Zaria just turned 1yr old two days ago.

We have a small celebration for her cum Christmas Eve dinner at the Royal Palace King’s Wife’s place.

Zaria frowning, when she was asked to cut the cake together with my brother, whose birthday is just few days apart from Zaria’s

So how is this 1yr old doing?

Weight : 7.7Kg (lost a bit after her fever).
Height : 74.5cm
Head Circumference : 45cm
Number of teeth : 7  – Upper and Lower Incisors, left lower lateral incisors sprouted before the 11th month, upper lateral incisors sprouted this month.

♥Mobility & Dextirity♥
She crawls really fast nowadays.
She enjoys walking in the court yard (with pebble washed flouring) with her hands held but she won’t walk and prefers to crawl at other places.
She now knows how to get up and down furniture very well.
Able to crawl up and down the stairs on her own.

♥Speech Development♥
Started saying some phrases.
“Go kai kai“ : Go Out (of the house).
“Mum mum ker ker” : Eat Biscuit.
New words she picked up :
Cake
Cat
Go
Pis (Please)
No no
Tow (Throw)
Ah-per (Apple)
Tah (Car)
Tar (Star)
Pish (Fish)
Walk-walk
Poo (Put)
Poo Poo
Pao Pao (Chinese : Full)
Beh-Bee (Baby)
Ah-yang (Sayang, Malay : pat lovingly)
Ter-Tee (Dirty)
Meh-meh (Mei Mei, calling and pointing to herself)

She knows how to make sounds on demand, E.g. Ao for cat; Ugh Ugh for dog; Moooo for cow; Kghhh for snoring; and she clucks her tongue for lizard or gecko.

Able to listen and follow instructions, e.g. “Bring the book, and mummy read to you.” “Let mummy smell your finger.” Points to object or people when we ask her where the person or object is.

Able to do action on demand, e.g. “How Mei-mei brush your teeth?” She puts her finger in her mouth and moves it about.

♥Food and Milk Intake♥
3 solid meals a day, and I started introducing her whole eggs and fish this month (realised these animal products actually make her wet diaper super stinky!). Sometimes when we have chicken soup at home, I’ll let her have some as well.
She likes noodle, and not so keen on porridge.
She still loves to eat, but the amount she takes has reduced. She takes about 2/3 of a bowl (rice bowl) or less of whatever that’s served.
Tasted a bit of ice cream this month, but she didn’t like it and immediately said “Pao Pao”.
Ate her birthday cake (home made) and she liked it.
Still fully on breastmilk.

♥Sleeping♥
Taking very short naps these days. Once at noon, and another (by force) at 5pm. Total nap time doesn’t exceed 2hrs.

♥Emotions and character♥
Very strong will. If she wanted something and didn’t get it, she’ll fake a cry and go on all fours. Or she’ll keep requesting until she gets her way, e.g. She’ll keep saying “”Pis” (Please) if she wanted something and we didn’t give in to her, and each “”Pis” will be spoken with more anger until we give in or she’s distracted by something else.
Very loving, always kisses me, and hugs me.
Frowns a lot, especially when she doesn’t like something, and doesn’t agree to something.

(More celebration photos coming up soon).

My two girls rarely fall ill. *Touch wood*. Even if they did, they normally recover really quick, from a cough, a fever or a tummy upset.

But then this month, one week after Zaria, it was her turn.

For 3 nights, she had fever as high as 39, and I had to wake up middle of the night to sponge her, check on her, and even gave her suppository twice. She was rather happy with all the attention I’m channelling to her. However, I was drained.

Now that their fevers have gone, both girls are coughing, although Zaria’s not as severe as Zara’s.

Sometimes, when she gets a bit upset with all the medicine drinking, she asked if she could have the bum-bum medicine instead, thinking the suppository can cure all. o.O”

~~~~~~~~~~~

By the way, do you read the label on those medicine they give to kids? I saw Paraben in Zara’s cough mixture, something we don’t want in our skin care and toileteries (most organic skin care and toileteries claimed they are without) now found in their oral medicine? Scarry.

I think I’ll go boil her favourite dessert, birdnest, instead.

Christmas is about ….

♥Friendship♥

It’s about…

♥Giving Help♥

It’s about…

♥Family♥

It’s about…

♥Togetherness♥

It’s about…

♥Love♥

♥Merry Christmas Everybody♥

~ From My Two Girls, Zara and Zaria, ZMM and Daddy

Zaria has started the clingy period, she always wants me to carry her, and used to fuss a bit when I didn’t. However, after her fever, she started to cry if I didn’t oblidge or didn’t get her way.

She will cry with big tear drops, sometimes even going on all fours, and slaps the floor with both her hands, banging her head on the floor in the process. o.O”

She wants to be nursed all the time. Making the milk sign every time she saw me. Yesterday, when she did that again 30mins after I’d fed her, I commented, “Milk again? You just had your milk.. Mummy don’t have so much milk you know. You think Mummy is a cow huh?” When the word ‘cow’ was heard, Zaria did a “moooooo”. Made all of us laugh. Haha… Anyway, this post is not about how cute she is…

Here are some shots of these ‘drama’ moments.

Oh, who’s coming?

Maaameee

“Beat!” She said, when I didn’t pick her up and she got a bit angry

She stood up and cried when she saw me walking away. See those big drop of tears?

(Thanks to all who’d commented with advice and encouring words in my last post, really appreciate it) 

There’s the office work to complete before the Christmas shutdown.
There’s the paid post to do to make some extra cash.
There’s time to spend with the two girls who now require as much attention.
My way of de-stressing besides going for retail therapy and having a really good meal which can only happen during the weekends is to get myself busy the kitchen.

Besides whipping out the Christmas pudding; I attempted to bake a banana cake with toffee banana filling and mascarpone icing; since A Piece Of Cake will not be around to bake Zaria’s upcoming birthday cake, I thought maybe I’ll attempt the feat this year. The icing needs to be worked on as it was melting real quick. I hope Zaria’s cake will turn out better.

I kept myself busy cooking for the 2 fussy girls (the ‘wai-sek’ or greedy Zaria is becoming real fussy with her food now, sigh, so I had added fish to her diet to give her food more flavour); and also made a real good Hokkien Mee or Har Mee. The latter, I just bought the spice, taught Tuyam how to make it and supervise her cooking.

Last week’s creation.

Banana cake with toffee banana filling and runny mascarpone icing

This home-made Penang Har Mee or prawn noodle is so delicious I tell you.

The girls’ fish slice mee suah (Chinese : Wheat noodle)

And for those who have asked, Christmas pudding really is a type of cake which is either steamed or boiled, and not the same as the jelly like Chinese dessert that we are more aware of. For those of you who are interested in getting the recipe, it can be found here.

Malaika’s mummy tagged me couple of weeks ago, asking if I spare the rod when disciplining my girls.

I don’t own a cane at home and I try not to smack Zara. However, at times when she really pushes me to the limit, I will smack her on the buttocks; E.g. the time when she pinned Zaria to the ground when Zaria tried to reach for a toy she’s holding; or when she broke an item in the house even though I’d repeatedly told her not to touch it.

Most of the time, when she’s misbehaving, I’ll put her in the naughty corner, set the timer, and told her she can only get out when the timer alarm goes off. Sometimes, she will even go there on her own when she knows she’s done something wrong.

Last 2 days, she really drove me up the walls. Not so about her behaviour, but the way she talked back. When we told her off for some mischief she’s done, she said something like this, “Hush!” “I don’t want to talk about it, ok?”, then turned her head to face the opposite side.

Then yesterday, when she lifted her dress in a busy shopping mall, and later pulled down her dress so that her body was in full view of passer by, both Daddy and I told her, “Zara, that’s not a very nice thing to do in public ok? You are a girl, please don’t show people your underwear or your body like that.” She sulked big time, refusing to hold my hand when we walked to the car. Didn’t want to sit on her car seat on our journey home, folded her arms and faced the car door throughout.

I tried to coax her, by saying she’s our daughter, and we were only saying that so she knew right from wrong. She replied, “I’m not your daughter. Zaria is your daughter. I am kakak’s daughter.”

Daddy said she must be tired (she didn’t nap the whole day) and becoming irrational. I tried to coax her still, by offering my hand for her to hold, by saying, “Come on, lets give each other a hug”. I must be in one of my more ‘zen’ state, because when she scratched my hand twice, and then slapped my face, I didn’t smack her. I issued my last statement, “We are a family, so please don’t behave like that, ok?” She pointed at me, daring me, and she said these slowly, “You   and   I   are   not   family!”

That’s it. I walked away. Very very upset (actually I was really hurt!). That was when she cried and shouted, “I WANT MUMMY!” “MUMMY I’M SORRY!….WAAAAH” And tried to hug me and not let me go.

Daddy said I shouldn’t take it too personally, she’s only 3 year old, and she is just like me, when I’m tired, I like to use words to retaliate which I later regret.

This is The Look she gives, when she talks back

Does your child do that to you? What would you have done if you were me? Should I invest in a cane now?

Bad news first

Zaria had her very first fever yesterday evening. Jelly (Daddy nicknamed her Jelly brains, which I think it’s quite mean, but then, she is, well,…. jelly brains) didn’t even realise, and I discovered when I came down to feed her at 6pm. Sigh. Her temparature was 38.4, and she was hot! Trust the maids? *shake head*

Brought her to see a GP nearby, and kept sponging her when we got back. She was very active still, babling, crawling, cruising, just like her usual self but took lots of short naps in between. 

In the night, it shot up to 39. Being the mum, I was the one who went sleepless; sponging her, checking on her, feeding her medicine. This morning, we brought her to see her paed just to make sure she’s alright.

She’s still running a fever, and probably fighting a viral infection, according to the doctor, she should come out of it by Sunday. So, more sleepness night for me.

Daughter fever, mother suffers. 🙁

Since we went to the paed, got her latest measurement :
Height : 74cm; Weight : 7.8Kg (thin…); Head Circumference : 45cm

♥Good news now♥

Zaria has started addressing me on Wednesday night. Not Ah Meen, or Mama, and I didn’t have to wait for 14 months like Zara.

She calls me in her sweet little voice, “Maa-meeee”, when she sees me and it’s in the mood.

Daughter fever, mother willingly suffers.

Maa-meeee

Daddy wanted some home made Christmas Puddings. The wife got busy one weekend….

Daddy and the few neighbours I gave this to claimed it’s really nice.
Home made Christmas puddings anyone?

I’m not an expert in this field, but I tried to sign to my girls as soon as they were able to give me eye contact. Since babies’ fine muscles for hands will develop sooner than their muscle required for speech, baby signing will equip them with some means to communicate to us even when they are too young to speak the words.

I don’t believe the maids or myself can master too many signs, so I’d only picked a few signs which I think is important, such as, Milk; More; Eat; Drink; Sing; Pain; Scared; full (patting the stomach); and I love You; and I taught the maids the signs.

To help the girls associate the sign to the word, we do the sign when we speak the word.  Example : “Do you want milk?” When the word milk is spoken, we clenched our fist to sign milk. In the end, the girls may pick up the actual sign, or they may invent their own which is suitable for their little hands. The most important is, we are able to communicate with signs.

I pick up baby signing through these sites : 
Singing with Babies, just to get started
American Sign Language (ASL) Browser, which lists words alphabetically, and provide you with videos of each sign.

An archive pix of Zara signing “MORE”

When the child knows you can understand her when she tries to communicate with you, she will try to communicate more. That’s my experience. So watch out for your child’s own baby signing, or babling which may mean something.

Just to share two incidents where baby signing helped save the day for us:
1st :
It was Zara’s 1st birthday, and at 3am that night, she woke up wailing. We tried pacifying her thinking it was just one of those nights. However, she kept signing “pain” while crying. We immediately brought her to the nearest A&E. She actually had very bad stomach flu, with bad stomach ache, purging and vomiting. We wouldn’t have known and rushed her to the hospital if she didn’t tell us she was hurting.

2nd :
The 2nd day Zara attended her class, she was still scared to be left in class. I told her we’d be waiting outside. On a few occasions, I peeped in through the opening of the door to her arts and craft class and signed “I love you” when she looked up warily. She nodded, and smiled, then went back to work. When she needed the re-assurance, she just looked up and I repeated the sign to her. It was like a secret code, calming her and making her feel good.

I love watching Zaria’s expression when she’s watching TV.

Look at Zaria, all geared for the show, even before the show began she was already signing ‘more’.

The show began, the animals were appearing, Zaria was getting real serious.

The cows went Mooooo, look at Zaria attempting to do moooo.

Watch Zaria signing bath (again, her own version but not the ASL standard) as the pigs were bathing now.

More animals were coming out, Zaria was getting really excited.

The show was about to end. She’s probably asking, “Where are the animals?”

The last scene where all the animal puppets appeared for the last time. Watch her go “THERE……”

Finally, when the show has ended, she wanted me to play it again. “I want more!”

I love to see these expressions. While Zaria is watching Baby Einstein – Baby McDonald, I’ll be watching her. 🙂