We’d done quite a fair bit of travelling in the car during the long weekend, going here and there. Being stuck in the car with two boisterous chatterboxes for many hours requires a lot of patience, which I have not.

In the car, Daddy and I tried to plan for a get-away during the coming school holidays but constantly got interupted by the girls, for the smallest things, such as the below :

Zaria: Maa. Maaa. Maaaa. (Girls call me either ‘ma’, ‘mummy’ or ‘mum’)
Me : huh?
Zaria: Do you know what is kolam? It’s pond.
Me : Hm.

Zara : Maa. Maaa..
Me : huh?
Zara : I love you, you know.
Me : Hm.

Zara : Maa. Maaa..
Me : huh?
Zara : You know I can sing well.
Me : Hm.

Zaria: Maa. Maaa.
Me : huh?
Zaria: Jiejie teased me. You scold jiejie.
Me : Jie….

Zaria: Maa. Maaa. Maaaa.
(if still no answer from me) Mummy!!! Mom!!! Why you talked to jiejie but you’re not talking to me?
Me : Ok, what?
Zaria: Just now I saw a red car.
Me : (loosing patience) Oh kayyyyyyyyy

So after like 100 rounds of the above.
Me : Girls! Girls…….! Can you girls stop interrupting? I can’t even have a decent conversation with your Daddy.

All quiet… for like 15 seconds.

Zara : Maa. Maaa..
Me : *annoyed* WHAT???!!!!!
Zara : You are not having a conversation now, so can I talk?
*faint*

Daddy intervened : Can the two of you just sit back and relax?
Zaria: I cannot relax. I cannot feel anything.
Daddy : You are not supposed to feel anything. You are supposed to relax.
Zaria: But I cannot feel anything.
*faint*

Zara : Maa. Maaa..
Me : What NOW??!!
Zara : I think you are gumpy because you are having your period. (so they know, because I asked them to help get me sanitory pads from the cupboard)
Zara : When is your period going to be over?
o.O”

And Daddy said he feels like bringing the girls to Terengganu during the holidays. Imagine the looooong drive.

The girls get along so well sometimes, we smile just observing them play together, enjoying each other’s company.

However, they spend a lot of time squabbling too. Zara the annoying one, Zaria the easily annoyed. On days like that, I am the screamer mediator, the referee who tries to tone down their screaming and teasing.

On Sunday, Daddy however decided to step in, when the squabbling started just after we left the house for an outing.

Daddy said, “Since the two of you cannot get along, I think we’ll have to send you to different families. One to Karen yi-yi’s house, another to Teresa yi-yi’s house. OK?”
Zaria was the first to react, “If you say (said) that again, I’ll kick your teeth off.” (there was once, she even told Daddy, she’ll kick his penis if he scolded her again)
o.O”
Zara responded slowly and calmly, “I think you are an alien. You should just take a spaceship and go to another planet.”
Zaria chipped in, “Ya, go to another planet.”
Daddy said, “Are you sure you want me to go to another planet? Daddy is a wise old man. Without Daddy, nobody will give you wise advice.”
Zara replied, “Mum is even more wiser than you.”

Now you may think we should not let our kids talk back to us. However, Daddy said he prefers his daughters to respond to him intelligently, than to be so afraid of him they are quiet around him. I on the other hand, will not allow them to say use any derogatory words/phrases like, stupid, useless, you are nothing; but I don’t discourage them from expressing themselves even if they were showing dissatisfaction towards us. That’s our parenting style anyway. You may beg to defer.

On another unrelated incident, we were reading a book about dinosaurs, and after the book, I told Zaria, “I think I know what dinosaur you are. You are a cryasaurous.” Zara replied to me, “And you are a scoldasaurous.”
o.O”
I added, “What about you?”
Zara replied, “I’m the annoyedasauraus. I always annoy meimei!”
At least she admits.

Last week, Daddy had the TV on after dinner to watch the Thomas Cup live telecast.
Zara : Dad, I want to watch my DVD.
Daddy : Daddy wants to watch badminton.
Zara : But I want to watch my show.
Daddy didn’t reply, eyes glued to TV.
Zara : *upset* Even my own Ah Kong let me watch Sponge Bob in Karen yiyi’s house!
(My dad who monopolises the TV in my sister’s place, allowed the girls to watch Sponge Bob from 7pm to 8pm on Astro every time we were there. Well, he didn’t have a choice. The girls begged and begged with all their PLEAAASSSSE, until he gave in.)
There’ll be more to come, when World Cup season starts!

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When dining out, despite having her own seat, Zaria loves squeezing her butt on our chair midway through dinner.
One of these occasions, I told her off, “Go and sit on your own chair!”
She raised her voice, frowned and said, “But we’re a family right? We should sit together!”
o.O”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we’re home, Jelly is the one who bathes the girls. But when we were at my sister’s, I did the bathing while Jelly did the dishes.
One day when were at my sister’s, I was at the computer working, and Zaria came and asked me, “Mum, you bath me now.”
I told her, “Later, mummy finish mummy’s work first.”
She frowned and said, “You can bath me first right? Then you can finish your work right?”
Clever to reason now, I see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the girls go downstairs, they like to jump from the fourth step before the landing to the ground, and laugh every time they did it.
I was worried that an accident will happen, so I gave them a lecture, ending with something like that, “You all think it’s fun huh? Wait till an accident happen. If it’s so bad, you have to be on wheel chairs forever. Next time if I saw who did it, I’ll bring out my big fat juicy cane to cane the person.”
Girls were silent.
I asked Zara, “Zara, do you understand what I just said?”
Zara was a bit upset with the lecturing, and replied, “You also did it last time right?” (I told her when I was young, I jumped once from the cupboard and sprained my ankle)
“You also didn’t listen to your mummy right? And it’s fun right?”
o.O”
I had to explain, I know it’s fun to jump like that, if they like jumping, we can bring them to Jungle gym or Kids Sport to jump on trampoline. Jumping like that is too dangerous, and I cannot let them do it, just in case they get hurt.
Since then, nobody did the jumping any more except on trampoline and well padded flour.

My sister’s maid has gone back to the Philippines for a month’s holiday. To ensure my dad (who lives with her) has proper lunch and dinner prepared for him, I’d been going over to her place 3 times a week to help out. I’ll work from home half a day, and then I’ll pick the girls up from school with Jelly and then go to my sister’s place and work from there for the rest of the day.

On one of the days that we were not going to my sister’s place, I picked the girls up from school without Jelly.

In the car, this conversation took place.
Zaria : (seeing Jelly didn’t come with me) How come Aunty Jelly didn’t come today? Today we’re not going to Karen Yiyi’s place?
Me : Ya. Today we stay at home.
Zaria : But I want to go play with my kor kor.
Me : Huh?
Zaria : I want to go play with Norman kor kor. (Norman is my nephew)
Zara : (chipped in) You know what this means?
Me : What?
Zara : You should get married to Daddy again, and give us a didi. (I told the girls they have to get married to give birth to babies when they asked me how babies were made)
Me : *TING! Light bulb litted* Oh, you want a didi?
Both : Ya!!
Me : Can…. To get a didi, mummy and Daddy need to go pak toh (Cantonese : Dating) and go for holidays alone without the two of you. Then after a few times of pak tohs and holidays alone, then only we can get didi.
Both : Huh? Go pak toh?
Zara : I don’t want you to go pak toh and holidays without us. I don’t want didi already.
Zaria : I also don’t want.

There goes my chance to get my permanant going out visa.

In case it gives you wrong ideas, pak toh or not, holidays or not, definitely there won’t be any more didis or meimeis. We’re quite sure about that.

My girls are too small to know when Mother’s Day is, but they talked about it, because the school has prep-ed them by teaching them to sing different songs related to love for mothers.

On Saturday I asked the girls, “So, tomorrow is Mother’s Day, what are you girls going to do for me?”

Instead of getting me toys per their earlier agreement, Zara said, “I’ll let you go pak toh (Cantonese : Go out dating) with Daddy.” (if you know how difficult for me to apply for visa to go out, you’ll understand this is indeed a very precious gift) and if this is not enough, she added,
“And then you can go do your hair, you can spend a long long time to get your hair done.” (I’d just told her I haven’t had time to get my hair done, because I spent all my time with them).

For Zara, granting me Me-time is her most ‘valuable’ gift.

For Zaria, she said, “For mother’s day, I’ll order cheese and bread (from Auntie Jelly) for you in the morning.”

Such innocence.

But then, something happened in the afternoon, which made me seethed with anger for the rest of the day, so I didn’t have any mood for a celebration.

Daddy wanted to have dinner with his mum, so a simple dinner with my in-laws at a near by restaurant is how we did it.

If you are my FB friends, you would have heard the songs the girls sang for me.. Their serenading voices, is the best gift to me.

Hope you have a nice one.

******* Post includes photos of of my dead Grandfather *******
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My 92yrs old Ah Kong (Hokkien : maternal grandfather), always said this when we visited him, “What to do, the one above didn’t want to call on me yet.” He was called by the one above on Sunday morning.

I only visited Ah Kong once a year during Chinese New Year for the last couple of years. Too busy with work, too preoccupied with our own family, too far away, are these good enough reasons?

My earliest and fondest memory of Ah Kong was me holding on to him on the bicycle when he sent me to school.

My father, who’s not done much of his son-in-law’s duty after my mother’s passing, worked extra hard to prepare the program, readings and hyms for Ah Kong’s funeral service.

The BEC (Basic Ecclesiastical Community) where Ah Kong belonged to did such a good job with prayers organising, and providing support to the family. I’m so touched by these people. They may not know him personally, but they were willing to devote their time.

Yesterday, while attending Ah Kong’s funeral service, I realised, the last service I attended in a church, was my own wedding 12yrs ago.

The relatives and frieds who came for the wake and the funeral service, some of them I last met in my mum’s or my Ah Mah’s (Hokkien : maternal grandmother’s) wake and funeral service, more than 12yrs ago. Near and far, they came to pay their last respect. A wake, a funeral draws a better crowd than a wedding, a baby’s full moon. Isn’t it ironic?

The person who shed the most tears after Ah Kong’s passing was, Mala, the Indonesian maid, who not only took care of Ah Kong, but also his best and closest companion for the last 4 years. She was the last person he called for in the hospital.

The Eulogy in the funeral was given by Mala. Her speech was well composed, spoke so wisely, and full of confidence. It made me wonder if she was given the same opportunity like we did, would she have been some one important in Indonesia.

The girls, with Tai Kong’s passing, wanted to know more about him, and what he was like when he was younger.

The girls, with attending Tai Kong’s wake and funeral, seeing Tai Kong in the casket, have better understanding of death now. Only death in fairy tales can be resurrected with a kiss from a handsome prince.

Rest In Peace Ah Kong.