I love showing off my kids’ photos online to friends and family members and anyone else who would care to look at it — I mean, what proud parent wouldn’t be? Last year, though, I read a blog post on how irresponsible people could take advantage of your baby photos and manipulate them in a very disgusting way. Since I often blog and include baby photos into each entry, I abruptly stopped blogging on the Blog of Rugrats to see other alternatives to keeping my children’s photos online yet still protected.

Really, the only way for us to protect our baby photos online is by not putting them online at all. My next best alternative would be to use image hosting web sites that have built-in security to allow only authorised users like family and friends to access them. I personally chose Flickr because:

1. It’s now integrated with my Yahoo! account. This also means that my friends and family who has a Yahoo! e-mail accounts can instantly access my protected baby photos without having to create a new account.
2. I can store as many baby photos as I want. That’s because I’m currently subscribed to the Pro version, which only cost me USD9.99 at the time I signed up for it, and I can upload an unlimited amount of photos in.
3. It has some very cool meta data generators which I find very useful. Do you know that if you take photos off your digital camera or phone with built-in camera, your device will store extra information about the photos, such as the camera model you used to take the picture with, as well as the ACTUAL date that the photo was taken? I found those information very useful because I tend to forget which phone I used to take it or the date that the photo was taken.

There are so many other things that I can do with Flickr in terms of storing my baby photos, so those were just three of my reasons for using it. Care to share your favourite baby photo storage online?

This is a post I made in the old blog on Monday, 25 December 2006 at 08:42 PM.

Since I am still under “pantang”, I didn’t go anywhere except to Dony’s Uncle Paul’s house in Menggatal for a second, and even that trip was made after my hubby persuaded (then begged) for us to go so he could show Joel off to his relatives. Eric, on the other hand, was saved by his Aunty Bibi and cousins, and enjoyed the whole day with my family and relatives back in Tuaran.

Joel received his very first Christmas present, a set of colourful rattles which he would surely enjoy — thanks to their Aunty Julia! Eric meanwhile received from his aunt a billiard set which he is currently busy playing with while shouting either “Saya Manang!” or “Oh Yes!”

Here’s wishing to all our families, relatives, friends and acquaintances A Joyous and Blessed Christmas 2006.

This is a post I made in the old blog on Sunday, 24 December 2006 at 11:00 AM.

My gorgeous little boys! The photo was taken last night just before their bedtime (well, actually it was Eric’s bedtime coz Joel still wakes up anytime he feels like feeding… what mother can forget the sleepless nights?).

Joel is a spitting image of Eric when he was a baby. If you don’t believe me, check out this next pic of my husband and Eric when he was 2 weeks old. Joel doesn’t inherent my right cheek dimple as Eric does, but I still think Joel’ll turn out to be as good-looking as his big bro and his dad

This is a post I made in the old blog on Sunday, 10 December 2006 at 12:33 PM.

“Thank you God!” That was my first thought as I pushed for the last time in the delivery room. Evan Joel Dony was safely delivered on Tuesday, 11:44am, 5 December 2006, at Sabah Medical Centre, Damai, Kota Kinabalu. My better half is more amazing and supportive now, and it’s times like these that reminds me what a wonderful person he is and how much I truly love and appreciate him.

Anyways, we’ve never experience jaundice with Eric, there was a slight panic as Joel’s jaundice appeared worse every day ever since it first showed on his 3rd day. Yesterday we went to our paediatrician’s 7-day review earlier than scheduled, and got Dr. Anthony Mansul’s assurance that it was a normal occurrence in at least 50% of newborns and does subside by itself without any needed medication. Yesterday was to be the peak day for the jaundice, and today Joel’s jaundice does appear to be less than before. Phew.

(BTW, I just noticed how weird all my posting dates and times are; this Friendster blog is kinda cumbersome to control… oh well, comes with being free I guess).

This is a post I made in the old blog on Sunday, 03 December 2006 at 08:27 PM.

That’s what my OBGYN doc said this morning after I had my check-up. I’m dilated barely a centimetre, making me not “ripe” enough for labour; Joel’s definitely not coming out any time today.

So there goes my hubby back at work, and Eric and I here back at home, waiting for yet another day chancing that between now and tomorrow morning I’ll at least feel any sign of labour. Dr. Krishen said that he had “done something” to me during my check-up to get my labour going; I’m guessing he used the sweeping of the membranes technique as I didn’t really bother asking him what that “something” was. I’m fine with it as long as I can delivery naturally and not through a caesarean.

In any case, I’ll just get some rest before doing more house work. God must be hinting to me to clear off all the dozen loads of laundry piling in my house if I ever wished to go into labour any time soon