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Still Manage to Smile

The first few weeks of nursery have been pretty rough for little Chiara. She kicked things off with a stomach bug in week one, caught a cold in week two, and still has a runny nose and a lingering cough. Of course, no meds for the little ones—she’s just powering through it all on her own.

And yet, through all of this, she still finds a way to smile. What a champ!

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Panasonic GF1 – 1/100 sec at f/1.7, ISO 100 – In Chalifert, Chiara enjoying playing with her book while making sure she hold her mum with the other hand. The two hands can function properly together now.

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Canon EOS 400D – 1/30 sec at f/4, ISO 1600 – In Chalifert, family picture taken by the local photographer. Dad has finally caught the cold too and red-cheek-teething Chiara is not making much effort to pose for the family.  

Blue Paradise

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An overnight flight from London to Malé and a quick sea-plane ride—less than an hour—took us from a dreary London spring straight into paradise. Picture this: 30°C, clear skies, and an incredible overwater bungalow.

Exhausted but excited (and armed with sunscreen), we explored the entire island in just 30 minutes—about as long as it took to find a pair of lost sunglasses in our sprawling 200-square-meter suite! A few snaps are below, with more on the way, including our first underwater photography attempts. Stay tuned!

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This is why we need pictures—to bring back the turquoise sea, the delicious food, the massive villa bathroom, and most importantly, the breathtaking view from our private pool. They help us recall the scents, warmth, and serenity of the Maldives.

Of course, we missed Chiara (probably more than she missed us!), but we had an unforgettable time. We tried to capture it all, and some of our favorites are below, with a quick story and the effort behind getting the perfect shot.

If you are interested in our review of the hotel (Zitahli Kuda-Funafaru), it should be available very soon on Trip Advisor.

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This picture doesn’t add much to the story—it’s simply our “postcard” shot from the trip. The colors were slightly enhanced to match what we saw: a stunning contrast between the pool’s blue, the turquoise sea, and the endless blue sky. A hint of green completes the dreamy palette. It’s also clear the pool’s design and placement weren’t accidental—this kind of view was made for holiday brochures!

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Here’s a view of the bathroom and balcony. That day, they’d filled the bath with petals—slightly kitsch but still charmingly romantic. You might wonder why anyone would stay in a bath with a view like that. Well, here’s why: it’s a great way to avoid sunburn, enjoy music (thanks to the bathroom iPod system), indulge in jacuzzi bubbles, and if the 34°C pool or sea isn’t warm enough, the bath offers a cozy 37°C!
This is an HDR photo, blending three exposures to properly capture both the interior and the stunning exterior—without looking overly edited.
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Here we are attempting a “Lily pose” (the classic “smile-jumping on the beach”) together. It’s easy when someone else takes the picture, but with a tripod and timer? Not so much. After about 20 tries, we gave up—this was our best attempt at both being airborne!
We also de-saturated the photo slightly to downplay how not-so-tanned we were at the time.
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Here’s the swimming pool and bar at sunset. The lighting was incredible—thousands of tiny lights appeared as night fell, glowing green here but shifting to multicolored patterns at times. The staff explained it was optic fiber lighting—truly stunning (check the gallery for more shots!). They even paused the water recycling for us, creating a perfectly still surface for these flawless reflections.
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This was the only rainy day—and it was intense! A storm rolled in late morning, bringing over an hour of heavy downpour. The sky turned dark, and the rain was cold and sharp on the skin. But inside the warm lagoon or pool, it was all good. This shot was taken in front of the bungalow in the lagoon using our underwater camera (its MVP day of the trip!). The rain was so heavy it turned the usually clear water murky—I was wandering through the lagoon, unsure of where I was stepping!
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100 days with Chiara – the stats

Since Chiara’s birth, we’ve tracked her daily activities using the Total Baby app on Sabrina’s iPhone. At first, we logged everything—sleep, diaper changes (yes, even color and shape), baths, feedings, and formula amounts. Over time, we focused on just her sleep and feeding routines.

This data helps us ensure Chiara eats enough and stays on schedule. But then we had a thought—what else can we do with all this data?

So, we exported it via email, moved it to a PC, and loaded it into Excel. With Sabrina’s Excel magic, we turned it into a dataset. The export process wasn’t perfect—it’s more for backups than analysis—but we made it work. Now, the real fun begins!

Above is the first graph we got out of the raw export.

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The graph looks nice, but it doesn’t tell us much about patterns. One thing we were hoping to spot was when growth spurts happened or if there was any noticeable relationship between sleep and food. Unfortunately, nothing obvious jumped out.

So, we decided to dig a little deeper and see if there were any correlations between the red and blue lines. The graph top right shows what we found—or didn’t find!

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We tried breaking the data into different time periods (since the early days felt more unpredictable), but the results stayed consistent. As you can see here, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the amount of milk and sleep time.

Since our initial graph seemed a bit chaotic—daily splits can be arbitrary, and like everyone, she has good and bad days—we decided to smooth things out by averaging the data weekly. The result? Check out the graph right bottom.

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Looking at the data, we might be able to spot two growth spurts—one around weeks 3-4 and another more recently at week 12.

So, what now? Honestly, these graphs don’t seem to reveal any groundbreaking conclusions. Did we really need all this analysis to confirm that kids are unpredictable? Probably not. But hey, we’ll keep digging—there might be a hidden pattern somewhere waiting to be discovered.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated but way more exciting note, Chiara laughed for the first time today! Four times, apparently! Not at these graphs, of course, but at her toys. Priorities, right?