Swimming and the Hexagon, April 2008

My wife, Kanittha, took this photograph of Little Nio and his Daddy enjoying the pool in front of the clubhouse to our village. After a while the garish decor of our village isn't so offensive that you are able to ignore it without too much effort.

Personally, I suspect it's because I'm having way too much fun enjoying the company of my son to worry about the architectural crimes being committed by residential developments like the one we live in. He's growing up too fast, and keeping pace with him is as much as I can do. I suppose all those other things are just background clutter.



Here's Little Nio posing with his name. "N-I-O" in the pool. His Daddy is somewhere underwater holding him up.





Summer is almost over and the monsoon season with its heavy rains is almost upon us here. Little Nio takes his Daddy swimming as often as possible before it's too late and the rains force him to take to the indoors.

We've also gone and recently purchased a hexagonal shaped playpen. Very sturdy, very heavy duty. It's become a mini-activity center for Little Nio.







It's a place for drinking a bottle of milk.





It's a great place for taking a quick power nap.





And it's also a great place for hanging out with stuffed toy friends and doing a bit of exercise.

One of the other things that Little Nio has started to do is to role play. Or perhaps he is merely reliving a past life with very strong residual traces of a Mexican luchador? Highly unlikely though... he doesn't even have a mask.





Here's Little Nio standing in his hexagonal playpen, strangely reminiscent of the octagon that is an icon of the Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) competition. It's one thing to grow up unafraid, but perhaps training for the role might be going a bit too far.




This video clip shows Little Nio displaying his foot stomping skills. We suspect that he's actually copying his Mommy stomping out cockroaches. Here's his game face.

Sonkran, April 2008

We didn't go out of town for Songkran (Buddhist Thai New Year) this year. It actually can get very dangerous on the roads during this holiday season with the accident rates being alarmingly high. We stayed in Bangkok and simply went to have a nice family lunch together. Here's Little Nio with his Mommy, waiting for the lifts at Siam Paragon.



Posing near the pond right outside one of our favorite restaurants at Siam Paragon, Café Chili. It's located on the ground level of the mall and it serves fantastic northeastern (Issarn) style food. My wife, Kanittha, is from that part of the country and she gives the cuisine here top marks.



Back home after lunch, Mommy teaches Little Nio a few important rituals to pay respect to the Buddha during this religious holiday.



Here's Little Nio with his Daddy standing in front of the house.



It's a really good sign that a child is curious about his environment and Little Nio has shown nothing but a healthy interest in everything around him. Despite barely being able to walk, he shows tremendous manual dexterity and mechanical capacity. Not only will he try opening drawers, but once he finds something interesting he will try to find out more.



The colored photos in this catalog look interesting, but for all we know he might have spotted a real bargain with some of those discount prices.

A Typical Day, April 2008

Here's what it's like to spend a typical day with Little Nio.

We catch up with him at dinner... nothing like a bit of fried chicken and some french fries. Even if the chicken ends up on the floor... it still tastes like chicken.







Little Nio is a very healthy eater. He pretty much eats anything, but we've been very cautious about introducing him to new foods. Right now the only things that we haven't introduced him to are really spicy Thai foods and some seafoods. That can always wait till later on.



Here he is, just barely awake. His Mommy is still fast asleep beside him. Little Nio still sleeps in the big bed between us, but he starts out sleeping in his own crib. In the middle of the night, when he gets lonely and starts whining, we move him in between us. We're going to try moving him to his own room in a few more months, but right now we're all enjoying cuddling up together.



Wide awake now. Just finished having some bread rolls for breakfast. There are crumbs all over the place, so Little Nio has to stay in his crib while Mommy sweeps up after him.



Waiting for bath time. Having ditched his clothes, Little Nio struts around the bedroom in his birthday suit.



Here he is with Mommy taking a bath. He used to like taking his bath in the tiny tub all the time, but being a big boy now Little Nio sometimes prefers to sit down for his bath.



Right out of the bath waiting for some clothes.



The gratuitous butt shot to keep audience interest in this blog.



The finished product after the bath. Here's Little Nio all smiles with his Mommy. And that, was basically what a typical day is like.