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"Take A Picture With The Aunties" A baby to add something new to the same-old group picture. http://flic.kr/p/7JFnvo

Minor Milestone

Or, Freezer Freedom

Our moms didn't breast-feed because they were sold on the convenience and new-and-improved-ness of baby formula, and because they were busy at work with no accommodation for new mothers at all. Now we know that breast-milk is still the best way to go, so the wife was worried about providing enough for the baby. It was tough for the first few days, but natural instincts and evolutionary mechanics kicked in and the mom-juice flowed smoothly thereafter. With a little help from the breast pump we were able to stock up the freezer for the nanny to feed him during the day while wife's at work. We shared some with other moms who had trouble producing enough milk themselves. Or even take some expired milk to make cute soaps out of it.

But the baby has grown and been introduced to solid food, and it's tiresome to find time and place every few hours to hide away and pump. So we didn't do much to force the issue as the breast milk began to diminish, and little by little baby began to eat through the freezer stash. Until finally we were done. Two and a half shelves worth of freezer space reclaimed for groceries and popsicles. All that empty space almost tempted me to run out to Costco for bulk packages of... anything. We go to Costco for bulk boxes of Pampers (now in XL!) anyway.

During the day, he thinks he's a big boy and pushes the bottle of formula away. But before he goes to sleep and after he wakes up he still likes some warm soothing milk. With him passing the 10kg mark, even the part-time feedings add up in a hurry in baby formula, especially with the recent price hikes getting close to NTD 1K per can. Good thing he seems to enjoy trying other foods. Started with apple sauce and mashed bananas, moving up to rice gruels from stock with soft-cooked carrots or broccoli. Now that both upper and lower teeth have sprouted we can let him try even more fruits like papaya and tomato. His aunts have promised to take him to McDonalds for burgers and fries anytime he wants, but they'll have to go through us first.

With our mothers' wide social networks, it's inevitable that we'd be regaled with stories of how someone else's kid is already walking/talking/playing/showing off amazing talents at his age. Meanwhile, although our kids is cute and good-natured and all, Baby Einstein he's not. Took him the longest time to even learn to wave goodbye, and even then only occasionally, when he feels like it. Well, he's finally got a schtick of his own now.

Who you callin' a genius now, huh? Can't wait for him to show that off for all the relatives at Chinese New Year time.

Internet Famous

I don't know who decided having everyone introducing all their products, in one place, all at once was a good idea, but the Consumer Electronics Show is now that occasion and the monster's out of control. There are the big-name conglomerates throwing out TVs, camcorders, cameras, and laptops by the dozen, all named with inscrutable alphanumeric strings. Then there's Intel promising faster chips, promising Nokia more cell phones for everybody, and Microsoft promising not much of anything new (Engadget: "And... that's it? Wow. Incredibly boring. Incredibly incredibly boring. Really."). As the tide of rumors about the yet-non-existent Apple products threatens to steal the show.

A major theme at CES recently, even more so now with the semi-demise of the Macworld show, is the explosion of accessories and add-ons for the iPod ecosystem. But even with the dedicated coverage of sites like iLounge, the never-ending arrays of speakers, docks, headphones, and cases do get old after a while, and it takes a real unique product to stand out.

Parrot had managed to break through the clutter once before with their premium Philip Starck-designed floor-standing dock-speakers. But in the end it's just another set of speakers and one's attention moves on quickly to the next new thing. However, their big CES reveal of the AR. Drone remote-controlled helicopter is perfectly designed to capture the imagination of any iPhone wielding male. What big-boy wouldn't want an iPhone-piloted hovering quad-copter with built-in video cam, streaming live-view pictures back to the iPhone screen? It was certainly impressive enough for the hardened cynics at Engadget to proclaim "we're already lined up and we're not worrying about the cost."

Even with all the gadget blogs, it's still impossible for one team to cover everything at CES, not to mention singular mainstream journalists. Even as the pseudo-all-knowing tech-columnist of the New York Times, David Pogue is still just one man amongst the sea of CES press-releases. So when I saw his favorites-of-CES on CNBC featured something as mundane as custom earbud covers made from earhole photos, I couldn't resist shooting him a tweet about the AR Drone. To my surprise, he quickly replied.

chungiwang: @Pogue Come on, iPhone-controlled wifi-enabled surveillance mini-copter couldn't beat out icky earhole pictures? http://j.mp/5N6gWq>

Pogue: DANG! definitely does. Never saw it.

Then he fired off a new tweet to his 1,304,619 followers:

Pogue: iPhone-controlled quadricopter with video-eye-view... too damn cool! http://bit.ly/7O1vPa (via @chungiwang)

Like a good journalist should, the story was properly attributed to moi, and he left enough slack in the tweet to allow the entire text, including @-attributions, to be re-tweeted by others. And soon thereafter, references of Pogue's tweet, and my name, began to pop up all over the Twitter-verse.

Yeah, it's a vanity ego-boost that means nothing in the real world. But after industriously tweeting away in my own little corner to an uncaring world for months on end it's kinda cool to experience the power of the real-time-web communication's network effect in action, even just in a slight reflection of its full extent. Although to be fair it's not my first brush with celebrity-twits, having gotten a public reply from The Sports Guy (a.k.a. @sportsguy33, 1,144,934 followers) before. I think it's because of time-zone reasons my replies come near US midnight time, as they do their final Twit-checks and other followers have gone to bed, so I have a slightly better chance of breaking through the tweet-noise.

Self Pacifying

On the one hand, the baby is settling into a familiar appearance, the adorable little meat-ball. On the other hand, he is still growing and making new surprises every day. Like when he sprouted a couple of baby teeth, which made for quite a surprise for the wife when he bit down while suckling. Nowadays he stuffs into his mouth anything he can get his hands on. We got him some silicone toys to chew on, which are a bit softer than hard plastic and easier to clean than the furry toys, but he seems to have more interest in random household items than pricey baby gear.

You know what they say about idle hands, and he's got nothing better to do than to reach out and grab at everything in sight. He especially likes to fish for mom's jade necklace, with its eye-catching silver chain and bright green stone. Otherwise the wife's long hair also makes for a fun handful to pull on. When it's me holding the baby, he doesn't have anything to grab on to, so he just waves the hands around to paw and squeeze at my face. He's got some strength in his hands now and his fingernails are sharp, very dangerous! When we sit him down in his high chair, he'll bat at his toy for a while, then quite deliberately hold it over the side and drop it to the floor for the clatter. Of course, we pick it up and give it back to him right away, so he doesn't learn any better. We'll definitely have to break him of that habit before we start setting food in front of him.

Mother's milk has been good enough to have him gain an average of a kilo a month since birth, and the wife almost took over the entire freezer with gallons of the stuff. But now her milk output is decreasing, and it's time for him to be a big boy now and try some other foods. Scrape apple or pear with a spoon, mash up a little banana or papaya, or blend up some rice gruel with spinach. He never quite know what's coming, so he gets excited and bends forward when he sees the shiny spoon incoming, and it takes a lot more coaxing from the nanny before he'll drink milk from the bottle now. But when it gets late and he's tired, he still likes his mommy best for a nightcap before he'll go to sleep.

As Sam said, "YMMV is a good way to describe developmental milestones." Through the grapevine we hear about other kids his age who are already crawling, standing, clapping, waving, and leaping tall buildings in a single bound. We're just happy that our baby finally figured out how to (laboriously) crawl forward, and still haven't taught him how to wave goodbye. Thought he had learned his name when he alertedly turned his head when we called him, but then we called out wife's name and he turned his head just as quick. At least he's figured out how to take a pacifier and stick it into his mouth the right way around, which is like a cognitive advancement in spatial awareness, albeit a limited special case.

On the good side, he's certainly not afraid of strangers. Grandma and the other old ladies in the park love him because he'll smile and play with all comers. Aunties and cousins can hold him and hug him and he won't fuss. He's a happy baby in general, laughing at all the silly things we do to amuse him. Most importantly, he smiles when he wakes up and sees me in the morning, and he'll smile and wave excitedly when I get home from work. He cries when I hold him while the wife's taking her bath, though. But that just means he's tired late in the evening and he wants mommy to put him to bed, not that he doesn't love daddy.

Sunday Shopping List

Took care of a few chores while the wife and baby are out of the house.

• Fresh-roasted coffee beans from LaCrema
• Sliced ham
• Whole milk (1-liter)
• Organic unflavored yogurt
• Mayonnaise (made my own from scratch instead)
• Screwdrivers, Philips and flat head
• 10m Ethernet cable (to string from the HTPC around the wall to the network jack)
• Pack of Ethernet jacks for crimping
• Win7 MCE-compatible TV-card (ended up with a Compro E650F)

Good Timing

After getting up and checking AAPL's earning report, then making coffee for the wife and I, I was already running a bit behind. Still couldn't resist cooing over the baby for a bit, as he raised up his head and gave me a half-awake good-morning smile. Now I collected my stuff and was on the way out the door when I heard the wife calling me back.

The baby hasn't had a bowel movement in a couple of days. Of course he let out two day's worth of poop just as I was about to leave and just before the nanny arrived to help. He refuses to lie back dociley nowadays, and we definitely didn't want him rolling around on our sheets with a dirty bum. So I had to stay and help to strip and clean up the mess, then fill a pan with warm water for some butt-rinsing.

So I was a bit late to work, but a clean baby is a happy baby, and a happy baby makes for a happy daddy.