Does size matter?

He was born with a weight of 3.37kg or 7lb 7oz, length of 51cm and head circumference of 35 cm. He lost about 0.24kg in his first week which was quite normal.

After 2 weeks, he is already at 3.44kg, length of 53.5 cm and head circumference of 37 cm. He is growing steadily. Those newborn-sized clothes are getting a little tight now.

He is sleeping most of the day and night just like most babies. This is surely making a life a little easier for mum and dad. He can usually have 4-5 hours in between feed during the night.

Some vital statistics apart from his physical measurements:

• Finished a box of 108 newborn nappy in 10 days
• Finished a tin of S26 Gold formula in 10 days in addition to mum's breast milk
• Longest stretch of sleep is 5 hours
• Longest stretch of exercise on a play gym is 5 minutes

Here is Nathan showing off his new mitten.

From Baby Nathan 朗研

What is in the name (Part 2)?

What does Nathan's Chinese name -  "朗研" mean? 

Nathan's Chinese name is formed by two characters "朗" and "研". Carol picked the "朗" character while I picked the "研" character. Both Christian and Chinese names were picked when he was enjoyed his 6th month in mother's womb.

How are these characters pronounced?

• 朗 - "Long" in Cantonese, "Lang" in Putonghua (Mandarin)
  
• 研 - "Yin" in Cantonese, "Yan" in Putonghua (Mandarin)
  

What do these characters mean?

• 朗 - Bright and happy
  
• 研 - To study and research
  

It is our hope that Nathan will be happy througout his life. He will also have a spirit of "study and research" to look beyond the surface of any subject matters. We both think that these are critical characters for Nathan to have great sense of purposes for his life.

Combining Christian and Chinese names, our hopes rest in God that Nathan will have faith in God, be happy in God, bring out the truth to this world and understand the true need of people in this world beyond the surface.

Okay... photo time... many of you have asked for a photo of Nathan with his eyes open. Here is one of my favourite shot of Nathan... Looking very charming...

From Baby Nathan 朗研

Photo taken with Nikon D300.

What is in the name (Part 1)?

So, why the name "Nathan"? Carol and I picked the name for a couple of very important reasons. 

Nathan is a Hebrew name meaning "Given" - "Given by God". Baby Nathan is truly given to us by God. Carol and I waited for a baby for a long while. We never gave up on our hope in God. We learned to be patient and eventually God's promise came true. When both of us saw Nathan in the operating theatre, we were overwhelmed with joy!

The second reason rests in our hopes for baby Nathan's character and personality. Nathan's Chinese name is also embbeded with our hopes too (which I will talk about in a future post). 

In the Second book of Samuel Chapter 12 of the Holy Bible, God sent Prophet Nathan to speak to King David about the King's commiting adultery and even set up to have the woman's husband killed.

It is Carol and my hope that baby Nathan will grow up and be able to:

• Have total faith in God
• Stand up for the truth
• Be brave to tell the truth

Enough for that at the moment. Let me share with you a very interesting photo that I took the other day. Nathan was having a big yawn... probably ran out of patient with dad adjusting the camera...

From Baby Nathan 朗研

Photo taken with Nikon D300.

My First Post

I was meant to get going with this blog a while back but never got over my laziness. Now that my first child was born last week, I guess that I don't have an excuse any more.

It is a joy to see baby Nathan coming to this world. He is a perfect model - he is not scared of flash, he stops and posts for daddy...

A shot that I really like so far:

From Baby Nathan 朗研

This one was taken in hospital while Nathan was 2 days young. He looks like he is having a sweet dream. He also has some interesting facial expression like this:

From Baby Nathan 朗研

When Nathan was 1 day young, our local newspaper photographer came to take photos and you know what??? Baby Nathan appears in our local community newspaper on 19th November 2008:

From Baby Nathan 朗研

That's it for this post. In my next post, I will talk about the meaning of baby's Christian and Chinese names. Stay tunned...

Photos taken using Nikon D300.