"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"

I know most of you who have been suffering through the "Winter Wonderland" think that I'm crazy, but I wish I had snow this Christmas...and ice skating and tobogganing and fires and hot chocolate...it's just not quite the same. But I guess I can look on the plus side too, I don't have to bundle a baby to leave the house and unbundle him when I get in the store and bundle him to leave the store. For those of you who don't know, it is about +20 here in Hong Kong right now, with the humidity it feels like late summer early fall in Canada, not as hot as +20 feels back there. So now that I feel super old (no offense to my elders) for not only talking about the weather but actually writing about it I will move on to a different topic!

I can't believe Christmas is already on its way, it is going to be a super weird Christmas being Hunter's first and being away from family and friends. We are trying to make it feel "Christmasy", we've hung some Christmas lights and stockings in our flat and bought a 3 ft Christmas tree that sits on our kitchen table so that our little monkey boy doesn't pull it over, we have been cranking the Christmas tunes...but it's not quite the same knowing that I won't be "Home For Christmas". I am very amazed at my inability to focus on the TRUE meaning of Christmas at this time of year. I will also be attempting to cook my very first Turkey (I laugh just thinking about it). Whatsmore I will be attempting this task in an appliance that is a little bigger than a toaster oven, Lord help me now. Here we don't have ovens (for the most part) but I plan to borrow somebody's mini-oven while they are gone on holidays to do a little Christmas cooking of my own.

As of the first of December my little munchkin hit the 3rd percentile!!!! This is huge because the doctor's wanted him there by the first of January. But with the help of God, a team of doctors and A LOT OF FOOD he is now thriving. Just to give y'all an idea of how much he eats this is Hunter's typical day (keep in mind these are start times so it takes him about 15-30minutes to finish thus the window of non-eating time is much smaller than it would appear here): Wake up 6:00 am to nurse (approx 8 oz), go back to sleep, wake up 8:30 nurse, then 3/4 cup of porridge, 1/2 bannana, prune juice (gotta keep him regular), 11-11:30 nurse, 1:00 nurse, 2:00-3:00 snack (1/2 of a fruit, rice cakes or whatever else he can munch down) 4-5 nurse and supper (approx 3 oz of fish or chicken, 1/4 cup of veggies and 1/4 cup of rice) then usually dessert maybe 1/4 piece of fruit or more rice cakes, 8 pm nurse and sometimes a bedtime snack, depending on how tired he is maybe 1/4 cup of porridge or 4 oz of breastmilk with 6-7 tbl spoons of rice cereal, then he wakes up at around 12 and 4 am to nurse...all of this just to get him onto the charts. So now when I say nothing is new and what I've done these past 4 months is feed a baby you can believe me. Nobody believes how much he eats until they actually see it for themselves!

Our basketball is going well, we lost our first game this Tuesday, very frusterating to lose a game as a coach. It's also frusterating for me because if some of them had had disciplined coaching before grade 11 and 12 they would be very good basketball players. The guys though are so much fun and amazing people, interesting but amazing (the teachers joke that the students here must get beat up at least once if they go to University in Canada, they are just soo nice and loving it's weird sometimes). For example when we do a drill in teams and the winning team has to pick a punishment for the losing (sorry non-winning) team they have actually chosen 1-2 push ups or hugs, they never issue a punishment. Ryan enjoys coaching the girls too. We joke that the girls are tougher than the guys and it's only funny cuz it's true, he's got a bunch of nitty gritty tough girls. I have guys who whine a lot to me so I get in there and beat them up a bit and tell them to stop their whining. My boys are learning that there is contact in basketball. Now that I've made my guys sound like wusses they aren't AS BAD as they sound, they just have a different mentality then the one that's in the West, we'll just say we complement each other, I push them and they have taught me to settle a little bit.

Other than that not too much is new here. We are just looking forward to the Holidays and for my family to come at the end of December and that's about all. Oh yeah and back to Hunter (only other moms will understand why it is I have nothing else to write about) his first words about a week ago "mama" it's so cute, when he needs something now he comes and finds me and gives me a "mom". Anyways I will now sign off and if I don't get to writing before Christmas I am wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Lots of Love to all.