Zaria 
At  6 week old, she has established a routine which is very close to the family’s. I thank God for this.
She wakes up in the morning, and entertains herself (I’d seen her kicking her legs quietly in the mornings). When she hears us waking up, i.e. the talking, the foodsteps in the house, she’ll call/cry out to us, to be acknowledged/carried or nursed.
She spends the day in between sleeping and waking. When she’s hungry, she will call out instead of crying. Normally when Zara and myself nap, she’ll also be napping with us or quietly kicking her legs or punching her fists keeping herself occupied.
From 6pm to 10pm, she becomes more demanding and wants body contact; she wants to be carried, or to be on the breast. This is when she cries the most, especially when we put her down. Dinner time is a bit challenging for us with Zara and Zaria both requiring attention at the same time. 
When it’s bed time, she takes light out as a que. After nursing her, and given Zara her milk, lights will be turned off. She’ll quietly lie on the bed, dozing off to sleep.
She gets up once in the night, and another early in the morning to feed. Actually, she doesn’t cry out to be nursed, she just shuffles on the bed; being a light sleeper, I’ll wake up and feed her. (I’m thinking of ignoring the shuffling once she goes pass this week, since Zara stopped waking up to be nursed at 6th week).

Zara
It has been rather challenging caring for Zara since Zaria’s arrival.
She will have stomach aches when I’m nursing Zaria. She gets into accidents a lot like knocking her head on the dining table while walking, falling down from the sofa, tripping on things etc.
She says things like, “I smack meimei yeah because she’s so naughty.” (when Zaria cries).
“I want to fry kakak until kakak becomes krok-krok (crunchy), and then I (will) eat kakak”
“Kakak you go home to Indonesia loh.”
“Daddy, that’s my bed, go away.”
(she doesn’t use such words with me though)
She cries a lot and the trigger can be something very minute (e.g. Can’t pull out a book from the shelf; I need to be in the study blogging working; she wakes up and I’m not next to her).
In the night, she will stay up until I’d finished nursing Zaria, and wants me to cuddle her to sleep.

We started toilet training her (should have done this before Zaria came). Since last week, she’d only poo-ed in the toilet bowl, and sometimes if she remembers to tell us, she pees in the toilet bowl too. She wants me to be the one who help her with using the toilet and normally have urges to pee and to poo when I’m cuddling Zaria.

Start young with good toilet habit

She wants to be carried a lot, especially by me. She wants me to be the one bathing her, napping with her, brushing her teeth, helping her with the toilet.

Child Care Options
I don’t know how some SAHM does it, handling 2 kids without a maid. I salute them! I’m finding it tough even with a maid. I get so stressed when Zaria needs her feed and Zara gets all worked up and wants my attention too.

I’m cracking my head with child care options after my maternity.
1) Hire another maid
2) Put one of the girls in child care center
3) Send Zara to half day nursery

Tuyam confirms she’ll stop working for us in early 2008. Hiring a maid seems to be a good option since the kids now need most attention. By 2008, Zaria will be 1 and Zara 3, and hopefully things will get better, and we will just need 1 maid (the new one) to handle the kids during working hours and to do the house work.

Parents out there, do you have any suggestions for child care? I’m not as lucky as others, as my MIL is not keen too old to help.

Chubby Cheeks a.k.a Sleepy Head

The girls together. Zaria seems to be in a bit of a shock as this is the first time we propped her up like that

Prezzies from blogging friends, Sasha‘s blankie, Cocka‘s bear (which is 3 times bigger than Zaria), Kat’s height and photo chart; Zaria’s full moon pack out to friends

Sometimes Zara wants the same treatment as Zaria (i.e. lie on mummy’s lap) when she takes her milk

Zara getting ready to ‘nurse’ her lamb (something she does very often when I’m nursing Zaria); Zara and her cow boy costume; Zara wanting to look like the Chinese Four Princess tying her hair like that.

Zaria, 2026 bond girl, started practicing for her audition.

It’s nice to see that Zaria is getting a bit chubby, and I feel proud knowing that all this was the result of her drinking the milk I produced.

She latched on well since day one which makes breastfeeding her easy. She now drinks 3 to 4 hourly, and I think she should be drinking about 3oz. In the day, when she wants milk, she’ll just give us a shout (yeah, a shout, like “Ehhhh”); and in the night (she probably knows this since the room is dark), she only makes the “Eh Ugh” sound or shuffles in her sleep when it’s time for her feed. Once she ‘informs’ us she wants her milk, she patiently awaits for us to feed her. What a nice baby she is.

She’s now nick named Chubby Cheeks at home.

Chubby Cheeks asleep

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Since Zara only weaned off from the breast at 18 months, she remembers those breast feeding days. I initially thought I will probably need to do tandem feeding when Zaria was born, but she was proud to have been ‘promoted’ to jiejie, and she thinks only babies drink from breast.

On the first night after we were back from the hospital, I was feeding Zaria, and realised that it’s also milk time for Zara. I asked “Zara, you want milk?” (actually asking if she wanted me to make her milk for her). She looked at me with this funny expression, and pointed to her teeth, “Zara got teeth already, cannot drink milk from the breast.” :-I

There are other times when she proudly says, “Mei mei baby, drink milk from mummy’s breast. Zara jiejie already, drink bottle milk only.” or “Last time Zara baby, Zara drink breast milk, now Zara big girl already, drink milk from bottle only”

She’s so proud to be all big and grown up now. 😛

Zaria has entered into week 2, and as a new born we can see that she’s very much different from Zara.
Zara wailed for her milk when she was younger. And if we were a bit slow, she wailed until she turned all black.
Zaria just shuffles about, making ‘ek, ek, ek’ sound, when she wants milk. And patiently waits for us to feed her.

Zara dislikes wet or soil diaper even when she was an infant. When she cried, we have to go through a check list : 1) fed? 2) burped? 3) diaper wet/soiled?
Zaria is just not bothered with her diaper, if it’s on, if it’s wet or if it’s soiled.

We think she’ll have more patient than Zara, and probably better temprament. Maybe it’s just the ‘any thing also ok’ attitute of a Capricorn. We shall see.

Zara over night has grown quite a fair bit. Suddenly, we noticed she speaks better, using the accent she acquires from her TV program. She will shout for me from the stair case in the night, “Come on mum. It’s bed time. Let’s go upstairs.” And when Daddy leaves the room without saying goodnight to her, she’ll say, “I want daddy, daddy didn’t say good night to you (me).”

She’s also very direct nowdays. If we talked too loud when she’s watching her TV program, she’ll say “Shh.. Don’t talk so loud.” If she saw the CL siting there watching her TV program with her, she’ll say, “Aunty, close your eyes, don’t watch. This is Zara’s show.” Since she’s not very fond of the CL.

She’s very good with Zaria though. She is very gentle around her. “Mei mei very fragile, Zara must be careful, yeah.” she reminds herself every time she’s near Zaria. She likes to stroke and sniff Zaria’s hair, her way of showing her affection to Zaria. 

Since we have 2 daugthers now, I shall start a new blog for the 2 of them instead of using the previous one meant for Zara. It’s about time too, since Blogger is giving me much problem these days especially with photos loading.

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We have finally being forced to decide decided on mei-mei’s name since the 14days time limit is almost up.

We were undecided between Zonya and Zaria. Daddy likes Zaria very much, but I was a bit worried with the use of this name since the pronunciation is very close to Zara. We may call for one of them, and they may not know whom we were addressing. I let Daddy make the decision since I made the call for mei-mei’s Chinese name.  He was still calling me from the registra this morning to confirm the name, see how undecided we were?

She will be called Zaria. It has the same meaning as Zara, both meaning princess, and both are current European princesses’ names, i.e. Princess Zara Phillips (daugther of Princess Anne) from Great Britain and Countess Zaria from Netherlands.

So here is a new blog for our 2 girls aka princesses, Zara and Zaria. 

Who does she look like? She has Daddy’s eye lids, but my big pupils. Daddy’s nose, and sharper face

Looking pretty serious here.

Zara’s pretty loving towards meimei the minute they met. She wants to ‘sayang’ meimei every time when meimei cries or frets by stroking and singing to meimei. She likes to hug meimei for no reason. Drinking milk together in the night.

Meimei’s small hands compared to mine.

Update on Zara
When we asked Zara what we should call meimei since we have already shortlisted to 2 names, and we wanted her to choose one, she just said “mei mei’s name is mei mei.”

Zara has also started to ask the Why question. E.g. “Why the korkor (Chinese : big brother) nose like that one” when she saw a picture of a boy with big longish nose.

Zara’s is getting better in reasoning.
Daddy asked her to walk when all she wanted was to be carried when they go for their park trip. She told daddy, “Daddy carry Zara. Daddy need(s) excercise.”
I told her to stay away from meimei since she is not fully recovered from chicken pox and she told me, “I’m feeling better already. I eat (ate) my chicken pox medicine already.”

And she started calling Daddy “Dad” and me “Mum”. I have no idea where she learn that (TV maybe?).

Zara is not bothered when I’m around her naked. In fact, she behaves as though it’s the most natural thing to do.

When we shower together, she loves asking me to carry her, and she’ll cling to me like a koala and lay her head on my shoulder. She probably likes the skin touch skin feeling.

The strange thing is, when Daddy is around her naked (even just being topless), she would say, “Daddy shame shame, never wear baju (Malay: clothes)”. If Daddy is topless, she would not let him hug her. She would just say, “Don’t want” without giving a reason (“Becausssssssss.. don’t want” she would say).

We tried this a couple of times, and the behaviour is always the same. I really wonder why.

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I tried to check if she knows the different between a man and a woman one day.
So I asked her, “Mummy got petpet (Chinese : female organ) or not?”
Zara answered, “Got. Like Zara. Zara got petpet.”
And then I asked her, “Daddy got petpet or not?”
Zara answered, “No. Daddy don’t have. Daddy got pineapple. Got hair one.”
I laughed till I had tears in my eyes. Daddy’s definitely doesn’t shape like a pineapple, I don’t know how she even connect the two.

We stayed home on Saturday because Daddy was suffering from jetlag and was sleeping most of the time.

On Sunday, he thought he would make it up to Zara by bringing her to the Shah Alam Lake Garden (*roll eyes* men really know how to have fun huh?). There really isn’t much in that park, except a big dirty grass field. I told him it would have been better to just bring Zara to the football field near our house.

I suggested Kids Sports instead, since lots of blogging mums have given very good feedback about that place (see, mums know how to have fun more *grin*).

So we went to 1 Utama at about 10am, before the crowd started pouring in. We had breakfast, and then brought Zara to see the fishes at the Rainforest section, and finally headed to Kids Sports. I went in with Zara while Daddy stayed outside.

Zara was ecstatic! Especially with the slide right at the entrance, where she could slide right into a pool of plastic balls!! She spent most of her time there, rolling in them, jumping into them, tossing the balls etc.

I brought her to the bigger play area, with all the slopes to climb, and tunnels to crawl. I was like a commando, crawling around the place with her on all fours, helping her on more difficult maneuver. It was fun, I have to say, even for me, but I suffered a back ache and sore knees later from all the bending and crawling.

1hr after the intense activity, while we were climbing up the rubber steps to go on the big slide, Zara just refused to move, laid down midway, started sucking her thumb and chanted, “milk milk!” (below photo). Even with much persuasion, she still refused to budge. I had to half drag half carry her up, slide down the slide, and then give her her milk fix.

Of course after the milk fix, she was all charged up and went on to climb, jump, crawl, slide, with a very tired and hungry mummy dragging behind.

Zara really enjoyed herself. Later, when we asked her did she like Kids Sports, her face went blank; but when I said, “Neh, the place with lots of ball-balls”, she brightened up and replied, “Ball Balls!” “Many!” “Throw!” “Step!” “Jump!” in her disjointed sentence.

Zara had a great time in Tanjung Jara. This is the 2nd time she went on a beach holiday, when we went to Penang in August 2005, she was much younger and wasn’t talking and walking yet. This time round, I think she enjoyed it more since she’s more aware of her surrounding. Daddy and myself could also enjoy ourselves as we have so many people taking turns to keep an eye on Zara who’s constantly on the move especially during meal times.

Some moments with photos.

Fish Feeding
There were lots of ponds with fishes surrounding the main restaurant. Fish food was given by the resort, and kids can help to feed the fishes. After letting her feed the fish once, at every meal time, Zara would walk to the reception area shouting, “Wis! Mum mum! Wis!” Her way of asking fish food from the hotel staff. She would then sit at the side of the pond, happily throwing fish pellets to the fishes, sometimes submerging her hand into the pond to feel the fish nibbling her.

Sea and Sand
Initially she was very uncomfortable walking at the beach. She didn’t like the feel of the sand and was very afraid of the fierce east coast waves. However, on the last day of our stay, while we were walking at the beach, she actually dragged us out to the shore, and enjoyed the waves lapping at her feet.

Dinner time entertainment
We were entertained by a trio of musicians every night while dining. Zara really enjoyed their presence. She would go near the cello and try to strum the string, or she would join in by dancing. It was like she was part of the team.

Cycling
Daddy took the girls for a trishaw ride, and then we rented some bicycles. We cycled around the resort, with Zara taking a ride in Daddy’s (it came with a child seat). It was really nice, especially when we rode on the path next to the beach, where we got lots of cool breeze. Zara very soon fell asleep, still clinging on to the child seat, on the moving bicycle.

Swimming
She really liked the pool. She was either in her neck float or was just playing in the jacuzzi or the baby pool assisted. Even on a gloomy day, she still wanted to stay in the pool despite the chill.

Exploring
Nothing beats checking out a new environment. The unfamiliar feel of the bed sheet, the height of the bed, the steps and walls around, a fallen leave or coconut, the canopy of trees, the bridges and the ponds. There was so much to explore for Zara. Of course, there’s so much chasing to do as well for the adults.

The Finale
We had this special steam boat dinner arranged at the pool side on our last day, very romantic setting, although the food sucked! You could hear waves lapping, and get lots of sea breeze. Too bad it was a cloudy day and no stars can be spotted. (Can you spot King’s Wife in this photo)

Our next holiday?? Bali probably. Oh, I just can’t wait!