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.

To follow up on this post, here is how the cot is joined to our bed after one of the railing has been removed.

Every night, I push the cot close to our bed. I put the brakes on for the cot, place a chair between the other side of the cot and the wall (to prevent the cot from even making the slightest move away from the bed frame). Then I place 2 bolsters to fill the up the gap between her mattress and our bed frame.

Put 2 more pillows to cushion the gap. (Our bed frame is slightly lower than the standard bed frame. If we got a bed frame with the standard height, it probably would have been leveled with her mattress.)

Normally if she woke up middle of the night, she would roll over, and snuggle beside me.

In the morning, all the bolsters and pillow will be removed, and we’ll ‘park’ her cot against the wall.

I had lived in the same house with King’s Wife and her daughters for about 5 years. When my nieces started watching TV, King’s Wife bought loads of Barney VCDs for them on purpose to drive us up the walls.

You can imagine the house was always filled with songs from Barney, and the silly sounding laugh of Barney every time my nieces conquered the TV (which was almost ever day!). Everybody was singing “I Love You, You Love Me.. yada yada “.

When all you get on TV was Barney, you lost interest in TV itself (no wonder I really don’t watch that much TV, must be the post-Barney syndrome), and any appearance of him made you want to tear your hair and punch the wall.

For Zara, in the beginning, I only showed her Baby Einstein (she almost always falls asleep with this) and Wheels In The Bus.

One day while shopping in Singapore, I saw Barney’s VCD going for S$1.99. Wow, what a great deal isn’t it? So I bought 2. Since I bought, I might as well play it for Zara, give her a variety of programs to watch.

Big mistake! Now that she knows she can make her own decision (for choices like Bottle or Breast, Bread or Yogurt), she wants to decide what she should watch too. Every time when I asked her to choose a VCD to watch, she would go to her stack, pick up Barney, and shout “Money! Money! (her Barney)”. Even when I play another program for her, she would continue to hold up the Barney VCD, and chant “Money! Money!” It is very difficult to get her to watch another program now.

When Helen’s old house was invaded by termites, mine was invaded by the purple dinosaur. I can foresee it is here to stay for at least another 5years!

And guess who is going to inherit King’s Wife’s numerous Barney VCDs? Yikes!

Which kid doesn’t like horsey rides? Zara loves it, and she’s looking for all kinds of things she can ‘ride’ like a horsey.

My bolster, her bolster

Daddy. The funny thing is she will sayang (Malay:pat/stroke lovingly) the ‘horse’ head’ first before she rides on ‘it’.

And finally..

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Russ our cat. We actually have to stop her from crushing the cat.

After the long break during Christmas & New Year, and with me working from home twice a week since we had broadband, Zara has become ever closer to me.

Starting this year, on days I go to the office, when I drop Zara and Tuyam off at King’s Wife‘s place, Zara would kick up a fuss. She would be reaching her hands out for me, put on a very sad face, refusing to follow Tuyam or Lita (King’s Wife‘s maid) into the house. Normally, I’ll pick her up from the car seat, say my bye bye firmly, tell her to be good and that I’ll see her later, passed her to either Lita or Tuyam, get back to the car and drive off. Making our parting short and sweet.

this is how she looks like when she doesn’t want me to leave her (this is not taken at King’s Wife‘s place, but the situation and the expression is the same)

Tuyam said at King’s Wife‘s place, Zara would be fretting, and during nap time, she would be tossing and turning, and mumbling Ah-Mee (her pronunciation of Mummy). Sometimes Tuyam has to call me in the office and let me talk to her. Normally it’s just a ‘Hi’ from her, some talking from me to tell her to be good, listen to kakak, and then a ‘bye’ from her and end of conversation. It seems to help her to feel more settled.

While working from home, she would constantly try to climb up the stairs, or point up to the study from the courtyard, and start calling “Ah Mee”. I have to avoid coming downstairs, because if I do, she would rush to me, then cling on to me and refuse to go with Tuyam when I have to go back to the study to work.

Even in the middle of the night when I have to go to the washroom, if she so happened to turn to my side and found I wasn’t there, she would sit up and then call for Ah Mee (crying will start if she didn’t see me in a few seconds).

I wonder what would happen if I was given a summon by the boss to go for a business trip??!! How will the both of us cope with the separation anxiety?

Zara’s physical strength sometimes makes us wonder if she’s going to grow up to be a tom boy.
When she was 10months old, she would lift up an orange using 1 hand;
At 13th month, she would try to lift up her tricycle, and drag it to wherever she wanted it to be. And once, she even carried a bag with 2 tins of formula (sample from her Paed) weighing 1Kg in total from the living room to the kitchen.

Recently, however, she has shown some feminine interest. When she gets hold of a hair clip, she tries to clip it on herself. And when she spots my bracelet or spots hers, she would ask for it; and then attempts to put them on her wrist.

To make her keep her hair clip on her hair, we tell her, “Zara looks pretty!”.
To encourage her to have the bracelet on, we tell her, “Wah, Zara’s bracelet so pretty!”.
She would then happily have those pretty things on.

When she puts on these ‘pretty’ accessories or put on a piece of clothing she thinks is beautiful, she point to those items or pull her clothes up to to show off when she sees familiar faces. She would like the person to comment that it’s pretty before she walks off with a grin.

After all, she’s a girl; she likes pretty things, likes to look pretty and likes to be complimented.

One of Zara’s favourite book was about Jojo a baby who likes to play with his food instead of eating it. Every time when Zara misbehaves, we’ll ask her if she’s yai-yai (Chinese: naughty in a mild form) like Jojo. Actually Jojo isn’t really naughty, just playful, but it was appropriate to use this to teach Zara.

A few days ago
Tuyam told me this conversation took place when she was looking after Zara, and Zara was throwing her toys in a tantrum.
Tuyam : You naughty huh? You Jojo?
Zara : Za-ah!
Tuyam : You not Zara, you naughty, you Jojo!
Zara : *pointed to her chest* Za-ah!
Tuyam : You Jojo!
Zara : *kicked her legs, about to cry, pointed to her chest* Za-ah!
Tuyam : Ok Ok, you Zara, not Jojo.

This morning
I was changing to my work clothes and Daddy was in the shower. Zara walked into the bathroom, and started tapping the shower screen.

Me: (while adjusting my clothes) Zara, what are you doing?
No response from the bathroom, so I went to check on her, guess what I saw? Zara had her hands in the toilet bowl playing with the water! *YUCKS*
Me: *rushed to her and slapped her hands*
Zara, yai yai!
Mummy told you cannot touch that!
It’s big people’s potty!
The poo poo goes in there!!
Very dirty!
Zara touched it, get germs, then stomach PAIN PAIN!
(Had to say the above phrase by phrase, so she could understand)
Zara: *clapped her hands* beat!
Me: *scooped her up* Yeah, mummy beat beat Zara because Zara yai-yai!
Zara: *stared at me* (I think she knows she’s at fault)
Me: *brought her to the sink* Now your hands are dirty, must wash hands!
Zara obediently let me wash her hands. After cleaning her up, I brought her out of the room.
Zara : *pointed to her mini library* Jojo! *clapped her hands* Beat!
Me: Yes! Zara yai yai like Jojo lo, that’s why mummy beat beat! Next time don’t be yai-yai any more ok?

Not sure if she understood my ‘long lacture’ in the bathroom and will not pull that stunt again, but she definitely knows how to relate to Jojo.

We went for Daddy’s company dinner in Mum’s Place at Mutiara D’sara yesterday night. The whole upper floor of the restaurant was allocated for the event. It was an informal affair, and dinner was buffet style.

Zara was so well behaved the whole time. There were candles litted up every where and she was very facinated by the flickerring flame. I warned her that it’s VERY HOT HOT, and if she touched it it’ll be VERY PAIN PAIN. A few times when she wanted to touch it, I pointed my finger at her, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

Zara last met some of Daddy’s colleagues 5months back, so I don’t believe she has any recollection of the earlier encounter.

She said Hi to most of them (she would raise her hand and then said “Haai”) and shook their hands (if they asked). She let them hold her hands to walk with her or carry her. She was very fond of this particular girl who is Daddy’s colleague’s daugther. Zara was running to the little girl all the time, puting her hands on the little girl’s lap and just looked and smiled at her.

The whole dinner, she was walking here and there without any reservations, laughed when people laughed (we called it her politician’s laugh). We just let her roam (since it was an enclosed area) but watched closely to make sure she didn’t do anything dangerous, or bump into any sharp edges.

At one point, one of Daddy’s colleague just picked her up very suddenly, and I expected her to look my way for help and cry, but she didn’t even cry or fuss, but just stared at her for a while, and then relaxed.

Even though the event stretched way beyond Zara’s bed time, she was still a sport. When the older kids played musical chair, she was dancing to the music. When some one won the game and got a round of applause, she clapped and laughed along as well.

When it was time to go home, she said good bye to everyone in her sweetest voice (her “ba-bye” is one of the sweetest sounding words she can say) and blew them flying kissess. She also almost hugged every one; and with the little girl she liked, the hug lingerred a little longer.

On one hand I’m proud of her for being so sociable and so easy to adapt to new environment and people. On the other hand I’m a bit worried if she’s too sociable for her own good.

Daddy loves fish, any types of fish (not the same type of Piscean Lust that this guy has though, Daddy’s love is the edible type). Big fish, small fish, ocean fish, fresh water fish ; cooked in whatever styled, steamed, fried, soup, curry. And Zara is just like Daddy.

When it’s dinner time, and we put her onto her highchair, she would point to the fish dish (we always have a fish dish for dinner because Daddy can’t do without) and bounced excitedly on her chair chanting, “wis!”

If we gave her just her porridge (cooked with either pork or chicken with vegetable), she would just casually trust her tongue and push the porridge out of her mouth (her way of spitting). We have to take a bit of fish, put it on top of the porridge and tell her, “See, fish! Now, eat.” We can’t cheat her, she has very sensitive taste bud, if she tasted no fish in her porridge, she would just spit out the porridge.

We went to have Japanese dinner during the weekends. We ordered a serving of grill salmon with salt for Zara. The first bite she took, she immediately put her thumb out and said, “Gng” (her pronunciation of Good). She had 2/3 of the salmon steak all by herself!

At home for dinner, the amount of fish she consumed is the same as the amount I would take.

This week for dinner, she refused to have her porridge nor rice, and just wanted fish, nothing else! Where is she going to get her carbo?

This morning, I told her in the car,
Me : Tonight’s dinner, you ask Kakak to cook you fish ok?
Zara : *bouncing in her car seat* Wis!
Me : How you tell Kakak to give you fish?
Zara : TATAK! Wis!
Me : How big you want the fish to be?
Zara : *stretched her arms out and bounced further* (her way of signing big)

The rate she’s eating fish, we’ll have to buy another adult’s portion every time we go marketing. With a big cat and a little cat at home, fish has become a necessity!! Luckily we have befriended the fish monger in our market in Kampung Subang who sells us very good and fresh fish at a reasonable price (used to do marketing in Imbi Market and paid double the price for same amount of fish)!!

2005 has been a good year, mainly because of Zara.

Nothing has prepared me for this, but
I started to realise the joy of motherhood
I started understanding the capacity to love, to care for, to nurture another individual

I saw the first smile, the first sit, the first crawl, the first swim, the first step, the first dance
I heard the first laugh, the first word, the first singing, the first phrase
I experienced her first kiss, her first hug, her first snuggle
I nursed her first fever, her first fall

2005 I fell in love all over again, this time more passionate than any other times I’d experienced with a man. I became a mother and fell in love with my daughter

2005 was all about Zara, Zara and Zara, and I know the coming years would be the same too
2005 was a good year, with Zara, everything is good

Thank you all for reading my blog, for sharing the joy and pain with me

Happy New Year to All Of You!