Raving and Drooling – A lion’s tail

I wasn’t initially going to post this here. I was thinking about moving my blog to a new location so that people like my ex-wife (and I use that term figuratively rather than literally) couldn’t read it, but you know what ? I Just. Don’t. Give. A. Fuck. I know what you’re doing Jo. You’re saving all this shit so that you can maybe use it against me in court when we finally have a custody battle over Suki. Don’t give a fuck. It won’t work. But keep reading anyway.

I’m in Malaysia. I’ve been here for a week. Tomorrow I’m leaving and heading up north to Thailand. After that it’s really anyone’s guess where I’ll end up. I’m just going where the wind takes me. I’ve been buying tonnes of great stuff. Kpop, Jpop, Dramas, Anime etc. I bought “It Started With a Kiss” and “Queen’s Classroom” and “Densha Otoko” and I’ve bought Morning Musume DVD’s as well as SNSD, Girl’s Day, Kara, T-ara, After School and others. Tonight, I’m going out to see a Korean pop concert. FT Island are playing at Negara Stadium in Kuala Lumpur and I’m going to be there.

I know you pretend not to care Jo, and I’m sure you take very little interest in Jpop these days, though I know you are still semi-active on the Hello-Online forums. But you’re still fucking jealous I bet hahaha. Seeing awesome Asian pop idols in concert… live… right in front of you. Getting back stage with them etc. Hahahaha.

I’m still buying stuff for Suki. I have cute hand mirrors and clothes and phone charms and toys. Even if I can’t give them to her right now and she’s way outgrown them when she finally gets them, at least she will know I was thinking about her all this time. And you know what ? When she realises that you refused to even let me give this stuff to her, she’s going to fucking despise you. She’s going to think you are the biggest cunt who ever walked the earth for refusing to let me send her a laptop and chat to me, or for refusing to let me give her the nearly hundreds of outfits I’ve bought for her. But good luck dealing with that one day !

Anyway to show you how much I don’t give a fuck, here’s the address of my new blog, where I am writing all my travel stories. Enjoy !

http://stuckinsoutheast.asia

And here’s a photo of some of the stuff I’ve bought both for me and for Suki. (Yes those really are Gucci and Burberry dresses !)

I wrote this shortly after Suki was born. I sent it to Jo with the message “Please archive this for Suki”. I had completely forgotten about it until today when I was searching for some old emails and I found it by accident. I know now that the chances of her ever showing you this are slim so I’ve decided to post it here, warts and all. This was written on the 12th of February 2009 when you were about 11 weeks old. I hope you read it one day and it explains some things for you.

Suki at Easter 2011

I had a vivid dream last night about your Mum. I was wandering around an old dusty house picking up items and trying to work out where I was. Then I opened a cupboard and pulled out an old photo album and it had a photo of a broken coffee mug in it, with a nearly illegible note scratched beside it saying that Jo had had something of hers taken away from her as punishment by auntie Susan until 2003.

The hardest part of this dream is that I can’t email Mum and tell her about it because Mum has a protection order on me because she thinks it’ll make our break-up easier. I just want you to know Suki, I was never angry at your Mum for breaking my heart and I never will be. She had her reasons for cutting me out of her life and she felt she had no other choice. We were so worried about you when you were little Suki. One of the nurses told me that because you were more than three months premature that it would take until after your third birthday before you catch up to other kids your age.

I know that by the time you read this, you’ll be much so much older than you are today, but I just want you to know how much I love you and how much I loved your Mum. Mum and I never fought at all. Maybe that was the problem. She says now that she had to turn her back on me because she couldn’t talk to me about her feelings because she was afraid of how I would react. In truth the way I would have reacted was with surprise. I had no idea that Mum was considering leaving me. She never told me she was unhappy with our life, she just walked out one day and said it was over.

But I loved your Mum so much. When she was sick in the hospital, which was often, I went and visited her every single day. When she wanted something, I made sure she got it. Whenever she wanted my attention and affection, she had it. And whenever she spoke, I thought I listened. But maybe I didn’t see the signs, if there were any signs. I wasn’t always the perfect husband. I made some mistakes that affected Mum’s life. I got in trouble with the law a few times because I was confused about my place in the world. I never quite knew what to do with myself when Mum was around, and I made some errors in judgement.

I told your Mum things deepest in my heart. Things that I should not have even thought to myself. But I trusted her like noone I’d ever met before. I felt that she could heal me. I went to her because I had problems and I thought she could fix them, but she didn’t fix them. In some ways she made them worse. But your Mum didn’t always look upon me as a problem. She loved me once with all her heart and I realise that’s why she wasn’t able to deal with my problems. Instead we ignored them and didn’t try and understand each other and as a result we drifted further apart until finally something snapped inside your Mum and she decided she could take it no longer, and then she had to stop loving me because she didn’t have enough love to share between you and I.

I know this was a hard decision for her. She came from a home without a father as well, and she always said she wanted a better life for you. And so do I, Suki. But sadly your Mum has wounds that won’t heal overnight. She’s had to harden her heart in order to turn her back on me. I know she still loves me, but she thinks that this way is better for everyone. I just want you to know that it wasn’t my choice to leave you. I wanted to be there for you during those first two years. I wanted to see you take your first steps, and speak your first words, but now I’m certain to miss out on those wonderful things because Mum and I have to live apart and it breaks my heart to think that she gets to see all those things and I only get to hear about them.

But I don’t blame your mother for what she’s done. She thinks she made the right decision at the time, even though I know she’s very confused and lots of people are telling her what the right thing to do is. She felt that leaving me was her only option. I don’t know why she couldn’t talk to me. We always talked. We talked about everything. So it’s hard to accept that she could not have talked to me about her feelings. She says she was afraid, but she wasn’t afraid of me. She was afraid of what might happen between us and how it might hurt her, which is why she chose to run away from the problem and take out a protection order to stop me contacting her. Because it’s easier to hate someone when the court is on your side so that you feel like you’ve done the right thing.

But I loved your Mum, and I always will. She was the light of my life, the lighthouse in a sea of fog and clouds of doubt. She always made me want to be a better person, even if I didn’t always manage to do so and if she’d just talked to me, I know we could have found some common ground and found a way to move forward together. But what’s done is done now and I don’t think she’s ever going to give me a second chance, which is heartbreaking because I know we could have resolved this if only we’d talked about it.

Suki, before I became a father I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I was happy, but lost. I lacked direction and I lacked boundaries and guidance. Until you were born and then everything changed for me. Now I have purpose. I have the motivation I need to be a better person. In the few short months that you’ve been alive I’ve already changed so much. I’ve stopped doing things I did in the past and I’ve started looking towards the future and what I need to do to ensure you have a happy, trouble-free life. I hope my new business is successful. It’s a business your Mum and I first started together, and it’s very hard to bring myself to do it on my own because I constantly think of her doing it with me, but I have to move forward with my own life even if it’s not joined to your mothers anymore.

I don’t want you to ever think that Mum and I didn’t love each other. It’s because your mum loves you so much that she thinks it’s best that we separated. I know in time she’ll come to realise that we didn’t need to separate, we just needed to talk. Hopefully that day comes before I’ve missed out on too much of your life. I so much want to be there when you speak your first word, and I’m sure it’ll be “dadda” because it always is with kids. I’m going to keep visiting you and reading to you even when I can’t be there to see you in person and I hope that you’ll recognise my voice when I visit.

I’ve made many mistakes in life Suki, but having you was the greatest achievement I ever accomplished. It lit up my life and gave me hope for the future. It turned me from just a man into a father and I thank your Mum so much for giving me this wonderful gift. I would love to say that we didn’t break up over you, but sadly it’s the truth. But even so, it was still done out of love for you. I love you so much that I have to let you go for a while, at least until Mum thinks that she can handle being around me. I want you to know that giving in and giving Mum her protection order was the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever done in my life. To not even say goodbye to the wife I loved for more than eight years and watch her walk out of the courtroom without even a glance at me made me want to tear my eyeballs out of their sockets and jump up and down screaming “No, don’t walk away. I love you” but I have to do what she wants for her to heal, and what she wants is for me to leave her alone so that she can deal with things in her own time.

Suki, it’s just before 5 am in the morning and I took the advice of one of your nurses and gave them a call to talk about you because I couldn’t sleep. They told me you put on a whole 28 grams between your last weigh in, which is about 14 grams per day ! I can’t imagine how you can grow so fast but I guess you are eating a lot – over 50 grams every two hours. That means you’re 2.594 kg today, which is almost three times your birth weight. When I look at the first photos of you, of when I held you in my arms you looked so tiny and already you look so much bigger in recent photos.

I won’t embarrass you by telling you how smelly it was changing your nappy yesterday except to say that the nurse said I was a natural at it. He was really nice and he gave me a lot of really great advice. I think his name was Connor. He suggested that I record myself reading to you and that he would put it in your crib on an MP3 player which is a fantastic idea and I’m going to start recording it tomorrow. My flatmate has some Dr Seuss books which I know you’ll love, and I’m going to get some Roald Dahl from the library because he wrote one of my favourite books as a child – The Big Friendly Giant. Hopefully I can find the Berenstein Bears as well, because I loved that one too. I wish I could see you every night. The nurse I spoke to tonight asked if they’d see me there in the morning and I cried as I said “no”.

Suki, you mean everything in the world to me right now. You are my light, my love and my passion and not being there all the time kills me inside, but those times when I do see you make up for it all. I can’t really afford it but maybe I could come to Brisbane today to see you. It’s only about $20, but I’m behind on the mortgage due to a bit of a failure in my work life the other day. I travelled all the way to Bundaberg to see a client who turned out to have gone home and not worked that day. But it was a nice drive anyway and afterwards I got to see your grandma and grandpa.

I’m going to try and get back to sleep now as the sun’s coming up. There’s a chill breeze blowing through the east windows and I have put the blanket back on the bed for the first time in weeks. I bet Mum wishes she was back in mild Toowoomba instead of being stuck in sticky, hot Brisbane. I just want you to know that I’m thinking of you, even at four o’clock in the morning.

I love you Suki and I love your Mum too so please don’t ever forget that even if I’m not around. We’ll get our chance to see each other, don’t you worry.

Love,

your father, David.

I have added a small note for today to complement this older letter.

As it turns out it looks like it may be a lot longer than 2 years before I see you. You’re turning 3 in just over a month and Jo is running away to a foreign city with Michael and won’t tell me where you’re going. I have all these gifts for you that she refuses to let me send you so instead I’m just going to keep them all here for you. One day when you are older you are going to have all these cute little girl’s dresses that you never got to wear but I dunno.. maybe if they’re not too out of fashion you can keep them for your daughter. Anyway, I’m still buying you gifts all the time because I think of you so often. I was in Singapore on the weekend and I spent my last $10 on a gift for you instead of food for myself even though I know it may be many years before I get to give it to you and by then you may not even want it. But at least you’ll know that I cared and that I was thinking about you for all these years.

I hope something changes and I see you before you’re all grown up but it doesn’t look good right now with Jo and Michael running off into the outback and not telling us where and me going back to Vietnam soon. I had hoped to give your Mum a laptop so we could talk on Skype but she said no. We’ll see. Maybe she’ll change her mind eventually. I hear you have a little brother now too ! Just born a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know his name but I’d love to meet him too one day as I’m sure he’ll be a very special part of your life. You’re his big sister so you’re going to have to look out for him and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.

Cya Suki,

Dad.

Well, probably not “the end”, but this probably “the end” for a little bit. My story is done. “Love on the Streets of Saigon” has the happy ending I was hoping it would have, and frankly, sooner than I expected. Not to say I’m going home to Australia, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Things have changed back home and my only purposes for returning have vanished and suddenly there is no reason for me to go back ever. While it would be convenient to sort a few things out, they just aren’t that important and not worth the cost of the plane ticket to get there so I just don’t care about them.

But I also don’t want to share anymore. From now on, everything I talk about would be intimate and personal, and while that’s fine when I’m only talking about myself, it’s not appropriate when you’re talking about the person you’re in love with and with whom you share your most intimate secrets.

There’s a lot more I want to tell you about Merry and her background but I’m just not going to. She doesn’t want everyone to know what she’s been through and what her life is like back home.

Suffice to say we are both suffering the same problems right now. We are both dealing with parents who don’t understand us and think we’re fucking retards who have no idea what we’re doing with our lives and don’t understand why we insist on staying abroad, and we’re both dealing with missing our children, which with regard to Merry is a subject I cannot speak of any further. Though at least I got to speak to her kids on the phone tonight. I wish I could speak to mine, but my asshole, criminal, junkie, insensitive, completely un-christian-like cunt of a wife refuses to even tell me where she’s moving to or give me her address to send Suki gifts, let alone see my daughter, and it’s possible I may never see her again.

As such, tonight Merry and I went up to the roof to drink rice wine and take photos and talk about how angry we were with our ex-partners and why our parents just didn’t have a fucking clue what we were going through.

And that’s it. I’m done for a bit. Blogging about my adventures in Saigon has been fun and I know so many of you have enjoyed it, but while I was always aware of the danger of having a public blog and telling everyone about my daily life, it has finally become a liability and everyone I know manages to use the things I say against me in some way.

I simply cannot express myself here anymore without people twisting my words and trying to make them mean whatever suits what bullshit agenda they have, so it’s best I just stop expressing them. As such, while I may blog about some general interest stories about Vietnam from time to time, I think the personal stories are at an end. It’s been lots of fun pouring my heart out to you and showing you what a lonely desperate soul I’ve been, but I’m over that now. Merry and I have our disagreements but we have more in common in our hearts than we could ever have imagined when we first got together and we are both going through the same emotional stresses and difficulties as each other, but now that I share them with someone else, sorry, but I don’t need to share the with all of you anymore.

It’s been great having you all listen but I think a large amount of the personal insights have come to an end just like the way I no longer buy flowers for random girls from Nam like I used to. That time is at an end for the moment.

I guess I hope you all enjoyed the little while I spent looking inside my soul, but I don’t need to show it to you anymore. Too many people I didn’t want to read my shit were reading it and just using it as ammunition for later. I know that’s what happens when you publish things on the internet and I was fine with that before, but now… I’m done ok ?

I hope I’ll still post from time to time, but it’s likely I’ll be writing a lot more stuff privately from now on, because frankly, I don’t even know 95% of you and of the ones I do know, at least half of them probably hate me and will just use everything I say against me, so fuck you. Go find someone else’s blog to read.

Signing off,

pawz.

I really want to see Suki. It’s coming on almost two years now since I’ve seen her and I just talk about her day in and day out, but other than the photos my parents send me on the rare occasion they see her, I don’t even know what she looks like. Despite me buying Jo a new digital camera and video camera so that she could photograph and video Suki, she doesn’t send me a single photo or video. I get nothing. Of course I have to pay child support, but I don’t even get so much as a photo of my own child from her.

Well, yesterday was Father’s day. I didn’t even realise until I noticed a Father’s day comment from my friend in my email. It’s celebrated at different time in each country so it’s easy to forget about it, but in Australia it’s the first Sunday in September, so I sent off an email to my dad.

But I don’t get an email from Suki unfortunately. If her mum wasn’t such a piece of shit, fuckwit bitch she’d have the decency to take just one single photo, even if it was on her iPhone and send it to me and say “Happy Father’s Day, here’s a photo of your daughter”, but no. I don’t get that.

So I was sitting here looking at old photos of her that I took when she was in hospital. Merry caught me crying and asked me what was wrong and I explained that today was Father’s Day, but I don’t think she understood what it was. I guess they don’t have it in Cambodia. She just knew that I was very sad and I was crying because I couldn’t see my daughter. She didn’t say much and she didn’t even try and hug me. She knew it was personal and she didn’t really understand so she just asked a few times if I was ok.

Well, my dad got a Father’s Day greeting, and I’m sure his dad did too, but sadly I didn’t get one. Oh well. It’ll only be a few years before Suki can write and she can send me one then. Maybe by 2014 I can expect an email on Father’s Day. Hopefully when I give her this laptop her mother will stop being a cunt for two seconds and say “Suki, your father wants to speak to you” and she’ll put her in front of the camera for me. But I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that considering she couldn’t even be fucked sending me a photo of her.

Fuck you’re a piece of shit Joanna. You are the scummiest, most vile, reprehensible human being I know. I loved you and cared for you, I supported you and did everything for you when you were too fucking lazy to get a job or learn to drive a car or anything and went through fucking hell to give you the child that you so desperately wanted only for you to walk out on me, make up lies about me, take everything I had, sue my parents for even more money, and now refuse to even talk civilly to me or send me a photo of my daughter on Father’s Day.

I’ve really tried not to hate you. I’ve wished for you to be happy ever since you left. I’ve never been angry about your decision to leave me for someone else, just hurt and disappointed that I did so much for you and you repay me by saying “Fuck you. You will never see your child until she’s an adult and can legally decide for herself”. Yeah ? Well fuck you too you ungrateful bitch.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s see the real reason for this post. My daughter, Suki.

If there’s one thing I’ve always hated, even since I was a child, it’s people who think “I want my child to have a different name than everyone else”, but they don’t want it to be too different, so instead, they just mess with the spelling. They say “Oh let’s call her Rebecca, but let’s spell it R-e-b-e-k-k-a-h” and for the rest of that poor girl’s life she has to go around saying “Hi, my name is Rebekkah. R-e-b-e-k-k-a-h”, spelling it to every person. That’s no way to live. When I hear people tell me their name is a misspelling of a common name I think “I’d like to punch your parents in the face for being such assholes”.

You have to consider what effect the name you give your child is going to have on their life. Are they going to be teased ? Is it hard to pronounce ? Is it difficult to spell ? People’s name can shape their whole life. Some people think that your name often shapes a large portion of your personality and that you actually conform to what sort of person your name suggests you should be.

I named my daughter Suki. Well, to be perfectly honest, I originally wanted to name her Akiko, which has a virtually identical meaning, and I think sounds very pretty and quiet and shy, and Jo and I had decided on that, but only a couple of days before Suki was born, Jo insisted she had to be called Suki instead. I actually had a terrible nightmare that night that if she wasn’t named Akiko then something terrible would happen and she might not live.

Sadly Jo disregarded my concerns and put her foot down and said “I don’t care. She’s getting called Suki”. Apparently I didn’t get a say as usual. As it turned out, I like the name Suki. It’s beautiful and it’s easy to spell and it’s also not immediately obvious that it’s Japanese because it’s actually a reasonably common name in America, so I do love her name and now I can only think of her as Suki so I’m glad we called her that.

My friend Frazer in high school always joked “I’m going to name my first child Serendipidy and I don’t care if it’s a boy !” which made us all laugh, but we had an uneasy feeling that he was serious. In the end, when he did have a child and it was a boy, he didn’t name him Serendipidy. He named him something even more hilarious. He named him “Texas Pete”. Now, if you weren’t born in the 70′s or earlier you probably don’t know what that means, but it’s the name of the villain in the 80′s cartoon “Bananaman”. Yeah. He named his kid after the humorous name of a cartoon villain. To be fair he does have a cool nickname, “Tex” which is manly and sexy, but I feel sorry for the kid if he ever has to explain where his name comes from.

I have another old friend from school named Peta who gave her child an unusual name too. I don’t think it has meaning, and I haven’t asked her to explain it at length, but it’s different. Her son’s name is “Edge”. At first I was like “Oh my god, you didn’t did you ?” It’s a little bit odd and it’s hard to hear it without immediately thinking of the guitarist from U2, and I can only presume that’s where the name came from. But it’s not a horrible name and I’ve grown used to it and frankly, I like names that are based off common nouns.

In other societies such as in Asia, virtually all names are based on common nouns and every person can say “My name means this”. I hate names that are just weird historical names that have lost their meaning, so I actually think “Edge” is sort of a cool name and it’s easy to pronounce and spell, so it wins my approval.

I know a guy from New Zealand who moved to China because, well, he just wanted to. He met a pretty Chinese girl and got married and they had a child. Yeah, happy story, right ? Well, he’s a bit of a geek, and I asked him what his child’s name was. This is what he said:

I want her to excel at maths and science. My daughter’s name is Hypatia Amalie Grace, Hypatia after the Greek philosophy mathematician and astronomy, Amalie after the Jewish mathematician whom Einstein praised as one of the best mathematicians, and Grace after Grace Murray Hopper who wrote the first software compiler.

Well, I mean Hypatia is actually a beautiful name. It’s a little weird though, especially for a Chinese baby, and I’m amused that his Chinese wife happily went along with this. He tells me that Chinese people have a lot of trouble pronouncing it. I bet even in western societies though, people would be like “Wait, you are Chinese and you’re named after an ancient Greek mathematician ? That’s a bit odd”.

But hey, each to their own, and I respect him for being original, though choosing three given names that are all from famous geeky women from history is pretty out there, but they’re not horrible names and it’s nice to have your name mean something. I wish my name meant something beautiful and interesting that I could be proud to tell people. I hope Suki is proud of her name and that whenever she tells people she says “My name is Suki. It means beloved”. (As a noun it’s meaning is more akin to “love” but as a name it more commonly means “beloved one”)

I’ve joked to many people that if I have another daughter I want to name her Yeu so that the two of them could introduce themselves to people and say:

“Hi, my name is Suki. It means ‘Love’ in Japanese”.

“Hi, my name is Yeu. It means ‘Love’ in Vietnamese”.

Is that silly ? To be honest, Yeu is not used as a name in Vietnam though, so it’s a little strange, so if she was Vietnamese it might be a bit odd. I’d probably have to called her “Nhi” which literally does mean “beloved one”, so it’s far closer to the meaning of Suki’s name. But Nhi is a horribly common name in Vietnam, so I’d be reluctant to use that, even though it is a beautiful, simple, elegant name that is easy to say, pronounce and spell.

But names are great aren’t they ? They give you an identity that you cling to throughout your whole life. Your name is everything to you. It’s that label you stick to yourself to say “Hey everyone, this is who I am !” It’s a very important part of your life and it pays to think about it carefully.

So by all means, give your child an original name. Something with meaning to you, to them, to your culture, whatever. Something beautiful and interesting. But make sure you follow the traditional rules. Make sure it doesn’t rhyme with a rude word or insult, and make sure that it’s easy to spell and pronounce. There’s nothing worse than going through life having to spell and pronounce your name three times to every person you meet. That’s not cool. Don’t make your kids suffer through that.

Ok, my last post was angry because my shitty Windows laptop sucked, so let’s talk about something nice.

I went out for dinner. I wasn’t really that hungry but my tummy hurt a bit because I did not eat all day and I didn’t eat all yesterday either, and even the day before I only had one small plate of ostrich. God I hope I’m going to lose some weight because of this but knowing my metabolism, probably not. Anyway, less food means less money, LOL !

But I wandered out to have dinner at my favourite restaurant. Fortunately it was early and not many people were there so I figured I could eat in peace without Vietnamese people coming up and toasting me and asking me to drink with them. Not that I don’t love that but c’mon… sometimes you just want to eat a quick meal and go home to work. You don’t always want to meet people and drink with them. But as usual, along the way, everyone wanted to say hello to me.

Even random people passing on motorbikes in the busy four-per-lane street would smile and yell out “Hello !”. Ok, I can’t deny. I do love that. It’s very cute and makes you feel pretty good. But when I got there and slipped into a corner I breathed a sigh of relief and just wanted to eat and leave. I wanted something different though. I asked for the oysters with cheese because they are like 90 cents for a plate. But sadly, as usual, they didn’t have them. They never do. I keep asking in the hope that one day they will have them, but sadly not so.

I don’t want to order ostrich again and I’m not in the mood for something weird because I just want a simple, plain meal without fuss, so I order the sauted beef steak and eggs and chips for like $1.80 and a few beers and it’s very good as far as sauted local steak and veges go for that price, but it’s no ostrich I can tell you. It’s basically the exact same as the ostrich meal, only nowhere near as tender and delicious and this one comes with fried eggs. It’s good though and I’m certainly not complaining. It’s just not the delicious ostrich that I normally have.

So I finish up after three beers and a steak and head off, having paid a little more than last night because I guess it’s not happy hour and the beers are tiny bit more expensive than they were last night, but it’s still bugger all and I head over to Titan Mart to buy some more take-home alcohol and some water, which I’m out of.

The security guard and motorbike check-in dude outside smiles at me and waves. Awww. that’s the first time he’s done that. He finally recognises me as a local and is like “Hey dude. Good to see you again”. Inside, the female staff sometimes giggle behind my back because it’s so weird to see a foreigner in this neighbourhood at all, let alone in a supermarket buying daily items, but stuff them. I’m not going to be bothered by that. I’m going to shop here every couple of days and they are going to get used to me. Maybe by the time I move on from this suburb they will be like “Oh yeah, we get westerners here sometimes, it’s no big deal”.

I buy a 5 litre bottle of water because it’s only a little more expensive than a 1.5L bottle and I figure I need an extra glass to drink it in, since I only have one. Other than that I just buy the same “Mac Annan” Vietnamese scotch I always buy for $2 and a small bottle of imitation French brandy which is about 85 cents.

As I’m checking out I see someone pick up a Pooh Bear CD wallet from a shelf beside the register. I glance over it and look. I pick one up and look for the price. It’s about $2.20 odd. It’s genuine Disney too. It has Disney stickers all over it and it even credits the logo to “Copyright A.A. Milne”. You know what ? I may not have much money and that may cost more than my bottle of scotch, but I haven’t bought Suki a gift in AAAAAGGGGESSS !

So I chuck it in my basket before I check out. It’s cute. One day she’ll use it. I’m fully aware of the fact that I have suitcases full of stuff for Suki already and that when I try and leave Vietnam, customs are probably going to hit me up for at least 10-20% export duty on everything I’ve bought, and they’re going to make up prices for how much it costs, coz I’ve spoken to people and they’ve told me this is what happens. You can’t take anything new into or out of Vietnam without paying duty on it, both import and export.

To be honest, it’s mostly bribery. I’m sure some of it filters back to the government, but basically it’s a case of “Ohhh, you’re bought some nice shit while you’ve been in Vietnam haven’t you ? Yeah, I think if you want to take that home you’re going to owe me at least $100 in your currency”. It’s sort of a perk of the job. If you work at customs, you get to harass tourists and demand duty on anything they wish to leave the country with.

But believe me, I’ll fucking argue. I’ll be like “No, these dresses are all 10,000 dong each. I’m paying no more than $10 duty on the whole lot !” I’ll argue it to death if I have to. I am not gonna pay obscene export duties to take gifts home to my daughter. No way. I’ll say “No. These plushies aren’t gifts. They are mine and I cannot sleep without them. They are not gifts, they are MINE !” Which to be honest, is perfectly true. Sometimes I do occasionally cuddle one of Suki’s Hello Kitty plushies at night. I’ll have them all professionally cleaned before I give them to her though. I don’t want them to smell of her dad’s Saigon man-sweat after all. :”)

So anyway, I just bought a little CD case. Nothing special. I’ve been on the lookout for that crazy vendor that sells the cute kid’s dresses for 10,000 dong every time I go to the markets but I’ve never seen him again. God, when I finally do, I’m just going to say “Here’s 500,000 dong. I want everything you have. Give me the whole rack. I will wheel it home”. Because why the hell not ? It’s not like Suki needs that many clothes, but I just want to buy them for her. Even if her mum just gives them to her friends, that’s cool. I don’t mind.

It’s just, I don’t see her. She’s always on my mind. I swear I have talked about her half a dozen times today already. Every time I meet someone I roll up my sleeve and say “This is my daughter’s name” and show them my tattoo and her photo and they are like “Wow, you must be very proud” and I’m like “Yeah, I am”.

I never understood that before. I was SO FUCKING SCARED of being a father. I was worried I would be crap and I would find my child annoying and I wouldn’t love them. Oh my god. How far from the truth. I don’t even see her, and yet I think about her a dozen times a day. I have her picture in my wallet, on my phone, on my computer, on a dozen websites, and her name tattooed on my body.

I cannot describe how much she means to me or how often I think about her except to say, that Charles Darwin dude was right… genetics are everything. You may not give a shit about any other rugrat you meet in your life, but if you know that this one is YOURS and YOU produced her… suddenly she becomes the most important thing in your life.

When I have a proper job in Asia, I’ll be doing more for her than just buying her cheap gifts. I mean, it’s not like her mum can do anything because she’s a lazy piece of shit that has never worked a day in her life, and her “new” father is just some junior beat cop who makes fuck all giving traffic tickets to people, so if she’s going to have anything better than an average shitty life, then I’m going to have to provide it. Right now I’m not even in a position to provide for myself, but you know, things come and go. I have talent and skills and I can make money, so I’m going to do some things for her eventually.

I’m not going to pay for her school fees because frankly, she’s Australian and the government does that and the rest of it, her “parents” should be able to afford. But I will buy her stuff she needs. When I get back to Australia and she’s maybe a little older, I would like to give her a laptop such as the one I’m using now. It’s a cute little laptop that’s portable and tough and has a webcam so that I can talk to her on Skype. Her mother’s never going to be able to afford to buy her a laptop of her own. She can’t even get her own fixed to send me the photos I keep demanding. “Oh boo hoo. My iMac is broken and I have no money to fix it so I can’t send you any photos of your daughter so fuck you. Maybe send me $1000 and we’ll see what I can do”.

Yeah ? Fuck you Joanna. If you wanted me to support you, you should have stayed with me you dumb slut. You’re like a typical monkey. You don’t let go of one branch until you’ve got a firm grip on another. But apparently your new boyfriend isn’t the cash cow you’d hoped. Anyway, that’s your fucking problem, not mine. I just want to see Suki and give her some nice stuff to make her life cuter and better.

I’ll buy her cute clothes and accessories so she’s the envy of all the kids at school. “Wow. Where did you get that amazing cute backpack ?” “That’s by Hikosen Cara. It’s from Japan. My dad bought it in Asia for me”. “Wow Suki, where did you get that cute purse ?” “It’s from Hong Kong. You can’t get it in Australia sorry. My dad bought it for me”.

And of course I want to give her a laptop, and when she’s older maybe I’ll get to buy her her first mobile phone if her mother doesn’t deliberately intervene to steal that pleasure from me. Ahh, but to one day get a surprise text message from my daughter. I can only dream about how happy that’s going to make me.

So Suki, sorry if it contains a little bitching about your mum since she is so horrible to me and makes it so hard to see you, but this post is for you, because I’m sitting in my apartment in Saigon looking at all your clothes and toys around me thinking “Soon, I’m going to see you baby. Soon”. I have coins from around the world to give you and I want to give you a globe and teach you about the world and where all these coins from from. I want to give you cute clothes and accessories from different countries. I want to give you all sort of stuff for you everyday life that you are going to show off to your friends and say “My dad gave me this. He’s in Asia”.

If your mum tries to be bitch, fuck her. I’ll find a way. A friend said to me “Just buy her a gift every year on her birthday and when she’s 18, go and see her and give her a pallet-load of gifts and say ‘These are all the gifts I wanted to give you but your mum wouldn’t let me’” Hopefully it won’t come to that. I mean, I have asked your mum for your address many times but she refuses to give it to me, even though I’m over 7,000km away. I have a whole bookshelf of kids books for you at home in Australia to give you. Graeme Bass and beautiful picture-books of Aseop’s fairy tales such as the “Lion and the Mouse” and great books such as Mem Fox’s “Possum Magic” and older books such as Eleanor Coerr’s “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” that I grew up with as a kid and which had such an impact on my life.

I want to give those all to you too. But in person. I want to read them to you. I don’t want to just post them to your mum and have HER read them to you. Those are books that I want to share with you that meant so much to me and I want to share them with you so that when you grow up you remember “My dad read me that book” just as I remember that when I was a child, a very good friend of the family friend read “Wind in the Willows” to me when I was very young, and I remember that so clearly.

I want to share that with you. I will be happy to talk to you on Skype every day after school when you are old enough to use a computer and talk to me, but I also want to read books to you, because I know how awesome it was as a child to have people read books to me. I remember when I was very young, my mother reading my favourite Little Golden Books to me as she brushed my hair and I want to do that for you too.

When you are old enough to read this, I want you to know, I love you so much and I miss you so much. I want to see you so very much, but your mother makes it so difficult. She will only let me see you with her and Michael present which is very uncomfortable. I asked many times when you were a baby to see you at your godfather Stefan’s house without her around and she said “No. I don’t want to do that” so I could not see you.

I hope you do not think I have abandoned you. I will see you as soon as I can. I know that when I am back in Australia your mother will have to let me see you because otherwise I will have my mafia friends come and knee-cap her cats ! (Just joking, I could never do that) And I will see you even if it’s just for a little while. If I spend a little while in Australia I will try and live not too far away and see you every day if I can. I know your mum will make this very difficult but I will plead and insist and if necessary threaten legal action. I can be very persuasive when I want to be. :”)

You mum says she shows you my photos and tells you who I am and I dearly hope that’s true. I know I have not seen you in almost two years, and you probably don’t remember what I look like, but when I see you again, I think you will know, just as I do, that we are father and daughter. There is an inseparable bond that exists between us and noone will ever break that and noone can separate us forever.

Take care Suki, I have lots of gifts and lots of hugs for you when I see you. I hope you want to know who I am and you think I am cool and interesting and you are proud of me. Everything I do, I do it because I want you to be proud of me. I know my parents are cool and I talk about them to my friends all the time and say “My parents are cool because they did this, and this, and now they are doing this” and my friends are like “Oh wow. I wish my parents were as cool as yours”. Well, I hope you think the same about me one day. I’ve had a pretty rich and interesting life and I’m continuing to do so, so I hope that you are proud of that and you can tell your friends proudly “Today my daddy is HERE and this is what he is doing right now and he is AWESOME !”

Love you baby.

Daddy.

Oh and here’s the Pooh Bear CD case I bought you tonight (look a few paragraphs down) ! I know it’s nothing special that you couldn’t get from any Disney store, but this was just a regular supermarket that I was at tonight and I know your mum LOVES Pooh to death and I used to buy her Pooh stuff before we even got together so I’m sure she will make you love Pooh stuff too.

If you get bored. Please read “Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood”. Don’t worry tough. I’ll buy you a copy if Mum doesn’t. Along with maybe a copy of “The Tao of Pooh” which relates Winnie the Pooh’s stories to the Tao, or Chinese philosophy of life, which I think would be great for you to read and give you an open mind on philosophy and religion. :”)

In the meantime, you can just enjoy Pooh because he’s cute and fun, and I hope you love him and Tigger too (Coz Tigger is my favourite character). I hope you fill this case with cool CD’s and that it includes some cute Asian CD’s because I’m sure I’m going to be sending you Momusu and Otsuka Ai and SNSD and Wonder Girl’s CD’s to make sure you have a grounding in great Jpop and Kpop music !

My parents saw Suki recently on the Sunshine Coast. They went to a park with her. As usual she looks like she’s just bursting with happiness. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kid who looks as happy as she does. Nhi and I were talking earlier about stuff and she asked how long I’d been in Vietnam so far and I told her it was 8 weeks. She asked “You miss your family ? You miss Suki ?” and I went “Awwww”. She had actually forgotten what country I came from and had to ask me again tonight where I came from, but she remembers my daughter’s name. That’s so touching.

Later Lam and Hue both wanted to see photos of Suki. I showed her the ones I had, but I only had recent ones. Hue said she wanted to see baby photos of her but all of those are stored on Amazon and I get really, really miserable speeds to Amazon from the bar here so it would have taken me all night to download them. I promise I’ll download them tonight and show her tomorrow. Hue spent hours sitting beside me looking through every photo I had. Longreach, Brisbane, New Zealand, Vietnam. She was really interested in my wedding photos and said it looked like I’d have a beautiful wedding. She thought the cake was amazing and she kept saying that Jo was really beautiful and asked if I still missed her. I said “Not anymore. She doesn’t love me anymore and she is happy with someone else, so I don’t miss her anymore”.

Anyway, here’s a photo of Suki with my parents that my cousin sent to me.

I explained the other day what the name “Suki” meant (fondness and love), but I haven’t explained what “Mae” (her middle name) means. We didn’t actually pick it for it’s meaning, we picked it because it just sounded pretty, and “Suki Mae” has a lovely ring to it. But it does have a meaning. In Japanese, the word “mae” has many meanings, but the one I like the most, is that it means “in the presence of”. So Suki’s full name can be read to mean “In the presence of love”. Pretty isn’t it ?

I haven’t really got many photos of Suki. Her mum doesn’t send them to me, even thought I gave her a brand new digital camera and a video camera for that purpose, but maybe I’ll get them one day when she thinks better of it and deigns to include me in my daughter’s life. But every now and again I get a couple from my Mum. They are pretty horrible quality. Not only does Jo not seem to understand that you need to use a flash in low light to avoid graininess, but she wouldn’t know how to do red-eye reduction if was a feature of her camera. Which ironically, it is. Her camera has face recognition and red-eye removal. She just doesn’t know how to use them and of course she’s not going to listen to me, because while I may have spent several years studying photography and am a registered photojournalist, I’m her ex-husband and she wouldn’t listen to me if she was in a burning building and I was screaming “Fire !”.

I also wish she would stop adding date stamps on the damn photos. Digital photos already have a date stamp in the file, and if you want to print them, write the bloody date on the back like a normal person. I hate when people ruin beautiful photos with a big ugly date stamp in the corner. So I’ve had to do the best I can with what I’ve got, and I’ve photoshopped the latest photos and added a tiny bit of smart blur to reduce the graininess and I’ve removed the red-eye and I’ve colour corrected them significantly. Before I did this many of them looked like photos from a poor quality film camera from the 60′s. When I next see Suki I am going to go crazy with my Nikon and get a million great photos of her to make up for these awful ones. For amusement’s sake I’ve also included one photo in which I’ve retouched only half the photo, to illustrate the awful quality original material I had to deal with. Notice the red-eye, the graininess, the poor colour, the bad contrast etc on the left, compared to the much better quality on the right. Am I good or am I good ? :”)

I’m going to feature one because it’s so adorable and then I’ll just post links to the rest. She’s on a play date with a friend. I don’t know who the friend is, but it’s so cute. Every photo I have ever seen of Suki shows her grinning crazily at the camera. She’s such a ham and it’s so kawaii ! Eventually these will all go on Suki’s own website, but despite her being three years old later this year, I still haven’t gotten around to setting it up yet and all it has currently is one of my favourite photos on it. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s http://ichibankawaii.com (which means “number one cutest”) and as much as I would like a more current photo of her without the breathing tube in her nose, it’s an adorable photo and it’s the one of the only ones I have of the two of us together, so it’s very special to me and I suspect it may remain the cover photo for the website for many years. Seriously, who would have thought an average looking guy like me could produce such a beautiful child ?

Here’s the awful half-retouched photo:

Here’s my favourite photo:

And here’s the rest of the gallery:

I dreamed about Suki last night. It wasn’t a casual appearance. It was a very long, detailed lucid dream in which I met her and we talked and played for ages. It was based around me returning to Australia from Vietnam and our first visit together, except she was older than she is now, maybe 5 years old.

I was with my parents and we visiting Suki in some weird town that we’d never been in before. Jo turned up hours late and I was really mad but it didn’t matter because once I saw Suki that was all forgotten. Suki was wearing the same pink dress she was in the last photo of her that I got, but her hair was a little bit longer. My parents and Jo and Michael disappeared and I was left with Suki in my hotel room with 6 baby kittens for some reason.

I gave her the toys that I’d bought for her, except that for some reason they weren’t Hello Kitty although I know that’s because I was saving those for later, but instead I gave her Pooh, Kanga and Tigger stuffed toys. She wanted Pooh the most. She asked me “Is Santa Claus going to bring me an iPad for Christmas ?” And I cracked up laughing and said “Maybe. You’d better write him a letter to let him know. Have you done that ?” And she shook her head and said “No”. I said “We’ll write one later”.

She was running around like crazy and I had trouble keeping up with her and I kept losing sight of her which freaked me out and I got frantic every time I couldn’t see her. There were lots of other kids playing in the halls and I kept mistaking other kids for her, even though she was the only one in a pink dress. We hung out in my room and played with the kittens and I filmed her and asked her lots of questions.

I asked what she liked doing and she said “I like to write stories on the computer” and I was just floored. I said “You write stories ? What sort ?” and she said “I write about stuff I do at home”. Oh my god… Suki is going to be a blogger ! I told her I had a special website for her and asked if she wanted to put her stories on that and she said “A website for me ? Ok I’ll write stories for that” and I was so indescribably happy to think that my daughter was turning out just like me and that she was going to have a website and write blogs online.

She mentioned “dad” once and I said “Michael ?” and she nodded. I said “Michael just lives with mummy, he’s not your dad. I am”. I said “What’s mummy’s last name ?” and she said “Robinson”. I said “What’s Michael’s last name ?” and she said “Eton”. I said “What’s your last name ?” and she said “Robinson”. I asked “Do you know what my last name is ?” and she shook her head. I said “My last name is Robinson as well”. She said “Mummy told me not to believe you if you said that”.
I said “Come with me” and I held her hand and we marched down to the room where Jo and everyone were talking.

I said to Jo “Jo, am I Suki’s dad ? You told her not to believe me if I told her I was. Tell her the truth right now”. Jo looked pained but she looked at Suki and said “Yes, David’s your dad”. I turned to Michael said “By the way, Jo and I are still married and your engagement is invalid. Cya” and I turned to Suki and said “C’mon, lets go play again” and she nodded and we walked back to my room. When we got there she said “You’re really my dad ?” and I said “Yep. That’s why we have the same name and why I’m here visiting you” and she said “Ok. I like you” and I said “Good, because I LOVE you” and she giggled and hugged one of the kittens tightly until it squealed.

I asked her “Do you know what your name means ? I do, because I picked it” and she said “Yes. Mummy told me. It means ‘love’” and I said “Yep, that’s right. Do you know where it comes from ?” and she said “It’s Japanese” and I said “Right again. Do you like your name ?” and she said “Sometimes”. I asked “Can you write it ?” and she replied “Of course silly”. I said “I’ll teach you how to write it in Japanese later. It’s very tricky” and she said “Ok”.

At that point sadly I woke up. I wanted to try and go back to sleep and continue the dream so I could talk to her longer, but I decided I should get up and write about it as soon as possible so that I didn’t forget any details. The fact that Suki wanted an iPad for Christmas and that she wanted to write a blog was just awesome and I lay in bed grinning and thinking “Wow, she’s already an Apple fangirl and writes blogs. How cool is that ?” Sure it was just a dream. But it was a very lucid one and it felt very real to me at the time and I just feel like maybe it was a premonition and that that’s exactly what she is going to turn out like – an intelligent, literate kid that uses computers and writes stories. I sure hope so. I guess I’d better start saving so I can help Santa get her that iPad she wants for Christmas.

Note to the Japan-o-philes. Yes I know that “love” isn’t an exact literal translation of “Suki”, love literally translates as “Ai”. But Suki MEANS fondness and love, and it’s what you say when you DO love someone. So don’t be picky.

Today I got more photos of Suki’s Christening from family. Some of them were so great, since I only had a few myself. I updated Josh’s web page yesterday with some new messages and fixed some problems that had crept into the photo gallery due to the server change. Tomorrow is his birthday and I’m really missing him today. I went down to the Uni to pickup some textbooks that they didn’t have in stock yet and put up an advert for a flatmate as I’m having real trouble finding someone. It was a ghost town due to holidays and the wind blew tumbleweeds past as I walked around. Couldn’t get an ID card or anything printed either as it’s not close enough to the start of term. Couldn’t get the wifi password as the IT services desk was empty. Came home and saw all the photos that had been sent and cried over how wonderful they all were. Thinking a lot about how long it’s going to be before I see her again under such auspicious circumstances. I just wish I could have parties for her all the time. Oh well, it was wonderful anyway and I’ll always have the memories.

Suki’s christening was a really big deal to me. Even though I’m not very religious myself, I still follow certain traditions, and the christening of my daughter was a really big moment for me in her life. Probably the biggest for many years to come because I’m not going to be there to hear her first word or see her first steps, so short of the first day of school which I hope to be there for, the christening was really the biggest event in her early life.

Suki has a godmother, Catherine on Jo’s side of the family and on my side is one of my best friends Stefan and they were both present as they should be. The church filled up early and I was really surprised how many people were there and so happy that so many that I’d invited had been able to turn up. Among my friends I had many old ones who I hadn’t seen in years such as Frazer, Rebecca and Luke as well as my good friends Tonez and Craig. I wish I’d thought to take photos of all them since I don’t have any but I guess they all have their own photos on Facebook so as long as that never blows up I can always see photos there ! Luke is a professional photographer now so he probably got some awesome photos with his lovely shiny camera *envy*. It was also great to see good friends and business clients the Harphams who took the drive down from Toowoomba just for the short ceremony.

Among family we had Uncle Ken and his wife Brendah and Tony and Aunt Gael, who I probably embarrassed by commenting aloud how much like Grandma Jose she was looking who was present with the other great grandparent Don. So it was amazing to have four generations of Robinson’s all together in the same room. While I guess I must have been present for my brother’s christening I don’t remember it as I was young but I so much wished he could have been present. Just now looking at the photos I can’t help but think how conspicuous he is by his absence, but I know he was there in spirit and I’m sure he would have thought the ceremony was truly wondrous.

It was all a little too much excitement for Suki who slept through most of the ceremony with a beautiful peaceful expression on her face. She was awake and looking around for all the photos outside but once we got in and begun the ceremony she fell asleep and was looking very peaceful and happy when the priest anointed her with the oil. The ceremony was very good and what the priest recited was beautiful and moving but despite being incredibly nervous throughout, towards the end I was just wishing it could go longer because it was such an amazing experience.

Suki I felt like the proudest person in the room yesterday although I’m sure Jo was just as moved by the experience. I’m so glad to have been there to bring you into God’s family and I feel like it was one of the most amazing moments I’ve shared both with you and as a father. It really made me feel responsible for you and proud of all the work we went through for you to make it here. Congratulations on being seven months old and being officially christened in the church. It was an experience I will treasure for my entire life. Thank you so much to everyone who attended. I will post more photos when I receive them from all the friends and family who took them.

Today was the day I had been waiting for for a long time. My first real visit to see Suki indoors with friends around. My dad couldn’t come, so it was just my mum and I driving to Brisbane to Stefan’s house. We got there around half past ten and chatted about the garden and stuff until Jo and Michael turned up with Suki. They handed her over quickly and left, much thanks to them, and instantly the whole day became about Suki. She was just hugged and held by everyone and we all waited for our turn eagerly. Stefan was so great with her, as was his sister Maria who seemed instantly maternal.

She must have been a little bit tired when she arrived because after a short while of me reading to her she cried a little and went to sleep, on me ! I was so glad that she picked me to fall asleep on because I said last time how nice a thing it is to feel that your child feels so comfortable with you that they can fall asleep on you. Of course it could have been anyone, I was just lucky.

After a bit I put Suki in her bouncer, and this was probably the happiest I’d seen her. I’d already read The Poky Little Puppy twice so I moved on to the fairy tales and I’d bounce her as I read. The only problem was, she wanted my eye contact and facial expression but I couldn’t give her much because I was reading from the book. She probably would have been happier if I’d just been looking at her and talking gibberish, but I always run out of things to say and I try to avoid too much baby talk. As such I probably enjoyed reading The Little Mermaid and The Princess and the Pea more than she did listening to them, but it’s something I’ll remember. She laughed and cooed and smiled back at me the whole time and it was just magical.

It was so good to see Suki among friends and everyone was so happy to have her there so I’m so thankful to Stefan’s family for inviting us into their home. Those few hours made it an amazing day and I can’t wait for next time.

I bought a few things for Suki lately. Even though I haven’t seen her since mother’s day she’s on my mind a lot. Everytime I see someone with a baby when I’m out I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside in a way that I never used to before Suki was born. Plus of course I have pictures of her stuck to my monitors to remind me of her all day long. I applied to CSA to make sure Jo got child support from me even though she insisted repeatedly that she didn’t want me to apply. Unfortunately it’s not a lot of money and I feel bad that my contribution is so little so I thought I’d buy some things for her online.

Firstly I wanted some books to read to her when I visited her so I bought a book of Fairy Tales, and a Dr Seuss book “The Lorax” and just today I was buying batteries and I noticed a copy of “The Poky Little Puppy” so I couldn’t resist getting that one. Then I went on eBay and even though I know she probably has enough jumpsuits I couldn’t resist buying these two cute ones that I saw. I also saw a cute winter jacket in her size which she’ll need so I bought that too. Once I started on eBay I couldn’t stop though so I went into the toy section. I bought this awesome Japanese caterpillar toy that you pull its tail and it vibrates as it contracts. I think she’ll really like that one. It came with some stickers and two pairs of baby socks. I also bought two bath toys. One is a bath thermometer that floats in the bath and tells you the water temperature and the other is this awesome little duck that detects when you put it in the water and it lights up in all different colours. I can totally see Suki loving that one when she’s old enough to sit up in the bath. It was such a cool toy I almost wish I had one myself. But my prize item is a Fisher Price turtle that plays music and contains a bunch of little toys that fit through holes in the side. I wanted it so bad I probably paid more than it was worth new but it was fun bidding for it. I know she won’t be able to enjoy this one for a while but it’s hard to buy toys for babies so I can only buy stuff she’ll use later. I know she’ll love it when she gets older though so it was money well spent I’m sure.

I really enjoyed buying these things for Suki for when she gets older and whenever I have some spare money I’m going to be straight onto the net to buy more things for her. Getting toys in the mail really makes me feel like a father and I can’t wait until I have a chance to read these books to her and one day she’ll even be reading them on her own although that’s hard to imagine right now when she’s so small. I hope you like them Suki.

Contact centres have been very hard to, well.. contact and never get back to you and have 5 month waiting lists and really just amazingly horrible stuff so I pleaded with Jo to let me see Suki somewhere public and she agreed to let her go with Catherine and Keith to the Logan Hyperdome for a couple of hours today. My mum and I drove to Brisbane and after getting thoroughly lost and panicking we would be late if we ever found the place at all we figured out how to get there and navigating the parking nightmare before getting inside. Well, outside inside. The piazza there is really nice and has a lovely grassy area there and we waited at the coffee club for them to arrive.

Suki was radiant. Her long eyelashes were the first thing that amazed me although she’d lost a bit of hair. Catherine said that she was six months old today. I didn’t quite see how the math worked to support that but regardless it seemed like a milestone to me. She was wide awake and fascinated by everything. Catherine passed her straight to me and she sat on my lap and almost immediately let out the hugest cackling laugh with this massive smiling mouth. She’s still on the oxygen and there was a small tank in the bottom of the stroller but the tubes were long. I’d long since been used to seeing her on oxygen so it was nothing for me and I concentrated on just smiling at her and seeing her interested face look up at me and at everything around her. Suki likes a busy world and she looks like she’s taking it all in at once.

I held her for over an hour and she was awake and alert for most of it. Towards the end of my time holding her she would turn her head in towards me and start drifting off to sleep. It was great to see her sleeping in my arms again like I had at the hospital. It makes you feel really good inside when you know your child is willing to fall asleep in your arms.

Our time was over all too soon and after mum had a turn holding her we had to say goodbye. I’m really glad that Jo was willing to give us this chance to see her on Mother’s day and it helped my mum feel a bit better about being the absent grandmother. Since visitation centres seem so hard to get, I can only hope that soon we will see Suki again with either Catherine or some other of our friends. I look forward to it.

Today is Suki’s Term day ! It’s an amazing milestone that she’s finally made it to Term ! Happy Term Day Suki !

I had vowed to have a good day with Suki mid-week because it is likely that she will be going home before the end of the week to Joanna’s house in Beenleigh and I’m not welcome there yet so it was most probably the last time I was going to see Suki for a long time and I wanted it to be special.

I arrived before 7am and she was starting to demand breakfast already so straight away I got to bottle feed her. She really is a hungry little baby and I can’t believe the size of her feeds ! She took over 90ml and she sucked every last drop out of the bottle and she would have drunk more if she’d been allowed. She burped so loud both times that I burped her that the nurses commented. She didn’t throw up anything at all but she’d dribbled a lot on her jumpsuit throughout the night. I put her down for a little bit but she was really restless and didn’t want to go to sleep.

I asked the nurse if it was best to let them lay down after a meal or if it was ok to pick her up and cuddle her if she was restless. The nurse said it’s totally up to the parent but that it wasn’t good to get them reliant on cuddles to go to sleep unless you wanted to have to do it every single time ! I wanted to spoil her today so I decided to hold her and she smiled and made happy noises and fell asleep.

I read many fairy tales to her but mostly I just held her and looked at her. I didn’t put her down once between 9am and 12 noon, just holding her close as she slept and stroking her hair whenever she woke up or got restless. She really loves having her hair stroked. It calms her down in seconds !

At midday Jo arrived and I had to say goodbye. I kissed her on the forehead and told her how much I loved her and how much I was going to miss not seeing her for so long and then left the hospital for the final time, tears in my eyes at having to leave her.

Suki, I don’t know how I’m going to handle not seeing you and I hope it isn’t too long before you’re well and Jo lets me visit you. I have your photos up on my monitor and I look at you every second of the day and I think about you all the time.

With All My Love,
your Dad, David.

EEK, third post in one day ! Get away from the WordPress Dad !

I just had to update about her eye test. Suki got back from the Mater this afternoon and I rang to enquire how it went. The nurse explained to me the terminology first how the eye is divided into zones and Suki had previously shown signs of vascular disease in zone 2, but he said that the report said it had “resolved” ! So it’s better ! They still want to see her again in two weeks to make sure, but so far it looks great !

The nurse also explained that Suki is not listed in the computer system at Joanna’s request which is why they said she did not exist and were so rude. Hopefully Jo is willing to change that status eventually, but it doesn’t matter because I can always ring straight through to the ICN who are happy to talk to me and love telling me about her.

Anyway, three cheers for Suki’s eyes !

After getting back from Logan, the first thing I wanted to do was print my photos, but sleep got the better of me and it had to wait until today. I don’t want this blog to be image heavy but until Suki’s proper site on RobinsonFamily is finished I thought I’d better share a few photos at least.

I woke early this morning with a heavy heart. I so desperately wanted to go to the hospital and see her and read to her and feed her and be with her, but Suki is over 150 km away from me now and I have to wait a whole week before I can see her again. I decided to ring the hospital and talk to them about her to reassure me. I couldn’t find my card with the SCN number on it so I rang the switchboard and asked for the number. They asked the patient’s name and then came back and said “I’m sorry that person is not a patient at this hospital”. I laughed and said “No, you must have missed it. It’s Suki, S-U-K-I. She’s in the SCN.” She said “OK, well she’s not listed. I’ll just double check for you”. She went away and when she came back she said “No sir I’m sorry but you’re mistaken. There is no such patient at this hospital.”

I laughed again at the ridiculousness of the situation and said “Look, I understand what you’re saying but I assure you. I’m not mistaken. You’re at the corner of Armstrong Street” and she said “Yes” and I continued. “When you walk in the front door, the gift store and water cooler is on the left, you turn right and go to the end of the hall and turn left, when the path splits in two you take the right hand path and the first door on the right is the SCN. The basin is on the left and the nurses station is on the right when you enter. If you go to the right hand side of the room and turn left and go to the end, the last baby on the right has a large blue Eeyore bear and a pink sign on her crib that says Suki. I assure you, if you go down there you will see that she really is there and she really is a patient.”

I feel like reading Horton to the call centre staff – “A person’s a person, no matter how small”. Maybe they should take a leaf from Dr Seuss. Anyway, the other thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s journal post was my new name for Suki. When my Dad was there he called her “Snookums” or something, and I’ve never felt comfortable using words like that because they’re so generic and everyone uses them. So I thought to myself “What can I call Suki that’s unique to just her.” Instantly a word sprung to mind – Sunflower. Because her face is so bright and she looks toward the light like a sunflower.

Maybe I might call her Hana as well, which is the Japanese word for “flower petal”. I can’t wait to see you again Suki, my little sunflower.

I don’t know the Japanese word for joy, so Namida no Suki is the closest translation I can think of to explain the tears of joy I have wept lately. I never understood the phrase and I thought it was only something that happened in romance novels until I had my first child and now I understand it so well. I can scarcely write these posts without weeping from sheer happiness and every time I talk about Suki to my friends, tears run from my eyes.

I had an amazing morning with Suki. It was indescribable. I woke up late, having intended to be at the hospital at 7am but I didn’t get there until 8:30 and I was so worried that I would miss out on her feed. Fortunately I was in for an even better treat than that. When I arrived at the hospital they told me that she’d been fed at 6:30 and probably wouldn’t be due until around 11am. She was quite restless though so the nurse suggested I cuddle her and as soon as I picked her up she cooed and smiled and went to sleep so I read to her as I held her for half an hour and then put her back in her crib and she slept soundly. I didn’t think I would be able to stay until 11:00 so I was disappointed at first, but around 10am the nurse asked me if I’d like to give her a bath.

“A bath ?” I cried. “That would be incredible. I haven’t bathed her yet !”. I was a little afraid, but a first experience like that was something I wouldn’t miss out on for the world, so I removed a very smelly nappy (I had to swallow the vomit that ended up in my throat – I have a very strong gag reflex) and we wheeled her over and weighed her. She’d lost about 24 grams since the last weigh-in but the nurse said that was no cause for concern and it was just because she was adjusting to the bottle feeds.

Then I filled the bathtub with water and lifted her in. I expected her to cry out because I thought babies didn’t like baths but it turns out I had no idea because she absolutely loved it to bits. I cleaned her all over with a wet cloth, taking care to get behind the ears and in between the folds of skin under her chubby chin and then the nurse said to just let her play in the water for a bit. It was clear she enjoyed it a lot because she was kicking her legs and when I turned her over she paddled at the water with her arms making cute happy noises.

I was sad when I had to take her out and dry her off because I didn’t want the fun to stop and neither did she but I lifted her out and carefully dried her off, again making sure to get under the folds of skin so she didn’t get a rash, and then it was that magical time when I get to feed her. She was still very sleepy looking and had her eyes closed for a lot of the time so I didn’t think she was going to take the bottle but as soon as it touched her lips she latched on and started sucking hungrily straight away.

I still find it amazing how strongly she grips the teat. A couple of times I thought she needed to be burped and I tried to remove the bottle but she wouldn’t let go. She was holding on to it even stronger than yesterday so I let her continue until she started blowing bubbles and then I put down the bottle and held her upright and rubbed her back and she let out the most massive burp ! I’m so glad that I know how to do all this stuff so well. Both my mum yesterday and the nurse today said I’m a natural at feeding and burping her which made me feel really good. I’m so happy to know that I can give her what she needs and take care of her just as well as Jo.

I gave her the bottle for a little bit longer but she seemed to be dozing off to sleep and the nurse came to help me finish off her feed. By the time I put her back in the crib she was already fast asleep. I’m getting really good at wrapping her up snugly and keeping her arms tucked in. All the nurses do it in a different way so I’m learning a few methods and I’ll figure out what works best in time. I read Dr Seuss to her for about the millionth time while she slept and she made some really cute smiles so I knew that she was incredibly content after her bath and her feed. I’m just so happy that I can do everything she needs. I’m great at nappies and I’m awesome at feeding and burping and now I can weigh her and bathe her and clothe her and wrap her up too. I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do for her now.

I’d purchased some tiny computer speakers the previous day and I set up the iPod and the speakers near her crib. The nurse was amazed and asked how I’d managed to record myself reading on the iPod. I told her it was easy as I had a microphone attachment for my iPod and she said I must be very smart which was flattering. I asked her if she could tell all the other nurses that I’d like them to play the iPod every morning during her morning feeds and she said “I can do better than that” and disappeared for a few minutes.

When she came back she’d printed up a big note on a piece of pink paper with frilly edges that said “Please play my iPod for me during my morning feeds as I love it when Daddy reads to me” and she stuck it to the front of her chart. I was thrilled that they were so accommodating and helpful but the nurse just dismissed my comments and said what a beautiful idea it was to bring the iPod in so that she could hear me read to her every day.

I’m so thankful to all the wonderful staff in her new nursery and how understanding and thoughtful they’ve all been. They really made me feel like I was such an important party of Suki’s life and my heart was warmed so much by all their praise. I just can’t thank them enough for letting me stick up photos and bring in the iPod and constantly tell me what a great father I am. There are no words that could be kinder than hearing someone tell you that you’re a really caring dad and when I grudgingly left the hospital at 12:30 I felt so rewarded and happy.

I cried a lot on the way home but it wasn’t because I wouldn’t see her for a week but tears of joy at all the wonderful experiences I’d had this weekend. I couldn’t have asked for a better two days. My heart overflows with joy at the closeness I had with my daughter and how rewarding it felt to read to her and bathe her and cuddle her. I was always worried before she was born that I wouldn’t feel the way everyone says you’re supposed to when you have a child but now I’ve felt every bit of pure ecstatic joy that they talk about and more. I cannot believe how strong the emotions have been and how many times I’ve cried tears of sheer happiness.

I’m no longer a man. I’m a father and nothing could ever take away the happiness that I feel right now. My life could not possibly get better than this and I now have a new benchmark for what true happiness is and I realise that everything I’ve felt before in my past was nothing compared to the way I feel now. I am complete as a human and I have the greatest thing in the world to live for. Words simply cannot express the way I feel so all I can do is steal briefly from Dire Straits and say this:

Suki, I love you like the stars above. I will love you ’till I die.

Sunday was my Suki day. My parents were still in Brisbane since my Dad had come down for chemo, so I turned up at the new hospital at Logan around 7:30am and went straight into the SCN. At first they didn’t even know Suki’s name because she hadn’t been there long, but the night nurse saw me and invited me over to Suki. I read several Dr Seuss books to her before my parents arrived and they came in. It was Dad’s first visit to the new SCN and it was nice that the new hospital allowed all three visitors at once so we all got to sit down and enjoy her company.

She was asleep for about an hour before she started getting restless and emitted the loudest cry I’d heard so far. The nurse quickly brought a bottle. It held a massive 100ml of formula and being my first time feeding her by bottle, she showed me how to correctly feed her by a bottle. I had been used to holding her in the crook of my arm but she showed me how to sit her on my knee while holding her with my hand for the best bottle feeding position and how to best burp her. My mum suggested over the shoulder, but the nurse had a much better position which worked really well and the nurse said I was a natural at it.

I feed her for at least twenty minutes with several short breaks but she consumed at least 85ml of the formula which the nurse said was higher than yesterday. Suki was pretty greedy though and her eyes were bigger than her stomach, so after laying back down she threw up a good bit, and I changer her sheets. After a while she spat up a tiny bit more, but she was very contented and while I read her more Dr Seuss she quickly feel asleep with some very happy gurgles and smiles.

Later that night I returned to the hospital and just missed out on her feed which Jo had given and she was just getting to sleep. She slept soundly for a while, but started flatulating a lot and Stefan and I were concerned she had messed and she became very restless and cried a bit so I asked the nurse if it was OK if I changed her and she said sure. I changed her while Stefan stayed a safe distance but she was only wet. Nevertheless when I put on a fresh nappy and rugged her up she was instantly calmed and settled back to sleep in seconds and I felt amazingly pleased with myself. I had recognised her problem and fixed it and she was now at rest. I felt like the most powerful force in her life for a moment and I was immensely happy.

I dropped Stefan home towards 9 and I just couldn’t face driving back to Toowomba yet. I was on such a high from the nappy change and I just couldn’t go home and commit to another 7 days without physical contact so I appealed to some friends for a couch to sleep on so that I could stay another day and give Suki another feed and a cuddle in the morning.

What can I say ? I am TOTALLY addicted to Suki, and I would extend every moment for as long as I could manage. I never thought I would look to a dirty nappy change as an amazing experience of beautiful intimacy with my child, but that’s exactly what it’s been and the chance for another such experience in the morning fills me with joy.