Aunty Bess Goes Home

Aunty Bess's short visit to Taipei came to an end on Tuesday. Before she left to return to New York, she and Craig had some fun playing with some stickers.


Craig always likes playing with Aunty Bess. She said she and Uncle Amitha will be back at Chinese New Year, so Craig can have more fun with them both then.

Craig's Newest Cousin

Craig's Uncle Guapo and Aunty Jessie (Yu-fang is the name everyone uses here in Taipei) have a new baby girl. Well, not very new, she's one month old.


Last Saturday was the first chance that Craig had to get a close look at the baby girl. He was very good. He just looked and didn't try to touch.


Later that night, Craig came with his Mum, Dad and Aunty Bess to the squash court. Craig is still small enough to make a squash court look very, very big!

A Family Day

Last Thursday, Craig's Dad had the day off work, as usual. In the morning, Craig and his parents went downstairs to the second floor apartment directly below their own just around lunchtime. Craig liked playing with the draw-string on Aunty Bess's hooded top.


He even had her pulling faces by twisting her ear.


Then, he went to Aunty Suprana's room to play her drums. She has a collection of them.


Craig had lots of fun with the drums.


Craig's Mum then read a story for him from one of the many books belonging to Aunty Suprana that were in the living room. She's just moved in the apartment that's why there were so many books unpacked in the background of this picture.


Then, Craig's Mum tried to feed Craig some lunch and work out how many calories her father had in his lunch at the same time! Sometimes, she's very busy.


But, Craig wasn't hungry and like most children his age doesn't like being forced to eat.


Then, one of Craig's Mum's cousins who lives on the ground floor came up for a visit with his son. This "Uncle" calls Craig Doe-Ray-Me, because Craig's Dad's Chinese name has a character that sounds a little like doe as the first character (surname). Craig's parents tell Craig to call the "Uncle" Bad Uncle.


Actually, Bad Uncle is quite a nice guy and his son, who is almost two, is a beautiful boy and just about the most polite child his age that you could meet anywhere.


Not long later, Craig was playing by himself. He began playing with a pen. His Mum tried to give him a remote control (he usually loves remote controls) and her mobile phone ( his Mum's mobile phone might be Craig's favourite toy).


But, it didn't work. Craig still had the pen in his hand after dropping the phone and putting the remote control down. You can see Craig's Mum's right hand moving quickly to stop the pen going near his face.


Meanwhile, Aunty Suprana was playing with Bad Uncle's daughter. She's four years old and also a very polite child.

It really was a family day.


Then, the polite little boy and Craig went into Aunty Suprana's room to play the drums.


There was wild talk of them forming a band but that might not happen soon. No matter, everyone had plenty of fun.

He's a Hard-working Boy

Craig was working hard again the day before yesterday. His parents are lucky to have a lot of storage space in their home but not so lucky that a large proportion of that space is drawers close to the floor.

Foolishly, they have failed to baby-proof the drawers and Craig exposed their foolishness by helping to empty a couple of drawers for them.

He started with an "I'm doing a great job, aren't I?" look at camera.


Then, he went straight back to work.


Sometimes, he had trouble deciding what should be thrown out on the floor and what should stay.


And sometimes, just waving things around in the air was his main occupation.


But, he was much too busy to turn around at look at the camera.

Outdoors at New York Bagel

Saturday morning dawned a beautiful sunny day and so Craig and his parents went to a cafe called New York Bagel that is a hop, skip and a jump from their place for a little bit of brunch.

When they arrived, Craig ate first.


But, he wasn't very hungry.


He was much happier when he was allowed to get out of the stroller.


His parents would have preferred that he stand up but Craig doesn't always listen to his parents. You can almost read his mind, can't you? "You can't always have your druthers, Dad."


Craig's Mum has been encouraging him to stand up and walk.


But Craig found plenty of other things to do.


After brunch, Craig and his parents took a slow walk home. They stopped at a park on the way.


Craig spent quite a bit of time on the rocking horse.


We don't know why this little girl came over and starting make growling noises at Craig. She even held her hands out in an imitation of a cat clawing at something! Craig's Dad thinks it was because Craig got in her way when he was playing on a slippery slide just a few minutes earlier.


After a while Craig's Dad got to take care of him for a few minutes.


And, just before they left the park, another little girl came over to talk to Craig ...... or maybe she wanted to ride the rocking horse. Women are hard to understand when you're only one.

Craig Can Fix It

A few days ago Craig decided that the shoe cabinet that is just inside our front door had too many shoes in it. And, being a kind soul decided to do something about it. He started by taking out some of his Dad's shoes and then moved on to the slippers we use indoors.


Craig's Dad likes this picture because it shows how busy Craig was. The brown shoe is still falling and Craig's hand is already back inside the cupboard to grab another shoe. He was really quite industrious.


He did stop briefly to turn around and smile for the camera!


And then went straight back to work.


It's not hard to find good workers these days but Craig is already looking like he will be exceptionally good at getting things done!

Better than TV

Craig doesn't watch much TV but if there are clothes in clothes dryer he quite likes to watch them spin. From Craig's point of view, an added advantage is that unlike the TV, Craig's parents allow him to get up really close to the dryer.

Aunty Bess Returns

Craig's Aunty Bess returned to Taiwan and received a warm welcome from Craig.

The first thing he did was play tug-of-war with Aunty Bess using a new TV remote control as the rope. (Craig broke the old remote by biting it. It can be seen lying on his foot in the picture below.)


Craig had a lot of fun. He is normally much happier when there are two adults nearby. If there's just one he can be very clingy and he wants to be picked up and held all the time.


As soon as Aunty Bess took her stuff into her room, Craig came in to play.


Craig gets along really well with Aunty Bess.


He even helped her unpack! But probably did a little bit more than was necessary.

Lunch with Dad's Colleagues

Craig had lunch with his Dad's work colleagues a few days ago. The first thing he did after arriving at the restaurant was to get acquainted with the menu.


Perhaps the air-conditioning wasn't cool enough for him. Craig decided to wave the menu up and down and make a breeze for everyone.


It seemed that everyone had a camera there just so they could take pictures of Craig. This is Craig's Dad's co-worker Helen getting her camera ready.


Although this picture doesn't show it, Craig was happy to sit on Christine's lap.


Then, he came back to Dad's lap for a while. The only place he wouldn't sit was in his stroller because it was too low and he couldn't join in the conversation from there.


Craig's Dad had a Hawaiian burger. It was pretty good but a little bit pricey.


Craig's Mum has a cheeseburger. It was pretty big, too.


Once Craig's Mum had finished eating Craig found Mum's lap to be a good place to sit while he chewed on whatever he could lay his hands on.


For those that don't know, Craig's Dad's co-worker Grace likes to call Craig "My husband". Craig doesn't know about this but he was very friendly when his "wife" wanted to pick him up.


Joy (better known around the office as Kang-kang) shook Craig up and down. He loved it and had a fit of the giggles. The only problem with that game is that it makes for a pretty poor picture.


And, when Helen, Grace and Joy tried to gather together to take a picture with Craig, he wasn't very interested..... sigh.