and we got all tired again from lack of sleeping. Yukyin's milk quantity is a lot higher than before, so I think he can be breastfed from now on. He had a few hesitations at first asking for milk bottle, but Yukyin kept strong and got the message in his mind... "you can only be breastfed".

Now, it's been few days, we are still very tired, Yukyin makes most of the effort, getting up and feeding him through days and nights. There is just some things we will never being able to replace. I tried to keep my head cool down, I had some bad time at start, gave some angry stares at Yukyin, but I'll pray that I'll get my temper in check. Sorry for being such a bad husband. I admire the love you give us so much.

I'll probably tell more about Myrtille another time as she also did change to cope with the presence of her little brother.

Here are some pictures of him:
Thinking about Mum

Another one:
Fully Awake, staring at Dad

Thanks for reading.

God listens... and gives.

Dear Reader,

God listened to our prayers. After Myrtille's delivery experience here, Yukyin was so marked that she did not want to have another baby, but after several years of thinking, she tried to put her fear aside, but no matter how you try, you can't definitively put it aside. So we prayed, we prayed with friends around us, we prayed with brothers and sisters in our cell group, we prayed with Pastors, we prayed and prayed with Myrtille... we kept praying. Yukyin wanted to experience a natural delivery, not a c-section again, but she had her moral sapped by several private obstetricians, telling her that it's no use, the best is to go with a c-section and coming with millions of different reasons about why she failed the first time. She wanted to try to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) but modern medicine prefers to stick to c-section surgery if the mother has went through a previous c-section as the risks are somewhat safer and much more under control. But Yukyin read a lot on the topic (she might tell you more one day) and still wanted a vaginal birth in order to have a quicker recovery for the mother (c-section does hurt your body, it's a surgery after all). So, knowing that she might have a slight chance to succeed (50/50 in the best case from the most optimistic obstetrician) and against  nearly all the obstetricians advice, we still decided to tell the hospital that we would opt for a natural delivery instead of a c-section on appointment.

Thus, from the end of August, Yukyin spent her days and night playing on her fitness ball, going to the swimming pool... doing exercises, walking, swimming, walking, squating... and most of all, praying and keep asking people to pray for her.

Seeing that baby was still not in the mood to come out, we kinda lost hope but we still prayed.

So after 9 months of prayers, on the due date, Yukyin's body started to have contractions around 11AM. She stayed home as she did not want to be under hospital environment stress and pressure. She started to keep track of her contractions, 1 mn every 3-4 mn. It was starting weak. At around 11:30, she asked me to come back home for lunch, so I took half day off. My boss is really good with us, so I could leave without issue. She stayed on her fitness ball, she thought that by going to the hospital, she won't have it anymore.

At 3PM, frequency started to increase, we were at 1 mn every 2 and a half minutes and she could not hold it anymore. We packed our things, I told her to keep the ball and try if she can use it there... we tried to call for a discounted taxi (thanks Grace for the number, Yukyin did not want me to spend 2 minutes not by her side googling for one), but this one told me that it's too short a trip to come pick us up... :( so we went for the legal way, call up a taxi at the Shatin Taxi station, went to the hospital. Registered her up. They did a quick check-up, she was 2cm dilated.

At 3:40, we noticed some nurses talking about fitness ball... And we simply asked if she could use hers as they did not provide any. They said yes! "you should fight for your privileges" (actually, the nurse was from another department and talking to her pregnant friend who was midwife". So Yukyin was happy as she could make herself comfortable again.

At 4:40, I started to hear her crying out her pain and suddenly, the nurses cried out "Ayaaa". Her water broke and they asked her to move back on her bed. She was fighting with the nurses... she could not move at all. They checked her up, the nurses said: "4-5 cm, let's write 4", they move her to the labor room.
Once in the labor room, another nurse checked her up and told her: "You can start to push"... Yukyin was "o_0" ??? what?
She got two incisions and they asked her to push as baby is ready for delivery, she could not believe it!! After 2-3 pushes... baby was there, 4:52PM! She spent less than 15 min at the labor room and baby was born! It's a guy, 3.4kg, we will present him later on.

To sum up, we are SO THANKFUL to the Lord first and to our cell group, pastors and all people who supported and prayed for us, who also prayed that she could manage a VBAC.. We still can't believe how blessed we are! God really gave us a perfect delivery, he listened to our prayers, Yukyin spilled it all, she prayed because she did not want to wait 48 hours as with Myrtille and end up with a c-section, she prayed because she was afraid of the hospital first stage room AKA the room where you endlessly wait and hear other women cry out loud in pain while waiting for your turn... She prayed because she was afraid she would not know how to breathe correctly, she prayed because she knew VBAC would involve some risk (the scar might burst in some rare case). She prayed because she wanted me to assist the birth, it ended up that I could not this time either because of malfunction in the public hospital systems (related to gas leak and all)... She prayed because PW hospital is not the best hospital of the world and that we got a lot of bad stories about it, especially trainees from Chinese University of Hong Kong.... She prayed, prayed, prayed... and she got what she wanted most, an ultra smooth delivery.

Thank you Lord!

Are we there yet?? and some mixed feelings about School

Dear Reader,

Yukyin is at week 39 and baby is still not in the mood to show its face... We really start to feel the weight of all those seconds, minutes, hours or days passing one after the other. Everything is ready, we just need to get baby out of Yukyin's tummy. We keep praying for Yukyin's delivery. That's for my first piece of non so happy news, here is the second one...

Last week, we got the first teacher/parents meeting at Myrtille's kindergarten and I won't hide the fact that we are not so happy about that. She is 3 but she is already so far behind... She is not an easy girl and she does not cross your sight when saying "good morning", she likes to play several different educational toys in a short time while the other may just play one or two at max, she likes dancing around in gym class when her teacher asked her to only stand on a predefined area, she has no patience and wants things right away, she does not know how to draw a face (a circle, with two eyes, a nose, two ears and a mouth)... So, yes she is 3 and she is considered "BEHIND"... If it continues, we will need to use other methods says the teacher...

I think I am just going to blow it out: "SO WHAT?".... Myrtille is 3, if she goes to kindergarten, it's obviously that I would like my kid to learn things at school and not having me teaching her at home. I know that I need to play my part as a parent, but is it K-1? She does not even know how to hold a pen correctly! how can you just ask her to draw a face? ... "look at the others, they can all do that"... so what? Just pushing things into a kid's mind is just wrong, there is no more discoveries, no more fun in the learning experience, that's just sad. The first few years are really the years made for the kids to be given boundless fun with the different tools they have under hands. Instead of that, they just try to format kids into a mold. That's SO wrong. Kids just become robots. I do appreciate the religious teaching they offer, but capping a kid at that age is just so sad.

In a flash of an instant, we gave a thought at leaving the public schooling in order to get something more western culturally speaking, but we just can't afford it.

Now that my anger has passed, we'll continue to work on what we thing is really a problem, Myrtille's impatient side and bad manners. Other than that, I just realize how much we are not in phase with school. I thought they were doing things at child's pace... but no, they are doing things at Hong Kong's pace.

I'll work my bottom off in order to get her through that early-learning phase that kindergarten completely missed. I just pray that God will change that city someday.

An angry Val

6 years and counting.

Rear reader,

Today we celebrated our marriage anniversary. 6 long years, during which, we have been growing our love to each other. I learnt more about my wife, she learnt more about me, and this year has been marked by our will to be parents again. So after a big amount of prayers, of trying, Yukyin has a huge belly ready to give birth somewhere around next month.

A new challenge.

From the time we had Myrtille we learnt that we are not so patient anymore, we are less careful, we have less free time, we are older, I really enjoy sleeping some time. So sometimes, I am just wondering why we decided to get a new kid? But I do think it will help gather ours ties closer, Myrtille will learn what it is to share things at home, to share mum and dad's time. To live with a sibling. I always had my big brother, but I never knew how it was before I arrive in his life. Now, I can imagine through Myrtille's life and I think it won't be easy. At last, we want to build a family of 4 inside God's hands.

Yukyin's condition is fine, she is nearly at the end of her pregnancy and started to have all those different little things happening in her body that indicate the nearing of the end. I just want to ask you to pray for a smooth delivery. We are not so worried about the life with baby, we are more worried about how the delivery will actually happen. She had a c-section the first time and we would like to try giving her naturally.

Anyway, thanks for those beautiful 6 years, thanks for tonight's cake. I love you.

I pray that whoever you are, you live a happy tale with your half one. (If not, you can always drop me a comment, we'll pray for ya.)

See you soon.

Father, help me be a better father

Dear All,

It's been a while as usual, time flies and now that we have a little toddler at home, she is healthy, smiling, crying, creating her own way of communication... She is growing and in the same time, so is our role as parents. We started as care givers as she was a baby and slowly evolve to a mix of teacher/parent/friend as she became a toddler.

Now she is 21 month old, she is starting to discover life, learning to like and dislike. She is trying to get Mama for herself, casting me aside with some wide swings of her hand. That is quite hurting, but, in the same time, I understand her and when she is playing with me, her smile brings me to heaven.

Lately, questions about parenting have raised up. She is starting to be really alert of the environment she is living in, she knows when we boil water, she knows when we go to a dessert place, she knows when we buy bread... etc...
So limits or boundaries are a necessity: in approach of a forbidden fruit, she would slowly look at us with a smile, then she would just reach for her object of desire and grab it with her tiny hands, the next thing you would hear is a kakakakakaka and the sound of her bare feet running on the floor... You can imagine.

Being a father is far from being easy. I have a busy work, a busy home life and too often, I am short tempered. I would quickly raise the tone of my voice, hopefully, Yukyin is there to remind me that I need to love her, in the other hand, it also means that I have let those waves of anger strike my relationship with both of them.

So when I am totally lost, in the outer space, I am just wondering how You, My Lord, are doing, how do You live with so much people not listening to You, How do You manage to continuously love them, even if they don't know You, even if they don't recognize You.
But when I see her smile, when I hear the sound of her voice, when I see her looking around with her curiosity, I understand how much it please You to see Your children grow. It is so pleasing to look at your own child growing. It feels so good to be by her side as she discover the world. It gives me strength and perseverance to be a better father, to be more than what I am.

Thank You Lord, for sharing that feeling of being a father, thanks for the miracle You gave us. Thanks for Your creation and the Love you put into it.

Thanks

I know that amongst my reader, there are people who are trying really hard to have a baby, I know people who managed after several years, I know some who are still trying, I might not understand exactly what you are going through and today's post my not be your cup of tea. I deeply pray that God bless you beyond your sweetest expectations.

I'll try to post some more soon.

Spring

Spring is coming and it is quite a season here... It's hot and humid. The worse is that we are in the middle of a weird spot where very cold and dry wind can cool down the city during a week and humid and hot air can replenish the city's street the week after. It makes rain falling inside, the water condense on the cool walls making them sweat.

This is also myrtille's first spring. She is quite growing, she eats up a lot of porridge, she starts to have her own rhythm, she likes to smile at me when I am making a clown face. She loves to stand up now that she knows that she can do it, we still have to hold her, but we are patient that she will learn it at her pace. Last week end we took her out and apparently, she loves parks and green areas.



I started to play a lot with her and it makes me feel important to her, at least it makes her important to me. It looks like that I am building my own relationship with her, at least. Yukyin did tell me about that lately, she found that I have changed. Great! If it can make both of them live happier, then why not?



On my work side, I have been promoted, that's great! Not so great is the amount of responsabilities that are induced by that promotion, being responsible for other's performance, for their future performance, interviewing people, etc... Next to it, I need to work out the IT department of my company, that's also a huge piece of work there... Put it simple, I think that everybody should grow up one day, it's just that the pace of my growth took a haste pill lately. I really need to take some rest. During my numerous interviews, I noticed one thing among fresh grads from everywhee in the world, it is the way people strives to gain ranks in a company but it is way lot more accented in Hong Kong graduates. They want to jump from position to position, from title to title, from low salary to higher and higher salaries. It's not that I am not interest in all that, but I am not sure that all of them can soak up the amount of pressure and workload that those titles require... It can just be me, after all.

Time will tell.

To open spring season, let me present a few of my last pictures.

Myrtille playing with dad at home:
 



Myrtille eating her toe:



Myrtille in TST with her parents.



Right now, I want to purchase a new lens but I am not really sure of the usage I want to do with it yet, so we'll see later. Maybe my year's budget will go into software instead of hardware. Like buying lightroom... I am trying the beta2 and it's very quite cool, very quick photographic workflow.

Anyway, I hope that you don't mind having me posting that seldom, I still hope to do better. Please keep us in your prayers.

Jump to my flickr link on the right to see lots of latest pictures:

Trying To Get Some Sleep!

Dear Reader,

It seems that I can't really hold a 1 message per week rhythm, so, at least, I'll try to get 1 message per month and give some extra when I can.

This month has been very exhausting for both of us. We start to lack of sleeping again. Actually, we are trying to get Myrtille to sleep by herself, better now than when she'll start to crawl everywhere... but still, I don't think it prevents us for having her crawl and jump everywhere at bedtime when she'll be that age...

So, we started to put her to bed awake and wait for the time she would decide to sleep, during the process, we did learn a few things, first, it's not that hard but it's not that easy, but also, prayers were a great help for us. We figure out that we don't pray enough with her and preparation to bedtime is quite a good time to start in getting used to that. Usually, if we pray before putting her to bed, it works. I don't say that prayers is the key for putting her to sleep, but it helped us greatly and Thanks to God, we did manage to succeed quite a few times without too much issues.

But still, when there are unsolved issues, she would cry for us during hours, hence our lack of sleep. Usually, she will cry between 15 min to 2h at the beginning of her bed, then, we would decide to feed her again and she would sleep after 10 minutes. But it really gets us tired easily and right now, our patience is like a very thin layer of glass, ready to shatter at all time.

Just a quick clarification, we don't just drop her in her bed, we go to see her every 15 minutes to see if everything is ok, and we lengthen the waiting period each time.

Besides that, Church service, our pastor asked Yukyin to help out at the choir as a pianist, it's very very good, but we won't be able to make it. Yukyin has a bit of concerns when she leave the baby to me... I get quite angry easily at my little piece of cake, so even I would really enjoy giving a helping hand to the Lord, we need to wait a time when the whole family is prepared for it.

At work, this year will be full of new things for me, I have been promoted and will be responsible of few people (at least 2 for the meantime), it's not a huge deal, but my performance will be related to people under my watch and that's something that concerns me a bit more. Anyway, it's all new to me and I'll just pray for help. :)

Ah ah, last thing that got through our mind... the need to have someone at home taking care of our chores, households and a bit of the baby, in two words, getting a maid. I don't really like the idea of having someone at home, but if I am paying somebody hourly paid to do such things, I could also paid a helper full time to do even more. In Hong Kong, it's something quite affordable, but that's not that easy, so we need the Lord's guidance on this one, at the end, if we hire somebody, she will also be part of Myrtille's education. So, let's wait, see and pray. :)

Some few pictures of our squid.

Myrtille and her Strawberries' bits


Mum and me


Hmmm... Phone + Octopus Card = Big Girl


Sunset Time


And some pictures of friends, that I would like to share:

Sweet Smile from Kathy:


Our friends preparing to take off:


And Kendrick Driving His Truck


That's all folks for this ... month. Hope I can get a video uploaded soon.

Introducing liquified solid nutriments...

Dear reader,

Myrtille continues to grow up and we started to introduce some little soup to her diet. We tried different things, homemade and ready to eat little pots. Actually one of our sister at church brought us a kit, a baby cooking kit, a very good one! Brand is pigeon and we quite easily make what we plan to make, so up till now, she tried: rice soup, pumpkin, carrots, cucumber, sweet potatoes, quite a fest. It also relieves Yukyin's breast as Myrtille does not depend on it that often. Actually, yukyin was in a great period of stress, as she still is right now, Myrtille seemed not having enough food and she did not want to have Yukyin's right side, so she kept having milk stucked ducts once every two days. Right now, it calmed a bit.

We also continues to discover her a bit more, we know that she pretty much eats anything that we throw at her, also, we discovered that she does not like cold food. Example water, give her some room temperature and she will push the bottle back with her tongue, give her some warm and she will just drink it as is. Only works when she want to drink though. But it's the same with apples or pear juices or puree that she has as desert.

What's difficult is finding the right ingredients, as cautious parents, we thought that we could buy organic food for her, costs a bit more but, we think that for a young developing digestive system, it might be better. The problem is that organic means no OGM and it just remind us how quick things can perish in your fridge. The choice is not that large too, it's a bit hard to purchase too much different things.

Last thing, as Myrtille grows, she started to have a bad habit, lately, she started to "bite" Yukyin. Luckily, she does not have teeth yet, but we are a bit anxious at the days she will have some. Especially the 4big at the front.

She also seem to quickly forget things, she always do a new thing for 2days only. Then she forgets. She learnt how to say mama, it lasted two days and now, she does not know anymore.

So, here are the pictures:

Trying to get her clothes off:

Yeah, while she was sleeping, but apparently, she didn't manage to go all the way.

Ohhhh

Making a funny face while eating

Miamm

Khehehehe, Myrtille loves her new food.

Where is my food!

Impatiently waiting for her meal...

That's all for this week news! Hope you enjoyed the pictures. :)

Some September tid bits

Dear Reader,

I hope that you have been doing well lately, it has been a long time without new post and during that time, we actually passed the 2000 visits count (way quicker than the 1000 visit), so, thanks for your visits, I'll try to go back to the one post per week rhythm. A lot of things happened in September and it's a bit hard to summarize them in words.

First, we have been cut from the internet for some time but now, we are back up again :). In fact, my fellow notebook decided to die on us in the beginning of September. It served me during the last 5 years, from Hong Kong to Australia, then, back to Hong Kong after spending 6 months in France... Now, it refuses to boot up and I refuse to give any more time in troubleshooting it or replacing parts (it is already running on its third motherboard)... it does not worth it, so I put it aside and went buy a new computer. For the geek among you, I upgraded to a i5 system with SSD and RAID hard drive, the objective? getting pictures fine tuned faster, I'll be able to shoot RAW format now, something impossible on the notebook because of its sluggishness. I wanted to go MAC, but they don't do computer affordable enough with the hardware I want (I want something like a mac pro in a imac footprint, can't afford a mac pro and I am not satisfied from a imac). I also took a TV card to record all the series I want to watch. So, spent some time working on a good workflow to transfer recorded series on my ipod touch in order to watch them in the commute. Pretty thing, isn't it?

Anyway, I have a new computer, that works, and above all, fast enough for new photography treatment possibilities, so watch out. (although, I did not put the software on it yet)

So life is going on, we are finding our marks each of us, Yukyin recently start to teach piano again (if you have any people looking to learn piano, you may drop us a note). We find out that taking care of Myrtille is not really easy, I mean, you don't have time anymore for nearly anything else.

Talking about her, she is 2 months old now. She grew a lot, I mean, she took some weight and her body changed all over, she looks a bit less chubby. She has a bigger butt, fattier tights, stronger neck. But according to the nurses, she is still a bit light and advised Yukyin to feed her 8 times... instead of 6. She still cries a lot. The first month has been a nightmare, every time we laid her down, she would start to cry non-stop for hours, the longest she made was 3h I think. But with a bit of training, we think that she finally made it, I mean, now, she starts being able to sleep by herself, we laid her down, she cries but quickly, she falls asleep or she starts looking at her flying fluffy toys (Thanks to Aunties and Uncles) and listening to music without emitting one single noise from her mouth. Huuurraaahhh.

The next thing we need to work on is going out! it has been a problem for both of us for some time now, we don't have the chance for going out often and we often feel uneasy about feeding her outside. But we do know that for our sanity, we can't stay all the time at home. Myrtille too, needs to go out and see the world. So please pray for us so that we can get used to our new life.

We need to work on our couple too, too much time spent on Myrtille and not for ourselves, that's breaking our couple, luckily, not in the hard way though.

About my feelings towards Myrtille... it's still a bit up and down. Actually, the feeling that "I need to love her" is still stronger than "I love her", that's why, I feel that I can't simply say that "I love her". I know it's weird and I know that it can choke a lot of people, it's not that I don't love her, but that's how I feel actually. However, Yukyin told me that she sees a kind of closer relationship building between us lately. Still... I need to work on it. Maybe the depth of our current relationship is not at the point where I wish it to be yet. Guys always have been "weaker" in expressing feelings anyway. I'll just pray that I can handle her better, especially when she is crying out mad and moving around upside down in my arms at 4 in the morning. Quite hard...

For the time being, I'll upload a bit of pics:

In exclusivity, Myrtille top-less :D

Pretty, isn't it? She likes to bath so she likes when we undress her as it is the sign for bath time... but sometimes, it's just to replace a bit of her dirty clothes.

Bath or Snoozing time?

She likes it so much that she occasionally fall asleep in her bathtub.

Dad and me:

Always wanted to do this shot. Not easy to have a good framing while holding the camera and with Myrtille crying at me.

Big nap after a good meal:

Was late in the evening on her two month's eve. The day after, we brought her get her two shots which turned her into a less angelic little baby at night.

For more frequent updates on pictures, you can add Yukyin and I on facebook. :)
Have a nice day.
Please pray for us :0)

Starting to see Daylight

Dear Reader,

Last week, Myrtille was one month old! yeepeee, actually, she started to get unmanageable during the night, so we ended up buying her a pacifier... :) A very very useful piece of accessories... to give you an idea of how effective it is... during that week end, we considered that we were at war with our little squid... and we were out of ammo while she was throwing everything she could, from small shriek bullets, to chemical homemade weapons... But after we got the pacifier... haha! we had our newly made nuclear bomb. :) Once we put it in her mouth, she started to get calm. hehehe. It does not work all the time, but when it does, it does a great job.

I also had another aggressive frenzy starting to bad behave with her... when you start to be mean, having her cry and practice her vocal cords in front of you is not the most effective thing to make you calm. So, as she was already crying and I could not figure out what she was doing, a little voice in my mind just told me: "if I don't know why you are crying, then, I'll make you cry, at least I will know why".

Got a major crack down. Yukyin was scared that I would harm her even more. Hopefully, Yukyin is there to fill my love account and teach me how to behave with her. So, after a few moment praying for Lord's help and calmly training, I figured out that I must bow to her needs... meaning that I need to give her what she wants instead of trying to make her live the way I want. So things have changed thanks to Yukyin. However... it does not solve our lack of sleep problems... she is still crying a lot... but we managed to make her sleep a bit more often.

This week end we also had the confirmation of one funny behavior she has. Each time I use our vacuum cleaner, she fall asleep like a rock (I can say that it's my new ultimate weapon... though I cannot use it by night.
Here is the picture 10 minutes I started to clean our home:

You can notice a bit of rash under her neck, we went to see the doctor, she has a cream for it, so no big worries.

That's all folks :)

Being Patient

Dear reader,

How have you been lately? Fine I hope, been a long time I did not write anything. I have been very tired these last days although I think my exhaustion is not comparable to Yukyin's.

Myrtille is growing but she has a few issues appearing now. First, she has a diaper rash. We tried different solutions but none seems to give any results, right now, the only thing we can do is pray that it gets better and change her more oftenly, at least, changing her at the single sound of poop has made things a bit better. She also started to have some acne on the face along with some white spots. Everybody says that it is normal, so we are monitoring it and will seek medical advice at her coming MCH's visit.

Actually, we are getting more and more tired day after day. The lack of sleep I think, that's the worst thing. We still need to wake up at least twice a night, we are longing for a complete night of rest but we know that it won't come anytime soon. Hopefully, by next month or the month after next month, she'll at least let us sleep more than 5 hours in a row.

The problem is that with such a lack of sleep we are getting short tempered and we get easily depress. I started to have a peak of rage last week when I got in a uncontrolled thirst of hitting her and making her feeling pain. I am far from being proud of it, but for those who know me, they should understand how I am exhausted.

But I managed to overcome it, God is with us and I know that he is there to helps us get some sanity in our mind. It gave me an outlook of God's relation with humans. We only know how to cry but God is the one who is taking care of us. Myrtille is the same, she only cries for things and we provide her. God knows what is best for us and I hope I am giving the best to her too.

We always think that God is not listening to us but in fact He is surely preparing us to receive his infinite blessings. That's what in my mind when Myrtille is crying for food, she want it so much that our neighbor at the 1st floor should be able to hear her, but in our side, we need to get ready and get her ready, she need to get changed, Yukyin needs to prepare herself to get confortable so as to breastfeed her correctly, and once she got what she wants, she stays calm until something get her mind busy again. Patience. It's what it takes us to grow correctly. She wasn't born with and thus, we need to teach her to be patient.

Actually, so do us, we need to be patient with her.

I really thank you for your prayers and already owe you a lot, I hope we'll manage to be parents that she can be proud of, for the time being, I take this opportunity to tell my wife how much I love her and once again how much I am proud of her. She suffered and still suffers for our sake, giving her best everyday. Giving her her care, her love, her attention. I owe her a lot, she is doing more than twice the efforts I am doing everyday and my panda eye mask testifies how much I am giving out everyday.

I may sound a bit down, but I know that that's the long and hard path in raising a kid.

Please keep us in our prayers, we still need tons of them.

Pictures of our Growing little Squid

Dear Reader,

First, on the sad side of our family's news. We lost one of our bunnies. We place him at a refuge until Myrtille would be at least one month old. A very nice place where he got unlimited supply of food and care. He was probably getting old or something like that... On Friday, the manager called me at 3pm to tell me that he was not feeling well. At 4pm, she said he was getting a bit better and asked me to visit him. At 6pm, as I was on my way, she called me and asked me urgently to take him to the vet's ER but when I finally arrived there, the lady laid him in my arms and he cried out his last breath. He died in my arms less than 30 seconds I entered the refuge... That's the end of this week's sad note.

Now, back to our little dried shrimp. At the dawn of her third week. Myrtille is doing fine and... we are getting old.. Ahem... We are accumulating a huge amount of lack of sleep... Hope it will get better quickly.

Actually, I forgot to present her Chinese name, her name is : 曉萄, pronounced "Hiu To", it means "knowing" and "vine", as written in the Bible, God is the vine, and we pray that our little kiddo will walk in His path and take pleasure to know about Him. Also, vine and myrtille are both purple colored fruits which reminds us that we are to bear the Holy Spirit's fruits.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:5
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23

Full of meaning, isn't it?

So this week little pictures compilation:


She was still 13 hours old. A little extra here.


Myrtille napping in the morning... After a messy night having us both rounding.. I was awake from 12 to 2:30 AM to make her sleep and Yukyin was awake from 4 to 6 for the same reason... Baahhh... need to have her reversing day and night back to the right hours.

Two Family pictures:


Taken at the hospital on her third day :)


Taken on her third week :)

And two other candid shots:




She was in our fellowship's Raymond's arms feeling nice and confortable.

That's it for Myrtille's news. Hope you like it.

Thanks again for all your prayers, I hope you don't mind me asking you to continue to pray for us :) Please pray for our health as we are getting tired by the endless repetitive meals of our little squid.

Home Sweet Home

Dear Reader,

Too much to think, too much to say, it's been a week now. Myrtille stayed at the pediatrics during two days and she was moved back to Yukyin's side on Monday morning. She was getting better and started to take care of Myrtille, who started to be a bit painful... (baby you know?)

Quickly, it appeared to her that she needed to leave the hospital, nurses are nice, but some of them are "not that nice"... so she was getting fed up by those, but there were some very nice ones that helped her out with Myrtille. She started to breastfed her. We were a bit worried that Myrtille got used to silicone tits as she was on a formula in the pediatrics but thanks God, she started to feed on Yukyin's breast without too much issue.

A breastfed baby:


They came back home on Tuesday and then started our endless days. Having a baby home is tiresome and no joke, it is way beyond what I imagined. From a 24h life cycle, we entered a 3h life cycle. In those 3 hours, Myrtille has a nap, a meal, a soiled diaper and above all, she reversed day and night. During the day, she sleeps right after her meal, during the night, she does not sleep and stay awake with her big eyes looking for people to take care of her. If she does not spot anyone, she'll cry... no ahem, she will yell...

Yelling is the only way for her to communicate. We keep learning one new thing per day. First day, the most obvious, she yells because she is angry. Then she yells because she soiled her diaper and she is feeling ashamed (uncomfortable). Then, she yells because she wants to poo and does not manage to do so. Another night, she was yelling because she did not manage to sleep on her belly. She yells because she wants to sleep, however, we tend to play with her until she literally freeze and fall asleep. She yells because she does not feel well on the changing table.
You'll understand that our home is a noisy house... when she is awake.

The other facet of the problem is that she is very very awaken by night and thus, we don't have a lot of time to sleep. When she is hungry she starts crying and then, Yukyin needs to prepare herself for the meal, after the meal, I need to wait for her to burp and poo and then, she can sleep... one or one and half hour and here we go again.

What she looks like every night:


Anyhow, thanks for prayers, we are getting fine and hope we'll manage to get ourselves used to her or the other way around... Hehehe, right now, we are trying to keep her awake by day... so that we can all sleep at the same time by night.

Keep praying for us folks :)

Ah and a good piece of advice, if you are looking for a postnatal helper... call us to make sure you avoid our agent.