Ridiculous Early Start

Hmm. I seem to have been awake for three hours already, and it's only 7.15am. Today is going to be a long day. Dom was up early, and I needed to have a shave before heading back to bed when he went back to sleep. After my shave, I found that I was fairly awake, and Dom stirred when I went to sneak back into the bedroom anyway. So I decided to do some work and read internets instead of going back to sleep. I am currently editing the Friday night show of my school's major production, which was a Shakespearean play this year (Midsummer Night's Dream). It's not too hard in Premier Pro 2, what with the multicam function - capture all the footage, sync up the the different cameras, then open a multi-cam monitor and watch the show in real time, clicking on little preview windows of each camera's footage to cut between. I'll occasionally let a really bad zoom or wobble through, and have to stop, go back, and redo a section, but I think it's about a 4 hour job per show? Which isn't too bad. Live editing would be nice in some ways, but it would mean I'd have to anticipate when to cut, and I'd need reliable camera operators. Given the lack of gear and lack of steady hands, I think post-show editing yields a better result. Anyways, I should probably eat breakfast soon, maybe do a few dishes or something useful like that. I think today is a yukky no-breaks day (meaning I have to run detention at lunch time) so I can't come home for lunch/visiting, so I'd better make myself some sandwiches too. Most. Exciting. Blogpost. Evah!

More fun with food

 

Early morning smiles

Dominic is still waking up early - around 5am. He's a happy wee chap in the early morning, which is very cool. He usually lets us know he's awake by doing pushups and making straining noises, rather than crying or complaining :-)

Hospital funding

Today we went to Kenepuru Hospital for an appointment for the wee man. The result was positive, in that Dom is very healthy, but confusing, in that the doctor wasn't really sure whether the risks of surgery outweighed the benefits (in terms of reducing risk of future complications). We have another appointment with the specialist next month, so we'll ask a bunch of probing questions then.

We were both horrified, it must be said, at the dilapidated condition of some of the hospital resources. The buildings, grounds, medical equipment and decor were all excellent - not quite American TV flash, but clean, newish looking, and in good repair. The waiting room, however, featured this shocking textbook filled with horrific animal accidents:



See the malformed maw of the king of the jungle!



The terrifying headless giraffe!


Caesarean gone wrong? Marsupial pouchless roo!


His nose is out of joint! What accident befell this poor croc?


See the snake's body? What body? Dear God, the head is still alive!


Should our hospitals really have such reading material available to children? Can we not find a few extra dollars in the budget for books about healthy animals? Or has this book been planted by the NZ Veterinary Society to get kids interested in helping animals...?

Weekend of drawing

Debbie and I did a lot of drawing this weekend. It kinda looked like the JA 48 Hour Film team might use some drawings of mine to start their film, so Debbie storyboarded, I drew, and Debbie colourised (whilst juggling a lovely baby between us) for many hours. The team decided to go another way in the end, but we still have the pictures :-) And I drew a dinosaur today - it was kind of what I had in mind to draw yesterday before being assigned the start of the film. It was being punched by a superhero, but I cropped it down to just the dino as it was by far the star of the picture :-) So, here's lots of pics:

5 month jabs

This week has been a little disrupted by Dom's 5 month jabs. He hasn't reacted too badly, but he's been a little out of sorts, and definitely had a bad night's sleep on the day he was stabbed in the thighs. It's amazing how quickly he recovered after he was injected, given how understandably upset he was by the process. I think he cried for about 2 minutes? Then was smiley and happy again (and very clingy).

The 48 hour film contest is on this weekend, and while we'd love to be involved I don't think Dom is up for too much activity this weekend (and I'm pretty shattered too). I think we'll try to make it down to visit the JA team, probably on Sunday, but may not even manage that. We shall see - it would be cool to catch up with people and see what the team's up to :-)

Dominic versus Solids

 

Early morning photography

Well, not that early in the morning really. Dominic stayed in bed until 5.45 this morning, making it a sleep in. This photo was taken some time later - around 9am or so? Dom was in his exersaucer, but was fascinated by something outside - possibly a branch moving in the wind?



Weight Loss Tip For The Day:
If Matt wants to lose weight, the cunning plan appears to be:

1. Eat a lot of junk food all the time so you gain an extra 3 kilos
2. Realise you're 3 kilos over your already too-high former weight
3. Stop eating junk food, start having weetbix for breakfast instead of leftovers

Uh, that's about it really. Seems to be working so far :-)

5 months old!

Dominic is 5 months old today :-)

And just for comparison, here are his previous milestone photos (starting at 2 weeks when we had the idea):

4 Months



3 Months


6 weeks


2 Weeks

In which I get misty-eyed and clucky.

 

Game Chef sketches

Here be the sketches I did for the Game Chef competition - someone on the forums asked about them, so I took a cellphone photo and uploaded them, even though they're terrible: