Zara is very keen in having nice teeth, we used that to coax her to brush her teeth every night.
“Do you want your teeth to be like Uncle Ah Seng’s?”
Remeber Sengkor‘s chocolate coated teeth, she would always shake her head and walk to the toilet to have her teeth brushed.
She always says, “Zara’s teeth so nice. Zara brush teeth.”

One night, when Zara was playing with Daddy, she spotted Daddy’s teeth.
“Daddy’s teeth not nice! Zara help Daddy brush teeth.”
To see what she would do, we gave her Daddy’s tooth brush, and she started helping Daddy to brush his teeth.
Even telling him, “Daddy, EEEEEE” (so Daddy have to say EEEEEE for her to brush his front teeth).
“Daddy, AAAAAAAA.” (and Daddy said AAAAA so she can reach for his molars)
“Daddy, brush tongue.” (and Daddy stuck his tongue out)

I have to crop the photos. Daddy would have killed me if I showed him opening his mouth wide like a hippo, but you can imagine what he was doing at the other end of the brush.

I have stopped going to the office for a while, and have been working from home for the past 1 month.

I take over the caring for Zara from Tuyam at 6:30pm as she has to prepare dinner.

What we’ll do is go to the park together, or have some water fun before she takes her bath. Then we’ll have dinner together at the table (Tuyam will feed her), normally this is when Daddy comes back. After dinner, we’ll watch a video or to do some drawing together.

At about 9pm, I’ll prepare her for bed, and Zara knows her bed time routine.

She has to wash her hands first or she can’t touch or get on the bed.
Then it’s teeth brushing, followed by changing her into her pajamas. I’ll get her to play on her own or get Daddy to watch over her, while I take my night shower.

After that, we let her choose 2 books from her stack which we will read to her.

After reading (up to 3 times a book, sometimes), we’ll just talk about what we read from the book. Sometimes she tries to ‘read’ us the book; sometimes she just talk about the story or book.
Like when we read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, she would say something like
“Zara like porridge also.”
“Zara don’t like hot poridge, Zara like warm warm one.”
“Zara got Daddy, Mummy, and Zara.”
“Zara like soft soft bed. Can roll here roll there.” etc.
This is a good time to get her talking.

If she’s still full of energy, we’ll do some singing, or else, I’ll make her bottle of milk, turn the lights off and have her drink her milk. This is the time Daddy will say his good night, and leave the room.

After her milk, I’ll kiss her good night, “Good night Zara, sweet dreams.” and she’ll repeat, “Good night mummy, sweet dreams.”

If she didn’t drift off to sleep immediately, she would start telling me what she wants to dream about. I don’t know if she understood what dream is, but she would go ..
“Dream about…Small small cheese. Cold cold, yummy yummy one. Zara like.”
“and then… chocolate. Sweet sweet one! Very yummy. Zara put in the mouth.”
“Dream about… swimming. Zara swim swim with dolphins. Water cold cold. So nice!”
“Dream about.. the zoo. Zara see lion, elephant, giraffe..” etc etc
I’ll just be the facilitaor and prompt her to tell me more, but let her do all the talking.

Sometimes I get too tired, and I’ll drift off to sleep before her. Sometimes, I can hear the last word coming out from her mouth, and the next thing, she’s sound asleep.

This is the quality time we have with her, daily, unless I have a night meeting to attend and Tuyam has to tuck her to bed.

I thought I’d give Zara a change, instead of going to the park in the evening like we always do, on Thursday, we did some painting, and after that, I let her hava a dip in her wading pool.

I painted her stomach for her, and then let her paint the rest of her body. It’s washable paint, and we did that outdoor. So.. no sweat!
I washed the paint off before I let her dip in the pool.. It was a hot day. She absolutely loved it!

On Saturday, we brought her to my sis’ apartment for a dip in the real pool.

Putting on her arm float for her (Her neck float was getting a too small for her already).Being in the big pool is different for her, she can’t touch the ground, so she was clinging on to me.

I managed to let her lie on the water to float for a few seconds without holding on to me. What an achievement for her! Or course, we gave her lots of cheers as well!

I then got Daddy to look after her. Zara was ‘demanding’ Daddy to bring her to the small pool, and then big pool and then small pool …, not being able to make up her mind. “This one not nice, that one nicer, Daddy go there *point to the other pool she wasn’t in*”

I just ignore Daddy’s complaints about Zara making him run around and had a good swim.

I used to swim a lot when I was pregnant with Zara, going to the gym (with pool) at least twice a week to swim for 20mins (non stop). Since we moved and it’s too far for me to go to the gym (and anyway I discontinued my membership), this is the first time I went for a swim after I knew I was pregnant.

I told Daddy we have to go to my sis’ place more often to swim. For the benefit of Zara and myself.

The days when I was away for my work trip, Daddy got MIL to come and stay in our house so that she can keep an eye on our maid while he’s at work.

MIL’s style of caring for a child vs mine is very different, especially in these 3 areas :
1) She didn’t believe in breastfeeding, and thought I breast fed Zara for too long, making Zara too attached to me. She was so glad I finally weaned her off from the breast, even after I told her many times the benefit of breast feeding, including the DHA I’m giving Zara, and the boost of immunity she’s getting from all the breast milk.
2) She thinks that a baby should be and can be toilet trained by the 1st few months of life. She’s appalled that Zara is still not toilet trained by 1 1/2yrs. She said all her kids were toilet trained within the first few months. I don’t believe a child can hold their bowel movement or bladder at such a tender age. It’s more of her being ‘trained’ to bring them to the potty at specific intervals.
3) She over protect the child. Even now, she still has her arms stretched out around Zara when Zara walks about, she’s getting ready to catch Zara if Zara fell.

I’m actually quite glad that I get to bring up Zara my way, which is through reading lots of books written by child care experts. Tuyam, my maid, is not married and has not cared for a child before, so I thought her my desired method, and she followed them.

So when MIL came over to the house to stay, both Zara and her were in for some surprises.

MIL was shocked we allowed Zara to play in her bath for so long.
MIL was always following Zara with arms outstretched, Zara found it very annoying.
MIL tried to stop Zara from sucking her thumb, and or course Zara was very upset.

When I wasn’t around, Daddy told me that Zara has been asking MIL to be away from her. When Zara is upstairs, she would tell her Mama, “Mama, go down stairs!”
When Zara is downstairs, she would tell her Mama, “Mama, go up stairs!”
And sometimes MIL close her arms around Zara (ready to catch her if she falls), Zara would point to a corner and tell her Mama, “Mama, go there!”

When I was around, I saw Zara pushing MIL away when MIL tried to help her climb a chair or on to the sofa (which Zara is already an expert doing it). I had to chip in and tell Zara, “Cannot be rude to Mama. Mama is just helping ok?” or “Cannot push Mama away, you know Mama is Daddy’s Mummy and she sayang (Malay: Love) you very much?”. Zara would then turn towards MIL and give her a hug, as though to apologise.

I know MIL loves Zara and cares for her. However, her method is not one that Zara is used to, so Zara is not accepting her. I’m glad and thankful she was wiling to help out when we needed her help. However, I’m also glad that she’s not Zara’s main care giver, as I think Zara would be a very different person under her care.

A few years back, I’d been on the Dolous ship with King’s Wife and her girls when it docked in Port Klang. It was more to bring the girls to visit the ship then to check out its book shop on board.

When I heard Dolous is back again in Port Klang, I told Daddy about it, and we decided to bring Zara there on Sunday. We arrived at Star Cruise Terminal, West Port 15minutes before it was due opened (@ 2pm), there was already a long long queue awaiting to get in.

Upon seeing such a long queue, Daddy started cursing and swearing. “Such a long queue!?” “You are crazy to want to come!” “Only Malaysians would queue up for such at thing!”
Zara was asleep, so she didn’t hear any of daddy’s ranting. I just said, “You don’t want to queue then go home lor.”
“You stay in the car and wait then. I go queue up, and call you when you can come.” (It always work if I pretended not to care and let him make the call, hee hee.)

So Zara and myself waited in the airconditioned car, and Daddy went to queue up. It wasn’t that bad, within 10mins, he called and told us to come, it was also good timing as Zara has awaken from her nap.

The Doulos

It was a hot day, and the ship was crowded! We could hardly squeeze into the book shop. When we wanted to get an ice cream, another long queue awaited us, so Daddy told me to just forget it. Despite the heat, Zara liked it though, to experience being on a ship, to enjoy the cool breeze on the deck. When Daddy pointed to her the sea below, she insisted, “Zara go down there! Go swimming!”

We spent less than 30mins on board the Doulos Daddy was so glad to get down from the ship. While we were getting out, check out the number of people waiting to get on board the ship! We spent sometime at the Star Cruise terminal, enjoying the cool breeze from the sea. Zara started exploring, singing, dancing, playing.

If you are interested, the Doulos will be in West Port till end of the month. Admittance is free, you just have to pay RM1 per car to park at the Star Cruise terminal.

Leaving for Singapore in a while for a meeting tomorrow. Told Zara about it.

Me : Mummy going to Hong Kong (just so she doesn’t get confused I didn’t say Singapore) to work work again, can or not?
Zara : *look a bit upset* Zara no cry. Mummy go work work, Zara sleep with Daddy.
Me : Good girl. Zara be brave and don’t cry ok? Mummy come back very fast one.
Zara : Mummy come back very fast. Zara no cry.

Maybe she thought I’ll be buying her tons of clothes or toys again. Yikes!

Having Zara around is fun, but it also means the house can never be tidy, every where she ‘sweeps’ through, either a small mess or a big mess is created.

Daddy and I sometimes call her Hurricane Zara.

The worst hit area is the living room, where she has her 3 boxes of toys, a small shelf of books, her box of CD/VCD/DVDs, her box of colouring and drawing stationary.

Depending on her fancy, she helps herself with whatever she wants to do for the moment.
It may mean pouring out a bottle of glass pebbles;
Then going to her shelf of books, digs for the one she wants, in the mean time scattering the rest on the floor.
And then she decides she wants to draw, so she reaches for her box of drawing tools and papers, takes them all out, draws a few lines on the paper
A moment later, she goes back to her box of toys, takes out her cooking set, and starts to do cooking.
A big messy trail is left behind, all within 30mins.

When we bring her up to the room, the same process happens, but b’cos she has less toys up stairs, all she gets to mess up is her stack of books.

How can I do without a maid? With Hurricane Zara sweeping through the house so often?

She likes the flower making set that Samantha has given her, and she could play with it for a long time, making ‘umbrellas’ and ‘vege’, as she calls it. I was working from home, and when I went down for a drink, here was what she’s made.

And here is another way she spends her days at home, playing with her balls. She says she’s playing badminton, using her toy masak-masak (Malay: cooking set) spatula as the racquet. She’s muttering “Oh-Dear Oh-Dear” when her ball got kicked away from her sight, and she’s saying “What to do? What to do?”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-BANPlAvE]

It’s really fun to see her play, as she talks and laughs and sings to herself a lot. That’s the thing about working from home, if I hear some gigling downstairs, I can always go check out to see what she was up to.

Zara is a thumb sucker since birth. We did try to give her the pacifier in the very beginning but she used to spit it out, and stuff her hand into the mouth instead (before she found her thumb). She has a permanant bump on the thumb and sometimes when she sucks too hard, a little cut is found.

Last week, I found her thumb was even bleeding a bit from all the sucking, so I took out the pacifier and tried to offer it to her. She did suck on it, like trying out a toy. Here is a video captured with her using pacifier. She had her hand placed below her chin all the time, afraid of the pacifier falling, a sure sign that she’s not a pacifier user.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p63bdSFP-g]

5 minutes later.. it was back to the thumb (photo below taken on a different day).

Every thing looks nice but tastes yucky.
~ That’s how my appetite is nowadays. I’m always hungry, and always want to munch on something. However, everything that I put into my mouth, tastes awful, it gets worse later part of the day. Morning sickness? Mine is evening sickness.

Nice things smell awful.
~ I bought the Anaku body shampoo for Zara to use because I loved the baby scent. Now, I can’t stand it. If I had to bath Zara, I’ll change it to soap. If Tuyam used this to bath Zara, I can’t even stand the smell of it on Zara.

Work work and work
~ My boss changed me to another project team. It means more work, more morning and night conferences with the US folks, and the start of traveling. I’d turned down a trip to Houston and a chance to meet Simple American (excuse, “medical reasons”), but I believe there’ll be some traveling within Asia which is quite difficult to refuse.

I’m tired
~ My work day sometimes start at 7:30am (meeting), and I continue working till about 7pm. On the same day, sometimes I get a 9pm or a later call.
~ Zara would be crying when I have to leave her at 9pm. I have to pacify her and then pass the crying child to Tuyam (Daddy is pretty hopeless when Zara starts crying)
~ Zara will stay up until I lay next to her. Normally I’m too tired and just doze off with her.
~ At 6am, she’ll be waking me up to make her “bottle milk”, like a zombie, I do just that, see that she finishes her milk, and try to get both of us back to sleep, even though it’s just for another 1hr or 1.5hr.

Yesterday
~ She cried when I have to attend my call at 9pm. Nobody was able to pacify her, she was wailing, “mummy, mummy“. So I had to carry her in the study, hooked on my headset, listened to the conversation at the other end of the line (and hoped they won’t call my name), and pacified the crying girl.
~ When she stopped crying, she started yakking away, about this wooden man figurine that I have in the study, here is part of what she said (She was repeating the same thing over and over for 30mins about the ‘boy’ being broken, because she bang it on the floor). I was really worried about her, chanting away like that.

(If you can’t see the player, the wav file can be found here)