Bon Voyage!

Some adjectives to describe our holiday next week.

• maiden
• last-minute
• a long time coming!

This holiday has been in incubation for a long time. When DN was 4 months old, it was supposed to be a weekend trip to Malacca with my family. We first talked about it when I was in my third trimester and blissfully naive. A baby in a car seat for 3 hours? Why not? They sleep all the time what. (Prrrtfh!) Then it became a trip to Perth when he was 10 months old, but that was shelved because I couldn't find time away from school. From then until now there were the odd discussions about quick trips to Bangkok / KL / Hong Kong whenever PF had business trips.

But nothing ever materialised because deep down inside, I think we're both wibbly jellies about the whole thing.

Personally, I'm afraid of...

• becoming public enemy numero uno on SQxxx coz my toddler won't stop screaming
• feeding DN when we're out coz he's a chinaman through and through... nothing can come between him and his porridge
• having to deal with a cranky toddler coz he couldn't nap well in the stroller
• not being able to shop properly (sob! sob!) coz Mr. Emperor has an attention span of a fly and his bed routine must start at 730pm (that's why we chose Perth... retail is just not one of their strong suits!)
  

Anyway, we talked about it and we're finally going. Booked our tickets last week, and applied for DN's passport today, which is an adventure in itself.

We initially wanted to take passport-like photos ourselves and apply for his passport online... but with photos like these???


NG 1
(plus, we'd have to photoshop the background white)


NG 2.
(if the immigration officer doesn't laugh, I will. And the background is not white.)










NG 3.
(The background's white but I don't think ICA would approve coz you can't see his right ear. Go figure.)


NG 4.
(I actually thought this was THE ONE, but no... he's not "facing the camera" coz his chest is not directed at it. Bah.)








So what's a desperate mom to do? Get the "experts" to do it themselves. So I brought DN to ICA to get his photo taken.

In the photobooth, DN had to sit in a bumbo perched on top of a high stool. He's not really IN the bumbo. It's stuffed with a towel, so he's sitting on top of it actually.


Wah. Relak brudder!


















Now, there's always a queue to take photos and the "photo people" usually only take 1 photo of you. Didn't smile? Too bad. One eye big, one eye small? Sorry, long queue. So with DN, the "photo girl" probably thought she was being generous by doing it 3 times. (which, if you ask me, doesn't really count coz the first take, he turned to look at me, and second take, he looked at the camera sideways... all rejects anyway!) So the minute she got a picture of him looking at the camera head-on, she finalised and printed it.

This is what the 1st pic looked like.



Humph. (NG in my eyes!)
















She refused to take another picture even though I begged.

Me : "Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Let him try again! He wasn't smiling. He looks so shocked in this picture! How can I use this for his passport? Cannot lah!"

Stupid cow : "Sorry miss, cannot. Babies very difficult to take picture one. Once they look at the camera, we got to take already. You see? All these cannot use coz he not looking at camera. This one ok."

Me : "But he looks funny! Please? Can I try again? Just one more! Only one!"

Stupid cow : "Sorry ah. Cannot. Long queue! Otherwise people complain."

Me : "PLEASE??!"

Stupid cow : "Sorry, cannot."

Me : "What if I pay again?"

Stupid cow (after a short pause) : "If you pay, okay."

So I did! The first shot was another NG. Horrors! I only have 2 more shots at this. So I started ... singing, and bouncing coz the song called for it. Ya, and just my luck that our booth was the one right in front of the entire queue of people. -_-

"Hop little bunny! HOP! HOP! HOP! Hop little bunny! HOP! HOP! HOP! ...Der Nen, PLEAAASE smile!"

So there I am singing and bouncing and begging and what does DN do?



He smiles!