Comments on previous post : Ok, I have decided that it’s a good thing that Zara is able to talk back, and we should not discourage her unless she’s using rude words.

Besides talking, I think this girl of mine is quite good with her arts.

Here are her recent art work.

Most of her drawings are on princesses, fairies, mermaids, things she likes.

Fairies

Mama fairy, and a little fairy (top right). With worms underground.

Flower Fairy

Check out the bugs!

Mermaids

Flower Princess

2 big sisters, and 1 baby, and they are under a rainbow

She also started puting caption on some of her drawings. She draw on one page, and wrote the caption on another.

Flower.

Girl with a mop

Guess what’s she’s writing here?

This is the clue.

Lick On The Lollipop, that’s what she wrote.

Sometimes she just creates patterns.

Or even arts and crafts. Do you know what she’s trying to make here with tissue stuffed with white paper coloured with some green?

That’s her juicy pow (xiao long bao) served on a plate.

She also likes colouring, but unfortunately, do not have the patience to finish a big picture.

And the best of all, she leaves me drawings as notes. This one, she put in an ang pow (as an envolope) and left it in my wardrobe. But she doesn’t quite know how to ‘surprise’ me, she took it out to show me first, then put it back there, and said “I left you a surprise in the cupboard.”

I’m inpatient.
I stress out easily.
I can be very fierce.
Zara is rather emotional.
And Zara is very good with her words.
So, here is a recipe for disaster…

Scene 1
We were in a crowded Chinese restaurant ordering our Father’s Day dinner (Father’s Day or no Father’s Day, Daddy always leave the stress ordering in a Chinese restaurant to me so if there’s not enough food or the food does not cater to everybody, I get the blame). FIL was with us. It’s already 9pm.
Imagine my stress.
Have to order something suitable for the kids; have to order something not too hard for my FIL (since his dentures doesn’t fit him that well); have to make sure Daddy has his fish.
Zara was pretending she cooked some ‘tooth-pick’ noodle, and was serving me in the midst of a very stress me giving our orders to the waiter.
I just glared at her and said, “Later.”
While I was still choosing dishes, Zara continued, “Mummy, why are you showing me sour face?”
Because I was still busy, I didn’t answer.
“Mummy, why are you showing me sour face? You tell me? Why are you so rude?”
“Excuse me!! exCUSSSSSEE MEEEEEE! Why are you not answering me. Huh?”
I was rather annoyed and replied, “Zara, mummy is ordering dinner ok? Hush!”
After that she went quiet.
When I finished ordering, and stretched out my hand to hold hers (our ‘piece giving’ sign), she withdrew her hand, glared at me and started muttering, “Hmmph! So rude. Don’t hold my hand.”
When I explained to her I was busy, she said, “Hphmm! Why you show me sour face then? Huh? Why?”
Again I stretched out my hand and told her because I was busy ordering and she was disturbing me. She still didn’t want to accept my peace offering.
So I turned my attention to Zaria, and Zara started sobbing.
When I tried to pat/sayang her, she withdrew, and said, “Don’t touch me.”
“Aiya, don’t touch don’t touch la.” I got rather annoyed.
So the whole dinner was like that.. she’s upset I didn’t continue to try to pacify her, and when I did, she turned away.. tired.

Scene 2
It’s a rule that when we walked home from the park, the girls have to stop at the pavement and wait for me to hold their hands to cross the road.
Two days ago, Zara was dashing towards our house, and when she was close to the pavement I didn’t see her intention of stopping and there was a car coming.
I shouted very loudly to issue my warning, “Zara!! Stop!!!”
She stopped, turned back and glared at me. I stretched out my hand to hold hers and asked, “What were you trying to do? Dashing off like that?”
She folded her arm and answered “Hmmph! I was going to stop O-K!!? Why did you shout at me?”
“I saw you dashing off like that, and a car was coming, so I have to shout at you to tell you to stop right?”
“Why did you shout so loud? It’s so irritating you know or not??!!”
And then it was another round of peace offering, not accepted, upset because no more peace offering etc…. tired.

Scene 3
We were doing her Bahasa homework, and after many times of teaching her how to read the word “MALAM” (night), she was able to read M-A = MA, L-A-M= LAM, but didn’t know how to join the MA & LAM together to make the word MALAM. So I said, “M-A, MA. Now put MA in your head (and I use my index finger to point to her head). Then tell me what is L-A-M?”
She glared at me, “Don’t push my head like that ok? You are making my head spin.”
I pointed to her head again a little harder this time and said, “I just pointed at your head only. And asked you to put MA in your head.”
She folded her arms and turned away from me, “You are pushing, not pointing, ok? I don’t want you to help me with my home work. I want Daddy to help.”
Grrrrrrrr!!!!

She’s only Four and The Half, and already ‘ting-sum-ting-fai’ (Chinese : talking back, rebelling). Aigh. I wonder what it’s going to be like when she’s in her teens.

Zaria has become very possessive recently.

When Daddy reads to Zara, and Zara sits on his lap, Zaria will quickly try to squeeze herself on Daddy’s lap too. Sometimes pushing Zara away in the process.

When Zara lies close to me on the bed, she would try to squeeze herself in between us (even though there are lots of space on my other side). Failing to do so, she would complain “Mummy, jiejie don’t take turns.”

When I carry other babies or toddlers in the park, she will quickly leave whatever she is doing and come over and tug on my t-shirt, “Mummy, cannot carry XXXX.” (XXXX the name of the toddler or baby).
When I reply, “It’s ok, mummy carry XXXX for a while.”
She will then say something like, “I want to go home now. It’s getting dark. Put XXXX down.”

The latest incident further proved her possessiveness.

Normally I would carry her on my back after our daily park visit.
Two days ago, on our way home, Zara fell and scratched both her knees. She complained she couldn’t walk, and asked me to carry her. So I asked Zaria to walk and then I piggy-backed Zara.
Zaria : *screaming* “Mummy, I want you to carry me!!”
Me : “Jiejie fell down, she cannot walk, mummy need to carry her.
Next thing I knew, she plonked herself on the road, siting ther and telling me, “See, I fall down already. Now you carry me.” o.O”

I didn’t fall for her trick, even though she cried all the way home, I got her to walk.

As we do not want the girls to see anything not meant for their eyes or pick up languages that they were not supposed to learn, we never watched any ‘adult’ movies (here, adult means any movies not created for kids) in front of the girls. Even if we did watch something in their presence, it’s always ‘screened’ first by us, before watching the movie together with them (normally selected scenes which we think might interest them). What they pick up or watch in other people’s house is something I can’t control, but this is what is practiced in our house.

So far Mama Mia is the only ‘adult’ movie that we have allowed them to watch from beginning till the end, and because it’s a movie they love, they have been watching it over and over again.. this is the effect.. (you will only ‘appreciate’ if you have watched the movie)

Both girls can sing almost all the songs in the movie.

Zaria who used to be a bit reserved (in kissing), is now giving long kisses on the lips. I saw her giving Zara a long kiss on the lips once when they were watching the scene of Sam (Pierce Brosnan) proposing to Donna (Meryl Streep) in the church.

Once, they kept talking about puting different things in people’s petpet (Lemon in poh-poh’s petpet, vege in auntie’s petpet etc). When I asked them why they kept saying rude things like that, they told me “the auntie put flower in her petpet wut when she sing (sang) Dancing Queen in Mama Mia”. o.O”

And the best one..

Yesterday I was making some cheese puffs for the girls. After puting the tray into the oven, I asked Zara, “You come and see if these cheese puffs are enough for you or you think mummy should make more?”

Zara took a peek at the amount of cheese puff on the tray and said, “I’m not a bigamist, you fool.” o.O”
After recovering from my shock, I asked her, “Jie, do you know what bigamist is or not?”
Innocently, she replied, “Bigamist is big lo. I’m not so big, I don’t need to eat so much.”

See.. let them watch ‘adult’ movies, and they pick up words they have no idea what it meant.

Added June 18th :
After explaining what bigamist to Zara, to test her knowledge, I asked her yesterday“So, is mummy and daddy bigamist or not?”
Zara replied, “No. You have 1 husband, and Daddy have 1 wife. You are not bigamist.”
Good, now she understood. Then she added, “Daddy and you are smallamist.”
o.O”

FIL stayed over for the week, and this morning when Zaria came down for breakfast, she asked, “Yeh yeh, what are you doing in my house?” o.O”

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Zaria : “Mummy, I love you.” (she’s saying this so frequently now, and it really makes my day.)
Me : (just asked for the fun of it) “Why you love mummy?”
Zaria : “Because… (thinking).. I like you.”
Me : “But why you like mummy?”
Zaria : “Because… (thinking).. Because… (still thinking).. You are cute.”
Haha.. I think she couldn’t find a reason.

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After getting down friom the car in the car park, I was carrying Zaria to enter Ikano (for those outside of Malaysia, it’s where Ikea is).
Zaria : “Mummy, Where are we going?”
Me : (just for the fun of it) “We’re going One Utama.”
Zaria : “No, this is not One Ooftama.” (she knows where we were but she was playing along. “Where are we going?”
Me : “We’re going Five Utama, maybe.”
Zaria : “No, this is not Five Ooftama. This is Ikea.”
Me : “Who said this is Ikea. This is Five Utama.”
Zaria : “No..” *she took a sniff of the air* “You smell (and see).”
(The Ikea smell is unmistakable, that’s for sure).

It’s the girls’ school holidays; I have been hard at work, so Daddy thought this would be a good time to go for a trip. And this is his type of holiday…

We drove off not knowing where we’re going, and ended up in Kuala Selangor for lunch, at a breezy sea side restaurant.

The girls loved the prawn cracker there.

After lunch (and a nap for me), we reached Tanjung Karang, the ‘rice bowl’ of Selangor. It is harvest season now, and everywhere, we can see fields being harvested. By human

or by machine

Girls got to walk among rice fields and got to see rice on stalks up close.

and did some ‘harvesting’ themselves.

We also went to see the rice grains getting loaded onto lorries to be transported to the factory for polishing.

And this ice cream man got all excited when Daddy said he wanted to take a photo of him. He removed his helmet, arranged his hair and viola…

This is where the rice will be transported to to be polished.

Around the rice fields, we saw cement buildings like this, and Daddy said they are ‘birdnest houses’ (buildings to house swiftlets which produce birdnest).

Sekinchan, the fishing village, is just 15mins away from Tanjung Karang, so it became our next stop. Do you always hear people claiming the fishes from Sekinchan, Kuala Selangor (the Konghao fish) are nicer compared to the ones caught from the East Coast.

I wonder if it’s becaused the fishes feed on this….

We were lucky that the fishermen just came back from the sea, and the girls get to see the fishermen getting busy sorting out their catch (not that they liked, they both complained it was STINKY).

These fishes were available for sale and drew a big crowd, but we didn’t bring our ice box (since we were not prepared) and didn’t get these super fresh catch.

We then drove on to Ijok for dinner since it was only 5pm when we left Sekinchan and too early for dinner. The whole day, we spent less than RM90 on seafood meals! What a deal.

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On Sunday, when I had to work 15hours, Daddy brought the girls out kite flying in some fields. Based on the girls’ feedback, it seemed, Daddy was having more fun than them.

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If Daddy has his way, this is how he likes to spend his weekend. I’m not really against it, but I like cool aircondition and retail therapy, and can’t live on just this. Daddy asked the girls at the end if they enjoyed their weekend, both shouted, “NO!!”. o.O”

I love the way Zaria uses words she’s familiar with to pronunce new words. I love :

The way she says milipede as Lilly-pede. (Lilly is a name Zara gave to her toy tortoise).

The way she says matchmaker (from Mulan show) as Fat maker (since the matchmaker is, well, FAT).

Credit : Picture taken from iCandi.

The way she says rambutan as Rumple-utan. (from her story book Rumplestiltskin & another story about Orang Utan)

The way she says accidentally as Accident gently.

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I like the way Zara talk back to Daddy (but not when she talks back to me).

Once Daddy kept correcting her Grammar, and she got fed up, “Don’t be such a show off, dad.”

Another time Zara wanted Daddy to bring her to my sis’ place so she can play with her cousins, and Daddy replied, “Why do we want to go there? So boring, nothing to do.”
Zara very quickly answered, “Oh, when you go to your mother’s place you happy la, got things to do la. When I ask you to go to my cousin’s place, you say boring la?

I like the way she prayed on some nights.
“I pray that my Daddy will not dilly dally when we want to go out.”
“I pray that my Daddy will not fall asleep when he’s jaga-ing (Malay : looking after) us.”

Last Friday, the last day of school term, the girls’ school had a Fathers’ and Mothers’ Day celebration. It was a small event with simple breakfast, followed by song singing by the children. The children also were called on stage to present handmade (supposedly by the children) flowers to their mothers and hand painted t-shirts to their fathers.

Photos of the events :

Zara, playing with her friends

Handmade flowers in a row for mothers

My pot of flowers from Zara

This is the only shot I took of Zaria singing. When she saw me looking later, she started crying and wanted to be with me.

Even after she stopped her crying, she wasn’t singing any more. More interested in her itch. o.O”

Nope.. still not singing

Zara and her class mates sang “世上只有妈妈好”

And then “You are my sunshine”

My flowers from Zaria

The girls then stayed back for the rest of the school hours to play games.

Visited my MIL over the weekend and told them (SIL & MIL) about Zaria’s lung crepitation, and the rash that Zaria is having (the same rash that Zara had). My SIL has a friend who is a Chinese doctor, and she told us we should let him have a look at the girls. Thinking that he’s the same type as my Chinese Doctor, we agreed.

Dr Low happened to be a specialist in Acupuncture and Osteorpathy, totally different from my Chinese Doctor who uses mainly herbs for tuning.

I thought he wasn’t very good with kids. While he was checking Zara, Zaria touched his desk calender as a cartoon drawing caught her interest. Dr Low raised his voice and said, “Eh, cannot touch my things!”. That startled Zaria and made her cry. Bad start.

One by one he checked the girls. It seems my girls have liver problem (from the blue hue in the white of their eye) and internal fever (forehead warmer than cheeks); and then the doctor checked their spines, he claimed Zaria’s spine is absolutely crooked (right butt cheek has a dimple but not left; protruding stomach), and because Zaria has a crooked 4th toe (since birth), he concluded Zaria has gall bladder problem too.

Before the girls started their ‘treatment’, I thought I will be the guinea pig, since I constantly feel tired, I’ll let him check on me and treat me first. One looked at the age spots (or oil seeds, what do you call them anyway?) that I have around my eyes and neck, he claimed I have appendix problem. But it’s genetics I told him, all my family members have them; he said, then it meant genetically all of us have appendix problem. o.O”

So I was brought to the treatment room and was told to remove my clothes. (I made sure Daddy was with me throughout) With just panties and bra on, he started feeling my spine. According to him, I too had a few discs slightly out of place. He will do Osteorpathy on me; which is actually a massage on the spine, and also some exertion to try to align my spine. According to the doctor, once the spine is aligned, the nervous system will function properly, and I won’t have any ailments. Before he started, he pressed a few of my meridien, and asked me to rank the pain I feel. After he finished he again pressed on these meridien points and asked me to rank the pain, the pain should vanish or lessen (which is true for me for some points). After this, he poked 4 acupuncture needles to my calf to further improve the ‘alignment’. This treatment made me ~RM330 poorer, and each treatment will only make me 10% better (which means I have to come for 10 sessions and spent RM3300 to get 100% better).

It was then the girls’ turn. Zara volunteered to be first. Dr Low did moxibuxtion on her, which is to bring a lighted ‘herbal cigar’ (the girls called it Magic Wand) close to her meridien points to provide heat for 10 minutes or so.

When it was Zaria’s turn, she didn’t really want to corporate, remembering the scold she got from the doctor. She was crying, and it was difficult to coax her to lie down. To make things worse, in the middle of the treatment, she moved her leg and kicked the ‘cigar’. I wasn’t in the room (Daddy was with her, since I have to be ‘resting’ after my treatment), but it seemed the ‘cigar’ landed on her big toe and burnt it. She wailed and it took a while to calm her down. As though this incident was not enough, while the moxibuxtion was done above her belly button, Daddy was asking Dr Low some stupid questions, and when Dr Low was answering his question, he didn’t realise the accumulation of the hot ashes at the end of the cigar, and suddenly the hot ash just dropped on Zaria’s belly (I saw it this time). Zaria gave a loud scream and wailed. Since it was coming to the end, we just stroke her and calmed the traumatised her for the last few minutes while the moxibuxtion continued.

Once it was done, Zaria clung on to me like a koala, and kept saying she wanted to go home.

The girls’ sessions cost RM100 each (and extra 1 time RM20 each for our registration or the creation of our files). We are all supposed to go for follow ups, but I’m not sure if we will be going again. It seems a bit mumbo jumbo to me. What do you think?

Zara called Dr Low, Dr Harry Potter, because the ‘cigar’ to her is a magic wand. When I asked Zaria if she liked Dr Harry Potter in the morning, she replied, “No. I want to burn him for dinner.” o.O”