Daddy and I hardly go out alone, we always bring the girls everywhere we went. In a year, we probably go out for dinner 5 or 6 times without them. The girls, who are hardly left at home without us, had to be informed in advance, it’s kind of like having to apply a going out Visa from them.

Over the weekend, we wanted to go out for dinner alone (first for this year), so here is the Visa Application process.
I asked, Zaria, “Zaria, mummy and daddy go out for dinner tonight, you and jiejie stay at home with aunty ok?”
She replied, “Ok mum.” That was easy.
Zara was upset, and she said “No. Why must you go out without your children?”
I had to explain to her, parents have sometimes spend time alone, etc etc, and I’m not really asking her for permission, but rather giving her advance notice we’ll be going out.
“You think leaving your children behind and locking them up in the house and then you go out is a nice thing to do is it?” o.O”
I have to tell her we’re not locking them up, they are free to roam about, choose what they want to do in the house, and we’re just going out for dinner, not leaving them that long.
“You have all the bad things (thoughts) in your head, that’s why you said this.”
o.O”
(She’s very capable of attacking you using words.)
When I told her that’s not something nice to say, tears was welling up in her eyes, and she said, “I want you to forever stay with me.”
“But I’m staying with you forever, it’s just that Daddy and mummy had to go out for a few hours for dinner to spend time alone, then we’ll be back. You can have your favourite spagetti for dinner, and then you can watch a show after dinner, and then we’ll be back already.”
“What time are you coming back?”
“By ten.”
She thought for a while, and then, Visa approved!

Oh, this is not all, we had another check point. When I told Jelly, our maid, we would be leaving the children with her for a couple of hours while we went out to have dinner, she put on her black face.
Daddy was so annoyed, he gave her a lecture, “What do you expect? We cannot get you to take care of the children when we go out for dinner is it? How often do we go out without them? Just this one time you want to give me black face?”

See, not easy huh? To just want to go ‘pak toh’ (Cantonese : dating). After all these, when we reached the restaurant, Daddy said, “I really don’t like to let the girls miss out on such things.”

Aiyo.. like I’m the bad one, who likes to go out without them, and do not feel bad about it.

Photo credit : School of Evangalisation Australia

The girls have been asking us to read them their children’s bibles, and finding some of the stories very interesting.

One day on the way home from school, Zara asked “You know right, Jesus died and went to heaven, but how come we cannot see Jesus in space?”
Me : “What do you mean?”
Zara : “If he’s in heaven how come we cannot see him in space?
Is he invisible?”
Me : (Err.. I actually don’t know how to answer her, so this is what I said) “He is everywhere, so it’s not easy to see Him.”
(Luckily Zara figured it all out)
Zara : “Oh.. he has to go to every children’s house to hear them pray. That’s why.” (so He’s not staying in space at one spot to be easily seen).

A couple of days into her writing project, she started complaining when I asked her to do writing after dinner.
“Why every day I have to do writing writing writing only and not have fun like playing.”
I told her she had her play time from 1pm (after school) to 8pm (after dinner), isn’t that enough. She just sighed and went on to write.

Yesterday, I asked her, “Do you know why I’m asking you to do writing every day?”
Zara replied “So that my brain will be refreshed and when I grow up, I’ll never forget to write.”. *Her exact words. I think what she really meant was, she will remember events and won’t forget how to write.

On another non-related item, Zara is becoming a rather strong character. She rarely cries when I’m stern with her during homework or piano practice time, although sometimes I can see her in the verge of crying. However, she’ll cry if Zaria bullied her (the slightest punch or a tug of hair) or when she has a fall. More like cry for attention and TLC.

2 days ago, I spotted a cavity in her molar (her very first cavity), and when I pointed out to her, she started crying, and crying, like loosing something precious. Being the vain pot that she is, she doesn’t want to have rotten teeth, as she’s very proud of her nice pearly whites. I told her she’s getting cavity because she’s been having too many sweets since Christmas. So she made a vow, “I’ll eat sweet and I’ll jump day. Yesterday if I eat (ate) already, then today I don’t eat, and then tomorrow I’ll eat again.” Good girl.

*If you asked me how I remember what the girls said, I actually write them down in pieces of paper.

I just started a writing project with Zara this week.

I was worried about how she still mixes up d and b, writing j and s the other way round, and mixing capital letters and small letters in the same word (i.e. boG instead of dog, or dEb instead of bed), so I thought I should spend an hour each day with her, to get her to do some writing, what better way than to start something like a diary.

I’ll ask her to think about what she wants to write, then help her by
1) making sure she doesn’t mix capital and small letters in the same word,
2) spelling with phonics, or guide her on the spelling of sight words

After she’s finished writing, I’ll tell her the correct way of spelling some of the words that she’s spelled phonatically.

Here are her writing the last 2 days. Since she likes drawing, I ask her to attach a small picture about what she wrote.

25/1 – Both girls played with party poppers (they got from friend) without any adult’s supervision (although I’d told them before hand they can’t play with them on their own and told them what could happen if they did play on their own). I punished both by getting them to stand at the naughty corner, and when they started fighting at the naughty corner, I smacked both. She drew a sorry card for me (and drew herself on the naughty ‘chair). She crossed out the tear, and checked smile, and she said, “Having tears is not good, but smiling is good.”

26/1 – When I went to pick up the girls from school, we saw a mother’s car window being smashed by a thief who wanted to get to the handbag the mother left in the car. I like the smashed window she drew.

I hope by doing this, it’ll help with her writing.

We wanted to go to a Chinese Restaurant for dinner, the tai-chao type (outdoor, no aircon) which the girls don’t really fancy. Zara kept saying she didn’t want to go and asked us to eat at another place, but we told her we’d decided.

Zara : “I will go to the restaurant. But….. you promise me to read 6 books tonight.
Me : “6 is too many. 3.”
Zara : “No.. 5.”
Me : “4 then.”
Zaria chipped in too: “No….. 5.”
Daddy : “Come on. 2 daddy 2 mummy.”
Both girls : “OK then.”.
And true enough, both girls behaved during and ate their dinner.

(I’m actually quite happy they love reading so much that they used this to negotiate. We had to limit night time reading to 2 books per night as their books are getting thicker and stories are getting longer as they grow up.)

See this girl.. so angelic looking right?

When she’s angry, she is fierce. Girls were playing together, and Zara took away a pebble from Zaria. Without warning, Zaria took off one side of the click clock shoes she was wearing, and tossed it at Zara in a fit of rage. It hit Zara on the forehead, and created a big bump on her head, not to mention a bruise.

See the bruise? That’s 3 days later.

Zaria got lots of lecturing from both Daddy and I, and also spanking from me. And now, her beautiful click clock shoes will be locked up. No more wearing click clock shoes for her.

This wasn’t the first click clock shoes incident. A couple of months ago, she was wearing them in the bed room, and something triggered (which I can’t recall what it was now), and made her really angry. She tossed one side of the shoes at our wardrobe, no damage to the cupboard doors, but see the chip on her shoe?

Do you think it’s her age? Or more her character? I just hope she’ll be able to manage her anger better when she gets older.

Like an angel hor..?

This is what she’s capable of doing…. (and what I’m capable of doing)

I forgot to bring their milk along to pick them up from school.
Little Tyrant : *shouting on top of her voice* I WANT MY MILK NOW!
Me : Sorry I forgot to bring.
Little Tyrant : “I said I WANT MY MILK NOW!
Me : But mummy didn’t bring.
And started driving the car away from school.
Since Little Tyrant sits in front, she started kicking me, scratching me, kicking the gear box..
Me : Stop doing that
Still, she scrarched me, smacked me, kicked me.
Me : *found a spot to stop the car* You get out of the car and take the taxi home if you want to kick me some more.
Little Tyrant continued kicking.
Me : *Opened the door* You go! You get down and take the taxi home!
Little Tyrant stunt (probably didn’t think I was going to do that).
Zara : *Crying* Mummy, what are you doing? *covered her eyes* Mummy, what if someone catch meimei?
Me : Do you want to get down or do you want to be good.
Little Tyrant : *in small voice* Be good

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

I had to go to Kinokuniya, KLCC to exchange a book I wrongly bought. Daddy dropped me off and stayed in the car with the girls. When I got back, Little Tyrant started a shouting bout.
Little Tyrant : I WANT TO GO TO KLCC NOW!
Me : Mummy finished changing the book already, now we go for dinner
Little Tyrant : I don’t want to go for dinner, I said I WANT TO GO TO KLCC NOW!
Me : *bluffing* KLCC closing already, because it’s so late, we need to go for dinner.
Little Tyrant : I throw my shoes at you then you know!
Me : *turned back and warned* Don’t do it…
Little Tyrant really took off her shoes and started tossing to the front, but because her aim is not good, it hit the back of our seat and dropped.

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

Little Tyrant was very quiet for a very long time. When we found her, she was in the toilet staring at the bubbly sink, grinning. She had poured half the bottle of Dettol handwash into the sink, turned on the tap and watch the bubble mass.

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

Little Tyrant cries for the tiniest thing, like Zara flushed the toilet for her instead, she’ll be screaming and wailing “I WANT TO DO IT MYSELF!!!!!”

And when she cries, she CRIES. Wailing on top of her voice, kicking a big fuss, lying down on floor, breaking things she comes into contact etc etc.

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

I have tried all sort of ways to discipline her, sending her to the naughty corner, puting her in the toilet to cry herself off, smacking, threatening (e.g. She’ll go to naughty school if she cannot behave). Then yesterday, I told her, “If you so yai-yai, you are not like my daughter, you are like Cruella De Vil’s (from 101 Dalmation) daughter.” I gave her the DVD and showed her the cover with a big Cruella De Vil’s face. She doesn’t like it, and normally she would quickly put the DVD down with Cruella De Vil’s facing downwards.

This morning, she picked up the DVD, put it right in front of her face (with Cruella De Vil’s face out) like a face mask, and started walking around. “Look at me!!” o.O”

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

Most of the time, she is like this…

Tell me, what can I do?

I created an album each for the girls for their 1st year. Last night, Zaria wanted to look at hers, so we flipped through hers together. Some of the photos that stirred them emotionally.

Zara : *pointed to the above photo* What’s this?
Me : That’s Zaria. The photo is taken when she was still in mummy’s stomach
Zara : Why is she brown?
Me : (aiyo, what to say?) Err. It’s just how the photo turned out. Maybe b’cos she’s surrounded by water in my stomach.
Zaria : That’s me? I’m a brown baby?
Me : Ya, that’s you.
Zaria : *lips curled downwards* I don’t want to be a brown baby!
Me : Ok ok.. we look at other photos. Don’t look at this one.

*flip flip*

Zara : *pointed to the photo* Oh.. look at Zaria, she’s so cute!! So chubby. Oh… now she’s so big *full of affection*

*flip flip*

Me : *pointed to the photo* Hey, Zaria, look. Last time you were so brave, you dare to swim in the pool yourself. How come now you need to hold on to mummy?
Zaria looked at the photo, her lips started to curl down, then tears started falling.
Me : Hey, what’s wrong?
Zaria : *pointing at the bottom middle photo* I’m drowning. I’m drowning. Waaaaaaaa..
Me : (surprised why it made her so emotional) You were not drowning.
Zaria : *tears still flowing* You see or not, I’m crying. I’m drowing. Look.
Me : (quick! Find an excuse) You were not drowning. We wanted to go home already but you still wanted to swim, so you cried.
Zaria seemed to be thinking about my answer, and stopped crying until she saw this..

Zaria : *her mouth curled further down, and big drops of tears flowed down* “WAAAAAAAAA!!! I want my daddy. I want my daddy.
(Daddy has been out on work trip whole of this week)
Me : (aiyo) You missed your Daddy?
Zaria : *nodded and continued to cry and sob* “Uhgh..Huh huh”
Me : I call Daddy then?
Zaria : *shook her head* “I don’t want. WAAAAAAAAAAA”
Me : *quickly called Daddy* “Eh, your daughter miss you very much la, saw your photo then started crying. You talk to her. *passed the phone to Zaria*
Zaria : *took the phone and listened* “sob sob”
Daddy : ….. (don’t know what he said)
Zaria : *nodded her head* “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.”
Daddy : …..
Zaria : *nodded her head some more, then gave me the phone* “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. I don’t want to talk any more.”
Me : *took back the phone* Aiyo, never mind. See you tomorrow, let me calm her down first.
Zara : *sadly* I also miss my daddy you know. He’s so fun. (ok, ok, I know, I’m not as fun as Daddy).
Zaria : *looked at Zara* “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.”
Me : Never mind, never mind. Tomorrow Daddy coming back already. (Alleluia!)
Me : We sleep now, tomorrow wake up, go to school, come home, take nap, then Daddy is home. Ok? Come lets go to bed now.

The End.

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”

It’s a working day for me today. The girls were playing in the morning, when Daddy was at the wet market and Jelly was doing house work.

45mins into my conference call, I heard crying downstairs, Zaria first, followed by Zara. Then Zara came up and she sobbed while she told me, “Mummy, I pushed Zaria and she fell down, her mouth got blood.”. I thought, maybe Zaria’s lip was cut; as I was hosting the meeting, I had to get someone to replace me, before I could go check on Zaria. While I was trying to do that, Jelly came and told me, “Mum, Zaria’s teeth came off.”

Oh shit!

I quickly updated my colleague on the emergency, and checked on Zaria. One of her upper teeth has been pushed into the gums, just a tiny bit still ‘exposed’, with blood dripping down her chin. Zaria didn’t cry, but just said, “Jiejie pushed me, got so much blood you know.”.

My heart almost stopped seeing the bloody gums. And imagine my rage towards Zara. I was scolding her while comforting Zaria, and even gave her a few smacks on the buttocks. I told her police may want to investigate the case, she better had her bags packed because she might need to stay in the police station for investigation. (I’m bad, I know. Really really mean. To think back now, it doesn’t help with me aggravating the situation.)

After I found someone to be my back up, I went downstairs to get ready to bring Zaria to a nearby dentist. Zara had already taken a bag downstairs and a few pieces of her clothing. I felt sorry for her but I was still angry so I didn’t comfort her.

Daddy got back just in time to go to the dentist together.

At the dentist, I was shaking when the dentist checked on Zaria. As I was sighing a lot and kept uttering “Aiyo..” The dentist told me to have Daddy hold Zaria instead while she carried out the procedure. She said my anxiety may affect Zaria. This was what she did, first, rubbed some gel to numb Zaria’s gum, then she put local anesthetic, and then she pulled the tooth out to its original position and use a thread to tie it around the tooth and other teeth to hold its position, and hope the cells around her gum will grow and grip the tooth back. It may or may not be successful, and Zaria may have a slow growth in her 2nd set of tooth, due to the impact.

Zara and I were peeping from the outside; When I saw the big syringe taken out to inject the local anesthetic on Zaria’s gum, I almost cried. Zara was still sobbing, feeling afraid and sorry.

Zaria was a tough cookie. She didn’t cry and was very cooperative. The dentist was quite good too, she gave Zaria a pair of sunglasses, spoke calmly to her, and when she had to inject the anesthetic, or pull the tooth out, she used her other hand to cover Zaria’s eyes, so she can’t really see what was being done to her.

After everything was done, Zara said, “Luckily the dentist fixed the tooth, I don’t have to go to the police station now.” o.O”

I just hope the tooth is really fixed, and Zara will learn from the lesson of not being too rough to Zaria.