On the PeiRoll..

Quick photoblog of the boys time in Malaysia so far. Sorry it's a bit disjointed but wanted to get all this up now and will organise them better soon.

On the Flight there
The boys were very well behaved on the long long trip to Malaysia. Grandad Lim was the captain on this flight, so we got upgraded. Marcus and Alex could have had their own seats, but they prefered being on mum and dad's laps, or in the bassinet.


This is how happy Alex was, lounging around in the first class seat!



At home with grandparents
These shots were taken at home.



Feeding Time at the Zoo
Boys have been very good during feeding time, and have been introduced to a few more new items. To date, they have tried: apple, pears (normal and japanese ones), sweet potatoes, carrots, potatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, and broccoli.



Chinese New Year at the Lims
We had the reunion dinner at our place as great grandma Lim is living with us. Everyone wanted to hug and cuddle the boys, and poor Marcus' cheeks must have been hurting from being pinched so much! They were however, extremely well behaved and enjoyed the attention very much.



At Eugene's party
We also got invited to party to Eugene's birthday party across the road where mum took on the role of a photographer for the evening.



At the Park
Last week we decided to take a stroll to a nearby park. The boys obviously needed their sunnies to complete the 'cool' look. Not that they needed any aid of course.



The most awesome moment to date!
Here's a wonderful moment of the boys first time checking each other out and sharing a chuckle! I did however spoil the moment towards the end though.



Sometimes though, they can still get into fights.



Milestones and achievements
Marcus now has turned flipping over into an art.. successfully rolling around and also falling off the mattress twice! (relax, the mattresses were on the floor) It was still a bit of a bump though...



Alex can now sit unaided easily for about 5 minutes, though initially he would support his weight with both hands and only looked down because he would topple backwards if he looked up!


The word of the day is baba!



Hi Aunty Jenny!



Posted at 19:06 PM
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So yep - we had apple and pear with rice and boobmilk mush. It was YUMMY! We were really hungry, and had a big biiiig dinner.



Posted at 22:24 PM
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We turned 6 month old today.

Didn't celebrate too much though, as mum and dad and grand uncle Bill was busy prepping the house so the estate agents could take photos for the listing. Mum was so not impressed with Mr Photographer so they will be trying to take some better photos themselves tomorrow, hopefully it will be less cloudy so the rooms will be in better lighting condition.

Anyway, mum says that she will try her best to post updates and photos of us and our adventures and escapades on this blog so Aunty Jenny can keep up to date while on her Raleigh Expedition in Costa Rica.

To celebrate our half year birthday, Mum wanted to take a nekkid photo of us to re-create our photo with Tigger and Piglet but kept our diapers on to hide our modesty.


However, Dad wasn't so lucky with the photos this time though!

Anyway it's almost time for our dinner. I think it's mush pear and apple combo with baby rice and boob milk. Wonder what that will taste like...

Posted at 18:53 PM
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I was out of ideas for Christmas gifts, especially to my in-laws. Then, it hit me. Cheesy as it may sound, a personalised calendar with pictures of the boys would go down really well because (1) They would love it, and (2) I don't have to get anything expensive that they wouldn't use.

So when I purchased something from Amazon, an offer from Vistaprint.com fell out. It was something like £9.99 for 4 wall calendars which I thought was a great deal so I went ahead and painstakingly chose 12 cute photos of the boys and uploaded them, ordering calendars, mugs and keychains (ok ok I know how cheesy that can be but wait until you have your own kids whom you think are the cutest things in the world!).

The items arrived on 22 December. I was blown away by the quality of the calendars! Beautiful prints and we were so very impressed, but one of them was missing the final sheet for 'December', so I lost no time in getting in touch with customer service about it. I must admit that I wasn't hopeful of getting a satisfactory outcome (based on my experience with various customer service departments) let alone getting a replacement in time for Christmas Eve.

However, they were so incredibly helpful that they sent one out immediately (although warning me that it might not arrive until 27 Dec). Again, my expectations were blown out of the water because it arrived on Christmas Eve!

I don't normally have great things to say about retailers but Vistaprint.com seem to have a lot going for it:

Prices - Incredibly reasonable, if not one of the cheapest around (and I did shop around!)

Quality - As mentioned above, the calendar prints were amazing (make sure to use 'card stock' so that the sheets have some weight on it and doesn't curl). The printings on the keychains weren't that great though - a low resolution image was printed on a flexible rubber piece. I had expected high res image between clear plastic casing.

Website - Easy as pie to use, very very user friendly
Customer Service - What can I say? Professional, courteous, helpful and they fixed my problem on the spot. No excuses. They just fixed it.

Not only that, but they were careful to set realistic expectations (e.g. about delivery time) and made sure they smashed it. I complained on the 22/12 (Tuesday), they said it would arrive 28/12 (following Monday - 8 days later) but instead it arrived on Christmas Eve two days later!

THe only thing is that I've been receiving marketing emails every day, which isn't the greatest thing in the world. That's about the only thing annoying me, and I've said so in their feedback page so I hope they do something about it. I mean, they've made me a loyal customer already, I'm sure they wouldn't want to piss me off with daily spam emails. Anyway, based on my experience with their customer service, I believe that they will probably listen to their customers.

I think that every company which deals directly with customers and who have a customer service or after-sales service dept should look at this example and learn from it. If a customer is in pain and you fix it, completely, immediately, happily, then you will have bought yourself a loyal customer. And it probably won't cost you that much either.

Big big thank you to Vistaprint Customer Service agents: Devin Gardner and Shellian Simpson for making my Christmas (and my in-law's!) a wonderful one!

===============================

Anyway, here's the email transcript of my communication below:

Dear Pei:

Thanks for contacting Vistaprint, where it’s easy to make an impression for less.

We are expediting the replacement order at no additional cost to you for the Calendar that did not meet your expectations. The order number for this replacement is 39550-10051-2S9 and will arrive within 7 days.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment you may have experienced. Please feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions or concerns.


Thank you for choosing Vistaprint!
Sincerely,

Devin Gardner
Vistaprint Customer Service

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Date Sent: 12/22/2009 19:00

Hi Shellian

Thank you so much for the prompt reply. I guess I have no choice, will have to make my apologies to my in-laws for their late xmas gift. :( Please can you resend it out to me soon as possible, am hoping it will arrive sooner (my original order had an expected delivery date of 23 Dec but arrived one day earlier).

Many thanks
Pei

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: UKCustomerCare@vistaprint.com
Sent: Tue 22/12/2009 23:13
To: pei@peiroll.com
Subject: RE: VistaPrint Inquiry Response


Dear Pei:

Thanks for contacting Vistaprint, where it’s easy to make an impression for less.

We can have a replacement order done for the Calendars unfortunately if a Rush delivery is done that would be 3 Business days, so the Calendar will not arrive until December 28, 2009 if the order is done today.

Please respond to this email if you would like us to proceed with the replacement.

We do apologise for any inconvenience caused. Feel free to contact us if you have any additional questions or concerns.


Thank you for choosing Vistaprint!

Sincerely,

Shellian Simpson
Vistaprint Customer Service

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Date Sent: 12/22/2009 18:08

Order ID: 04180-68841

Hi there - calendars arrived sooner than scheduled, quality impeccable thank you very much! However, out of the four calendars, one is missing the last page, i.e. December is missing. The other three are fine. Please can you rush one out to me as soon as possible to arrive before Christmas as it is meant as a present for my in-laws. Many thanks Pei



Posted at 00:10 AM
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Since I blogged. I'll blame it on being tired while pregnant, then when the boys came, being incredibly busy and tired all the time. What a great Get out of Jail card :)

I love being a mum to little Alex and Marcus, they are both so incredibly fun and delightful. Of course the night shifts are pretty hectic and it's very exhausting being so sleep deprived. Especially since I am one of those people who previously cannot exist on less than 8 hours (unbroken) sleep a night.

Mum, Jenny and mum-in-law have been fantastically wonderful and helpful in so many ways, and I'd probably just keel over and pop it if it weren't for them. In any case, I still have some semblance of sanity left.

Anyway, here's what I'm thinking. I've spent a lot of time last year writing my MSCRM 4.0 book, and there isn't any way I am going to get it published now that I am out of the game ... perhaps for a year or so. As such, I will post the chapters here and share it to everyone so that they don't go to waste. At the moment it's lying in a network drive on my server collecting proverbial dust. Don't want my efforts to go in vain, so I shall be posting a lot of MSCRM 4.0 stuff soon.

Posted at 23:33 PM
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I’ve now been a mother for two weeks now to little Alex and Marcus. Everyone tells you that your world will change when you have a child, and whilst it was something I thought was obvious – it doesn’t really hit you until it happens. You are aware of ‘night feeds’, ‘colic’, ‘sleep deprivation’, but they are just words.

They also tell you how your child will bring new meaning to your life, and that too, was something I just thought was dead obvious. Such as getting a new dog meant responsibility for walking, cleaning, feeding and caring for another living being an obvious statement.

But I found out they where far more than just words. Bringing the two little boys into our lives has instantaneously brought a myriad of feelings and understandings that I had never truly understood. Feelings of amazement and love for the wonderful little beings we are being entrusted to care for, nurture, and bring up into amazing humans. I am in awe of the new responsibility I feel, knowing that they are so very dependent on us, vulnerable in so many ways and an overriding feeling that I cannot let them down, not even for a minute.

The pain and misery of the initial investigations, IVF treatment, and subsequent pregnancy and c-section are all but forgotten. I remember moaning about how the extra 23 kilograms I had put on affecting my general wellbeing. Eating, sleeping, moving and become very difficult. The hot April brought fresh misery as I found no way of cooling down easily.

But it’s all forgotten as I immerse myself in my boys. I love their new born baby smell, how their soft tiny bodies snuggle against mine during feeding, how they curl against my chest and how I can soothe their pain and crying with a few soft words. Every little new expression and experience brought such joy and wonder to us.

I love how Jeff is around them, how he is so very tender and so very very sweet with them, and how his madcap monologue and imaginary two-way conversations with them make me laugh. I love how he is with me, and how our relationship seems to have entered a different dimension; one more enriching than the last, now that we are a family where once we were just a couple.

I love that my mum has given up her time to be here with me for the boys. I understand her so much more now that I see her with new eyes, how her way of bringing me and my brother up was all based on her utmost concern for our wellbeing and what was best for us. Things I had selfishly thought were unreasonable actions during my rebellious growing up years are now peered through different lenses. How I must have caused her pain with my insensitivity and selfishness during my growing years.

These two amazing creatures have wrapped themselves around our hearts in a way that we never thought possible. If they were in pain and if I could not console them, my heart would break into a million pieces.

They are the centre of our worlds, and we will need to step up to our new responsibilities as parents. They bring with them new hope and promise for the future, growing up to be the kind, responsible, honest young men of integrity, men that people respect and trust. I really don’t care what path or profession they choose, or how they live their life as long as they are principled and lead their lives with a moral compass, touching people in amazing ways wherever they choose to go. That’s my wish for my babies.

In return, I promise to them that I shall be the best mother I can ever be, to love and cherish and protect them always. I shall do my best to teach them to grow up into the kind of people everyone would be proud to befriend, giving them a foundation to grow beyond their wildest imaginations and wings to fly to wherever their dreams take them.

And no matter what happens, they will know that we will always be there for them.



Posted at 10:32 AM
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It's been awhile since I blogged - maybe because I didn't have very much to say, or that I was lazy.

I've started my short term contract at Touchstone - they have a much larger MSCRM team than Aspective, and although the aren't as polished in terms of their policies and procedures, their fundamentals appear strong.

I miss my team - the magic we had and the seamless way we communicated and got things done. It felt a bit like a 'hive' in terms of how they knew what I meant, and would sometimes even pre-empt me. I don't know if I will ever encounter such a magical team again, but feel incredibly priviledged to have been part of it.

I thought of starting a separate baby blog, to journal my feelings and the experience of being pregnant so the twins would have something interesting to read when they grow up, but then I thought that I'd just blog it here - there is no sense starting something else. I also wondered about actually writing a journal as opposed to typing one out on the blogosphere - but my handwriting has become more atrocious through lack of use, and my typing skills are far superior and quicker than I could ever write.

Which sometimes is both a good and a bad thing, especially since my fingers sometimes move a lot faster than my brain, and make the freudian slip before I am even aware of it.

It's week 18, and I am getting quite big. Most of it blubber I think. I haven't felt any kicking yet although Jeff has been trying to feel for them every chance he gets, and he places his ear against my belly in the hopes that one of them will say 'Hello!'

I am tired easily, and I feel like a whale sometimes. It is very easy to over-exert myself, and the other day when I went to the post office to post the very large and heavy tape drive that we sold on eBay, I almost passed out. Jeff had put it in a suitcase so that I could drag it along but even then I couldn't seem to do the approximately 50m from Sainsbury's car park to the post office.

My heartbeat is incredibly quick - about 120 at rest and about 140 or so when have walked up the stairs or something. I'll have to talk to Dr Tam about this tomorrow when I go for my first ante-natal appointment.

People ask about the gender - the last scan we had in Malaysia was a bit too early to tell. At our next scan - the 20 week anomaly one at Watford, apparently they will not tell us because of the high Asian population in the area who appear to be quite fond of accidentally 'losing' their baby whilst on holiday in Pakistan once they find out that they are having a girl. How sad. I think that a healthy baby is all that we can ask for. I don't mind what we have, although a girl and a boy would nicely balance the family out. And I'd like a bigger family - perhaps 4.

I'm currently on my way to a Project Board Meeting in Mornington Crescent, so have time to do a bit of writing on the train. Sometimes I feel like I don't have enough 'quiet time' such as this todo it. But that's my own fault - I really don't have to work but I got bored easily, and the money is nice. Especially since we will have quite a large expenditure when the twins arrive.

I'm looking forward to mum coming in May - mostly so we can spend some time together. It will have been 10 years since I left Malaysia, and while I do get to spend some time with them when I go back, this will be different as I will have her to myself.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Posted at 01:11 AM
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Lots have happened.

Stopped work.
Started ivf.
Been stressful.
Got 'stabbed' with hormone syringes.
Awful mood swings.
Not working driving me up the wall.
The awful awful waiting.
The positive result!
Tried to get book published.
Sybex was interested, but I didn't quite like the acquisition editor (blame it on the hormones).
Didn't think I could stick to a timetable any way.
Christmas and New Year holidays and stuff.

I felt that the whole process was a bit too personal to blog, on top of feeling depressed about not working meant that I didn't feel like sharing very much.

This will be it until I feel like sharing some more. But the positive result was pretty cool though :)

Posted at 19:14 PM
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I've been super busy. Project just completing systems test cycle 2, which has been a monumental effort by both our and customer's team to get it here - man years' worth of work as Nick would say. It's looking good, although the BI part of the project has been having some challenges of its own.

Next Friday is my last week at work, and there will be no let up. Tomorrow I will be doing a 1-day trip to Manchester, returning on Monday to complete a high level discovery of their MS CRM roadmap.

This Saturday, I'm organising a scavenger/treasure hunt of sorts for some friends to celebrate my birthday, I will probably post pictures and news about it later.

Just wanted to do a quick update, as I will probably have more time for blogging after I've finished. That's about it for now.

Posted at 21:42 PM
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I've been following the US campaign quite closely, especially the Palin GOP pick. The machinations of American politics astounds me sometimes, as does this exchange from Couric's Palin Interview:

Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.


She can't even name any magazine or media she's read? That's such an obvious answer that she hasn't read any. She sounds like me when I was questioned about homework I hadn't done. It's mind boggling how juvenile that sounds.

Posted at 08:38 AM
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