More on our holiday home
Hmm as posted earlier the holiday didn't get off to the best start. Izz had conjunctivitis and a lousy cold, which she passed to me. It liked me so much it came back the following week for a few days. And then Alex got it. And then my dad caught Izzy's conjunctivitis. And Alex's dad caught the flu. Terrible all round but it made for a very quiet and relaxing holiday.

The only downside to it was the tempting flesh Izz posed to the mosquitos. Poor baby was bitten so many times and the bites would swell to terrible-looking red bumps. I think her body must just not had developed the immunity ours have after years of being eaten by mosquitos back home. In all the pictures from home you can see the mozzie bites or the scars the mozzie bites left.

Fortunately they have now all pretty much faded. Or at least can't be seen beneath the layers of clothes she wears.

What did we do?
Eat. Eat lots. What else is there to do? I didn't feel hungry at all the first two weeks we were home. But after that we made up for the lack of food with a trip to Penang - how is it posssible to eat five meals in one day? - and many trips to Raju's, my favourite roti canai restaurant with outdoor seating.

I must be going native though because I found myself thinking several times, I must remember to tell them 'REALLY, really kurang manis' (less sweet) everytime I drank a one of our condense milk-saturated drinks.

While we were home, Izz took to using the word 'ane' (pron: uh-naay) to indicate her interest in anything. And when we pointed this out to the nice waiters there she instantly became a little favourite. Because 'ane' means 'older brother' in Tamil in Malaysia. Just like abang or tai ko. That was good because it meant no stinting on the poppadoms available to our keropok muncher.

We also went quite a bit to a deli called Delicious - so clever - which I loved because there, when you pay RM10 for an iced lemon tea, it's real tea, real lemon, a large old-fashioned sundae-style glass of shaved ice and a sprig of fresh mint on top. Not like at Starbucks, which seems to be tea granules flavoured with lemon and some cubes of ice. Yuck.

We managed to meet most, but not all, our friends. (We're sorry! We were sick! And unorganised! It's all Izzy's fault!) Shame that but now that quite a few of us have sprogs it actually requires some forward planning to meet up.

And child-friendly places are not so easily found. Especially for big groups of people. Delicious was good in this respect - they had a huge table which fit all 10-12 adults, Alex's old uni mates, and the six or seven tots got to bounce around on the flat square sofa in the front of the restaurant after they ate.

Argh very sleepy again. Continue later.

Almost 1.5 yrs

Back in cold, grey London
Sigh. Well I'm still reasonably cheerful on account of my one month of the most sleep I have had since baby came along. Alex says he spent this trying not to be more homesick than he could help. I think he really misses all the family. I try not to look back since there were a couple of things I wish I'd eaten more of ... and, sigh, I have to admit I kind of rather really miss the family too.

Izzy seems quite unaffected, though she's continuing to do everything she learned in Malaysia: speaking and yelling about ten times louder than she used to; fake crying; demanding to be fed anything we are eating, but also licking each first portion gingerly; and stating that her milk, the sugared ginger and chilli prawn crackers are 'ot' (hot) - like her mama never warns her anyway.

She's been quite jet-lagged in a good way. The first couple of days she kept going to sleep at about 6pm or 7pm. Whoo hoo, baby-free dinner preparation, I forgot how much fun that is. But then she would also then wake at 4am, demanding milk. Ouch. These last two days we've woken her up once home from work/nursery though because I couldn't take the 4am wakings and demands to be taken down to watch tv ('No tv Izz, no CBeebies now.' 'WAAAAAHHHH!').

Home sweet home












Man did we have a ball back home though. If our family are reading this - let's not kid myself, who else is besides my pregnant friends? - thank you, thank you, thank you for all the sleep. Boy was it good. It was so good. It was possibly the highlight of my year after Izzy.

Izz would probably say her highlights were her cousins, the lavish attention from her grandparents and all the keropok (fish crackers) she could eat. Though if I'm honest, let's face it family, we all know the keropok would probably have been top of her list. Never has she eaten so much, so non-stop, for so long.

All that plus po-po's (grandma) wo-wow (dog). She really seems to have taken a shine to dogs, particularly her toy dog from Ah Khor (her father's older sister), which she constantly has been asking for in the house and on the way home and which she kisses more than her father and I put together.

I meant to blog more but I wasted too much time earlier trying to find the name of the track playing in a particular episode of Sex and the City so will type more later and post more pictures of our trip home then. Including those of our nieces performing breath-taking feats of dare-devilry for baby's amusement.