I wonder how many of you have actually calculated how much money you need for your retirement.

I did that last night, and after that I couldn’t sleep.

Before I start to tell you about the details, have you ever dreamed what you want to do when you retire? Travel the world? Indulge in hobbies? Buy a boat, a plane, or a small island? Buy a piece of land to grow a durian orchard?

Forget it.

You might want to live out a modest lifestyle. Just eating out occasionally, travelling locally few times a year, petrol money, utilities money, and a subscription to Astro. Have some money kept aside for medical fees and for spoiling your grand kids.

More realistic, but not as easy as you might imagine.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Lets say I allocate RM3000 a month for me and my spouse after I stop working at 60 years old, or RM36000 annually. RM36000 today will not be the same tomorrow due to inflation. Using a handy future value calculator with an estimated inflation rate of 4.5% annually, we see that RM36000 in 30 years will be equal to RM134831.

That’s around RM135000 per year! And this is with an assumption that inflation does not go higher than 4.5%.

Using a most basic and semi-accurate calculation (no inflation and no investment returns)… let’s say I manage to save RM1 million by the time I retire. How long will the money last? 7.4 years.

That means we must leave this world by the time we’re 67, or we will have to start selling off jewelry, house and cars to make ends meet.

The ideal scenario is to have enough money invested, so we are living on the interest and dividends instead of using up our initial capital. Then we don’t have to worry how long we’ll live. We’ll always have money to use and best of all can pass it to our children.

So how much capital will you need to get RM135000 interest or dividends per year?

Using a conservative estimated investment return of 7% per annum, we will get roughly 2.39% returns per annum after adjusting for 4.5% inflation rate. Doing the math, we come up with a huge figure of RM5.6 million.

That’s roughly six million dollars, for a very low profile retirement lifestyle. Didn’t even mention any major medical expenses.

Do you think you can sleep tonight?

(Disclaimer: due to my lack of financial training, my math is probably off. But I’m probably quite close to the mark)

Accumulating RM6 million is really really really difficult.

You would think that you could live a lavish lifestyle of luxury once you became a multi-millionaire. But the fact is, you can only afford a modest lifestyle!

The truly wealthy can afford the luxury because they are assured of getting lots of perpetual income, even if they stop working.

The best I can hope for is to try to make my retirement capital last as long as I can with investment and a tight spending plan.

Of course, I’m probably being overly alarmed about it. Things will probably work out in the end. But I’m not the type of person who will leave things to fate or destiny.

I don’t want to wake up one morning to realize that I’m poor, broke and at the mercy of others. And worse still, I don’t want Poey Chin to go through the situation when I’m no longer by her side.

I don’t want to plan on Rachel or my other kids supporting us. Honestly by the time they start working and have families, I think they will be fighting just to survive on their own. If they are able, then it will be a good bonus. But I feel it’s still my responsibility to plan for my own retirement.

I know I’m thinking about money again. How come Adino is so materialistic and unspiritual? But these are things that fathers have to think about. This is the scary reality that I have to carry on my shoulders.

You may ask me why money is important to me. After all, the best things in life are free. But are they really? Can I really be happy if I don’t have money to give ang pau to my grand kids? Can I die happy knowing that Poey Chin will have to go wash dishes to survive? Will I have a happy family if I place extra financial burden on my children?

I hope people will understand why I’m so reluctant to spend money. I’m not stingy, but I am terrified because I’m in trouble.

My immediate action plan? I can’t say that I will do anything different. I will just go on doing with what I’ve been doing, but now I have a greater target to achieve. I will also start to explore ways to get perpetual income.

Somehow that iPhone 3GS doesn’t seem so attractive any more.

Photo By: Bob Smith

P/S: Read Azizi Ali’s Retire Rich if you want more details on the calculations.

The first thing that I notice is how web pages load so quickly. By web pages I mean the two or three sites I randomly surfed to.

Before I upgraded, it’s click, wait, then the page will load.

Now it’s click, wa… and the page is already loaded before I blink.

The next thing I note is the built in support for open video formats. I guess this means no more downloading various video players.

Taking a closer look at the release notes, I’m excited to read that the browser engine has allowed possibilities for new exciting plugins.

Just a short note for today. I’m off to work.

P/S: Don’t burp if you’re wearing a medical mask. The concentrated and confined smell of curry spice, garlic and rice will make you faint

P/S: RIP Michael Jackson. Thanks for the memories, the great songs, and thanks for all the jokes. Sorry the world didn’t care about you any more until you died.

We celebrated her first birthday on May 9th, and invited relatives over to our condo for a small birthday party.

This is her birthday cake. Cost something like RM150. It looks so pretty!

Cooking Mama Poey Chin cooked this plate of fried mihun. She also cooked a plate of maggi goreng.

Grandma made some red eggs.

Daddy got a bucket of KFC.

There was a lot of other food as well. There was roast duck from Uncle John, chicken curry, fried veges and rojak buah!

Another shot of the cake, to show you how the sides were decorated.

The candle blowing session. For weeks I taught Rachel how to ‘blow blow’ but she ended up not knowing what to do.

Looking on are Rachel’s Uncle Eric and Cousin Ethan.

Baby Rachel eating her birthday cake.

There were a lot more photos, but I didn’t post them up because I’m not sure if my family allowed me to post their photos online or not.

On that day I remember looking back through the past one year of her life.

How she has changed everything, and how much joy she brought to us.

There were many difficult moments, but I guess we’ve learned from those experiences.

I love you girl girl. I hope you can read this in the future and see how everyone loves you so much.

She doesn’t play anything “real”, mostly hitting the keys at random.

At least she can reach the keyboard now.

She’s getting the hang of it… she knows how to make sounds by hitting as hard as she can.

She’s got this look of concentration whenever she plays the piano. Actually she has this look whenever she does something naughty.

Secretly I wish she’s saying, “Don’t disturb me daddy, I’m composing a song for you”

Eb… Eb… Thank you for the music…

From the top she actually looks like she’s playing. Maybe I will use this photo if Poey Chin ever decides to come out with a “Teach Your Baby Piano” training ebook. Available now for my blog readers at a special price of $29.95. FREE autographed baby diaper if you ORDER NOW!

“Baby… play like this. See how mama play?”

“Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are”

Last year there weren’t too many people I knew who were on Twitter, so it seemed kind of weird talking to myself most of the time.

Recently Twitter has been in the news quite a lot, especially with someone being arrested for Twittering and MPs twittering live from parliament or court houses.

This time round, there are so many people to follow. There are more friends, bloggers and family members that are on twitter now.

There are even celebrities who Twitter, e.g. Shaq, Britney Spears and one of the funniest SNL alumni Jimmy Fallon.

You could spend a day searching for celebrity Twitter streams.

I’ve also reinstated the Twitter widget at my sidebar. It’s called Spy on Me for obvious reasons.

It is easier and faster for me to update everyone on Twitter than to spend time writing a blog post.

Honestly some days I don’t even have time to eat lunch. Sometimes I’m so busy I forget to drink water. It’s THAT bad.

My Facebook account is now semi-abandoned, though I’ve setup my account so that my Tweets are updated there too. One thing that really turns me off is the unchecked proliferation of quizzes and application invites.

If you haven’t started a Twitter account, go sign up now. If you already have an account please follow me.

Dear Poey Chin,

Two years ago we started our lifelong journey.

In a state of bliss and happiness we launched into an exciting and unfamiliar world supported by friends and family.

So many things seemed possible, everything was new.

Sometimes it was just the two of us against the world.

Sometimes it was two of us against each other.

But it was mostly the two of us as one.

And then two became three.

Life became twenty two times more complicated. Our bundle of joy came packaged with her share of frustration, worry, heart ache and hard work.

But she’s worth it, isn’t she?

In the past two years you have been there to meet all of my needs.

You never fail to encourage me. Thank you for supporting me.

And tomorrow, two will become three once again, as we begin our third year of marriage. How will this third year of marriage end? Will three become four? *wink*

I love you darling, please don’t stop loving me even if I don’t deserve it.

From,

Lou Kong

(the one who didn’t buy a card and wrote a blog post instead)

P/S: To my dear readers, tomorrow we will be spending our anniversary by going on a date! I hope we will enjoy ourselves better compared to the last time!

Photo By: Asif Akbar

One moment I was driving out of the condo, and the next moment I come to my senses and I’m already halfway to work.

What happened to those 10 minutes of my time?

I have four theories:

1. I teleported
2. I have temporary amnesia
3. There’s a glitch in the ‘program’. None of this is real. We are all living in a virtual world created by machines who have enslaved humans to harvest energy from our bodies.
4. I have stumbled across a pocket of electro magnetic energy. “STOP THE DRILLING”. “I’m going to detonate a H-Bomb at the Swan station”. *white flash*

Which of the above happened to me?

Submit to PPS
Will anyone be bothered?
I need the page views

Like ants to sugar
How did I get desperate
For few cents a day

Alone in cosmos
How do I reach the big leagues?
Maybe in my dreams

This doesn’t look right
A penguin in Hawaii
I’ve ruined haiku

Digi (my favourite mobile telco) has launched a new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program called Love to Save.

What happens is, you visit the LovetoSave website (click on the banner) and Digi will donate RM5 to that non-profit organisation.

I chose SPCA Selangor because animals are always close to my heart (doggies especially).

At the time of writing, Digi has pledged RM3785 to SPCA Selangor.

If you don’t fancy the SPCA, then you can also choose from almost 10 other organisations like MAKNA or the National Kidney Foundation.

This program runs for one month only so don’t wait!

In the past few months, I have been investing a lot of time, energy and money into financial education.

To be specific, I’ve started reading Personal Money, The Edge, and I’ve already finished seven personal finance books:

1. The Millionaire in Me - Azizi Ali
2. Millionaires Are From a Different Planet - Azizi Ali
3. How to be a Property Millionaire - Azizi Ali
4. Growing Your Money - Azizi Ali
5. Why We Want You To Be Rich - Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki
6. Your Money and Your Brain - Jason Zweig
7. Secrets of Self Made Millionaires - Adam Khoo

Books 1, 2 and 5 I bought, the rest are from the library. And I’m going to the library this Saturday to borrow even more finance books!

After reading those books, I realize that I’ve made some mistakes, specifically with regards to insurance and financial planning. I just hope it’s not too late for me to recover from those mistakes.

I’ve also made some drastic changes to my financial management.

The thing is, nobody takes me seriously. They think I’m being stingy.

Am I really so money minded?

I don’t know about the others, but I have dreams I want to achieve. I want to have a comfortable home and a middle class lifestyle for my family. I want to provide for my children’s education and to have enough for retirement.

Based on my calculations, I will need millions to achieve those dreams!

I feel nobody takes me seriously.

It feels so lonely. I feel like I’m the only one who sees impending doom while everyone else is partying and laughing at me.

I wonder if there’s a support group I can join.

Photo By: Steve Woods

At work, there’s so much to do and so little time to do it. My computer Izzie is giving me problems. My development tools refuse to work due to a hibernate config error. I’ve been trying for days to get it started. My deadline is coming, all too quickly.

At home everyone is sick, and I think I’m going to be sick too. Feel so tired. The worst thing I have ever experienced so far is baby Rachel being sick. She cries for hours and we can’t calm her down. I start to panic sometimes. I’m really lost. She’s ok now but it is Poey Chin’s turn to be sick.

I got two bad news letters from my bank. First, they refused to revise my housing loan interest rate to the current low rates. I’m stuck at BLR +0.15 while new packages are offering BLR -2. Well, it was a long shot anyway. There isn’t anything I can do really.

Second, they are deducting RM5 from my savings account every six months, if my average balance in those six months is less than RM500. This is on top of the RM8 ATM card fees they deduct annually.

Its so bizarre. Savings account interest rates are already so low, now the bank actually charges you money to deposit! So I have to take a day off just to go to the bank to switch to a basic savings account.

The lifts at my condo are failing again. A group of residents have started a Residents Association, which is kind of strange because there is already a JMB. I just wonder if there will be a power grab a la Perak.

Sigh.

I made reservations online which I think was a good deal because it came with F&B credit which we could use or use to offset the accommodation charges. It was an even better deal because we went during the off-peak season.

We got a standard room that faced the city and could hear all the sounds of the school next door. On one of the days they even had band practice.

I was so impressed that Poey Chin could name every instrument that was playing and could even tell me what they were supposed to play, and she could guess what the band was going to do based on the way the drummers played!

I never saw this side of her before ♥ ♥ ♥…

This is the standard (deluxe) room, which looks smaller than we are used to, but comfortable nevertheless. The room was clean and everything we needed was provided for.

Comfortable sheets on a king-sized bed. How we miss that king-sized bed now!

Advice for couples: get a king-sized bed else once you have 1 or 2 babies, daddy will have to sleep on the floor.

This is the other half of the room.

Rachel got used to the bed pretty quickly…

I always check out the bathroom and toilet when I go into the room. This will tell you how clean the hotel room is, and I also want to make sure everything is working.

Mini bar area. Hot water flask, milk powder, Twisties, milk bottle, pineapple tarts and watch not included.

Who would buy any of these…

Especially if there was a shopping mall next door?

Staying at the Equatorial Hotel was really convenient because it was within walking distance to two shopping malls (Mahkota Parade and Dataran Pahlawan), Melaka Raya commercial district, Jonker Walk and Melaka historical sites like A-Famosa and the Malacca Sultanate museum.

Whether we were on holiday or not, we still have to go chasing after Rachel when she plays with things she’s not supposed to.

I want to go swimming, I want to go swimming!

We went for a swim at the beautiful hotel pool. There were three or four sections to the pool. Some areas for swimming, some for just sitting and chatting, a wading pool and a little aquarium pool for you to do dolphin tricks (don’t ask).

One thing I noticed about the staff at the hotel, they are well trained to be friendly. Everyone (and I mean everyone) will smile and greet you when you pass them, even the cleaners who are busy cleaning!

To sum up my experience…

Cleanliness: clean and no smoker smell. Comfort: what you would expect for the price. Service: friendly, courteous and helpful. Price: not a budget hotel, but affordable if you get a good package. Food: buffet breakfast was well stocked, fresh and delicious. Facilities: the pool was ‘interesting’, the pool changing room looks nicer than our room’s bathroom. Location: excellent.

Before that we went around asking around for food suggestions and reading travel blogs to plan out our meals. We got so many suggestions but we only had so few days there.

We arrived in Melaka on Sunday afternoon, and for lunch we stopped at the first coffee shop we could find. I can’t remember the street name, but it was a few blocks down from the Tan Kim Hock shop near Renaissance Hotel.

No photos since I hadn’t unpacked my camera, but we had fried kuay teow which was special because it came with ‘har kou’. We also had wan tan mee which was again special because it had an extra chili ingredient, the kind you normally have with pan mee. The food there was relatively lower priced compared to KL, but still more expensive than Ipoh.

We saw a lot of tables ordering toast with kaya and white coffee, so we ordered some also. The toast and coffee were fragrant but there was nothing too special about it.

For our evening dinner we searched for the Bibik Neo restaurant on our GPS. I don’t know why the GPS kept trying to lead us into the Straits of Melaka. We ordered ayam pongteh, duck with salted vege soup, a plate of vegetables and otak-otak.

The food was served quickly, and we had a very filling dinner that cost us around RM35.

For lunch on Monday afternoon we went to explore the streets in Jonker Walk. We came upon Nancy’s Kitchen restaurant that looked inviting because it was air conditioned! Here’s some of the food we ordered:

This was Nyonya Popiah, which was so delicious because one of the special ingredients was ‘chu yau char’ or fried pork lard.

We ordered Nyonya laksa which is basically curry laksa. Hey, how come everything is called Nyonya this and Nyonya that? Maybe that’s how they get tourists like us to try their food.

I ordered some stewed pork in dark soya sauce. It came with some tofu on the side. The pork was tender and sweet, and goes perfectly with a plate of white rice.

The service was friendly and the price was reasonable, although we had to wait a while for our food. But we were on holiday so we just sat back, sipped our icy drinks and enjoyed the air cond. I will definitely go back to Nancy’s Kitchen.

We even bought some kueh and dumplings that they were displaying at the back.

For dessert we had cendol at a stall beside the Melaka river.

Baby Rachel’s first ever taste of cendol.

Everyone’s happy… until Rachel’s head was knocked againt one of those historical arches in the background…

We ate so much that afternoon that we couldn’t eat anything else (so no more photos!)

Next time I would like to try out some satay celup and try to go to some ‘village’ areas to seek out sea food or some other local food.

I’m sure you can tell the answer from the title of this post. We were in Melaka a couple of weeks ago. Poey Chin and I decided we needed to take a holiday just to take a break from our daily routine, and decided to make a second trip to Melaka.

The last time we were here, I had a gum infection and could not do anything except sleep and lie down on the bed in pain.

Today’s post will show photos from A-Famosa and the Melaka Sultanate Palace located just next door. After you climb up the small hill (it was quite tiring carrying baby Rachel) we arrived at a burnt church building that was shaded by tall trees.

Some closeups of those stones…

I have no idea why the jolly roger (pirate symbol) was sculpted on the stones. Perhaps it had a different meaning in the past.

Some text sculpted in Portugese.

Looking through a window, you can see the stone slabs against the wall. There was a street busker sitting inside singing and playing his guitar.

This is a closeup of the church wall. You can see the bricks have eroded or maybe blasted with explosives.

Poey Chin and Rachel standing under an arch. Behind them was a well of some sort, but looked like a dungeon to me. There were a lot of coins inside from many different currencies. I wish I brought a magnet.

Only the walls are left standing.

This is a watch tower that is located next to the church. This tower was used to watch out for enemies. I think. I was too busy snapping photos and didn’t have time to read the description.

A statue of St Francis. For some reason the status does not have a right hand.

The Portugese soldiers probably looked out this window on top of the tower toward the sea. Nowadays all you can see are shopping malls.

Rachel had no idea what we were doing there.

Next we went to a museum next door that was built to replicate the palace of the Melaka sultan. The special thing about the place was it didn’t use a single nail.

I spent most of the time enjoying the air conditioning, looking at the Malay costumes, reading stories about the Melaka Sultanate and viewing some of the Malay weapons. I was also trying hard to look for nails. I didn’t find any.

Baby Rachel posing. She was a very good girl that day. Didn’t make a fuss even though it was so hot.

Outside the building was a replica of the garden where the Melaka sultan’s daughters would play. In the background you can see the hotel we stayed at.

My two darlings. Reminds me of our outdoor wedding photo shoot.

There was a water fountain in the garden and I spent a few minutes taking photos of the water.

Stay tuned for more photos from our holiday. Next I will write about the food we had!

After months (almost a year!) of agonizing, we went ahead and bought a Proton Persona Special Edition.

I know what you’re thinking. A Proton? Why spend your hard-earned money on a Proton?

Believe me, I’m one of the biggest Proton skeptics you will find.

But after looking at the features and specifications, I found it to be a great offer.

The price for the Proton Persona SE came up to RM 59,800.

What!? Why don’t you topup 20K and get a City or Vios instead?

The short answer is, I can’t afford to pay 80K for a car.

Anyway, the car was delivered some time in March. And what a wonderful surprise we got.

She’s Got The Looks

The car is fitted with a sporty body kit, making it look really sleek and sexy. There were two colours, hazy blue and fiery red (I think). We chose blue but it looks more greyish.

Actually I think the car looks like an elongated version of the Gen2.

The car is about the same size as a Honda City. I kid you not because I have washed it (once) and it took a looong time to wipe it dry.

She’s Got the Space

One of the things you will not notice from the exterior, is the boot space. It has 440 litres of boot space, which is similar to what the Honda City and Vios have.

Look at how it can fit my baby stroller length-wise and all our luggage. Still some space for me to climb inside if necessary! I suppose if I ever play golf, it would fit my golf bag without any problem.

The interior of the car cabin is so spacious that it actually echoes when I talk. Of course it’s not the exagerrated echo but you can get the sense of space.

The height is really comfortable and there is plenty of leg room even in the back. For a relatively tall person like me, it feels comfortable. No more airplane-like seats during outstation travels!

Don’t believe me? Go to a showroom and check it out for yourselves la.

In this photo you can see how spacious it is inside. (Sorry about the angle, I was taking it while stopped at a parking lot, and it was too hot for me to go outside).

You can see baby Rachel’s Britax Royale car seat at the back (which costs RM1200 but it is sooo comfortable!)

She’s Got The Whole Package

The Persona SE comes fitted with synthetic leather seats (as you can see from the previous photo).

It comes with free window tinting.

It comes with ABS and air bags for driver and front passenger.

It’s a 1.6 litre automatic transmission.

It comes with digital odometer (can calculates your fuel consumption for you!)

It comes with GPS (not very user friendly, and not very reliable).

You can open the boot by remote control.

It has radio controls on the steering wheel.

It has cup holders and plenty of storage compartments.

It has electric adjusting side mirrors.

It has a set of low lights on the front bumper.

The thing that really inked the deal for me was auto cruise control. Yes! No more tired feet after driving long distance!

She Glides Like an Angel

Driving the car is by far the most pleasant surprise. I’ve driven a Honda City and I can tell you that the Persona SE feels the same, if not better.

The acceleration is smooth and responsive. It achieves highway speed without straining. You won’t realize that you’re driving at 90 or 100. It hardly reaches 3500 RPMs (unless you floor it).

My only complain is the pickup when the car is loaded with passengers and luggage. On the highway I found that I can’t get from 100 to 120/130 fast enough during overtaking. End up I have some angry BMW / Mercedes tail gating me when I try to overtake.

Maybe I’m just too used to the pickup of a manual transmission car.

It’s also quiet (compared to my previous car). Poey Chin can actually hear my low mumbly voice! It sure is nice not talking like we’re riding in a bus.

She’s Got Some Quirks

The only problem we’ve had was an alarm system warning after driving in a heavy rain. Somehow water got into the electrical wiring. It was fixed after drying the wiring off with compressed air.

Other than that, I haven’t encountered any other problems. Proton really takes their QC seriously. They inspected every component of the car and put a ‘Pass’ sticker on it. I spent a few days finding and removing all the stickers!

The rear of the car is also quite high, making it difficult to judge the distance behind you when parking. Care also must be taken when changing lanes as I notice a bigger blind spot.

I’m Happy

I’m really happy with my purchase. It has all the features of a City or Vios at an affordable price. The driving experience is something you will never expect in a Proton. It actually gives me confidence in the car.

In terms of quality (which was Proton’s weakness) I can definitely see and feel the improvement. No more ‘Milo tin’ feel on the body. Even the doors close with a satisfying ‘whumph’ instead of ‘clank’.

I have nothing but praises for Proton for a job well done. It is a good buy because you get so much value for your money.

You won’t find the same space, the improved quality, and the same features for any car priced at RM 60000.

It goes like this (in case you didn’t see it)… there’s two guys in a boxing ring, and one of them gets punched with a right hook. The ad then tells us “Imagine being subjected to 5G forces” (or something similar, I can’t remember verbatim).

Then there’s some firefighters rushing bravely into a burning building. “Imagine being cocooned in 50 degrees Celsius of heat”

Then they cut over to some racing cars and the Petronas logo… “the power of human willpower”.

Ok I probably got 50% of that wrong, but I hope you get the picture.

I’m surprised that the ads keep insisting that it’s literally torture to drive a formula one car.

Here’s my version of the ad:

Imagine earning 15 million pounds a year…

Imagine dating a supermodel…

Imagine driving real fast… without traffic summons…

And for the climatic ending… “Where do I sign up?”

My point is, all these drivers love doing what they do. They worked really hard to get where they are, and no amount of G-forces and heat will stop them from racing.

What’s the point in emphasizing how difficult it is to drive one of those cars?

If given a chance to drive one of those cars for one lap, I would take it without skipping a beat. Sure, it may mean I need to take years getting in shape and training for it but nobody (and I mean nobody) is going to care about how difficult it is.

Photo Credits:

Cathy King
REUTERS/Daniel Munoz
Ariel da Silva Parreira

And you know what’s weird? My website traffic has remained more or less constant since then. In fact, it would seem that traffic has improved since I’ve stopped writing!

Now, I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

It’s good in the sense that:

1. My blog is able to sustain itself with organic traffic (don’t ask me what that means)
2. I’ve successfully created a source of passive income (full emphasis on the word passive)
3. I may have some loyal readers who faithfully visit my blog every day (hello Poey Chin!)
4. I have another excuse to create a numbered list

It’s bad and sadly depressing in the sense that:

1. Whether I write or not has no impact at all
2. It would seem that very few people are reading my newer posts. Judging by the number of comments, this would be a small percentage of you.
3. No one seems to care (that’s the cold hard truth)

So I leave you with this question… do you think it’s a good thing or a bad thing?

And now I am dragged back to my busy life…

(Fade out, like a dead Jedi)

(Do me a favour and slowly close your eyes for dramatic effect. Imagine some movie credits appearing with an orchestra theme and then some funny out-takes happening.)

Well, baby Rachel is 9 months old now. The normal milestones have passed, such as pulling herself up and crawling all over the house. We’re still waiting for her teeth to come.

Soothing her gums by chewing on her fingers…

… or chewing anything she finds.

At this stage I am starting to see glimpses of her intelligence. I don’t mean to say that she’s a genius, but I’m starting to see her personality and her thought process. Intelligence as in, intelligent life form.

Last night I came home late. For the first time in her life I took the time to tell her all about my day. She actually sat there and listened to me. She looked in my eyes and was actually interested in what I was telling her.

That connection was so amazing that I feel like doing that again tonight. In that father-daughter time we had, I taught her another naughty trick to irritate mama.

No, not sticking out her tongue. I taught that to her at two months.

Not crying to get what she wants either. I think that comes naturally for girls.

I don’t think I want to repeat what I taught her here. It’s just some silly thing that won’t sound interesting at all if I try to describe it.

She is also starting to get more attached to me. She will actually choose me over Poey Chin sometimes.

All these photos were from a few months ago. I guess it’s time to get my camera and snap more photos of my princess.