Zara was having a very bad cough the whole of last week.

On Saturday, we wanted to go to Ikea to get Zaria a mattress for napping. Before we went, we stopped at a coffee shop for a drink. Zara had a big glass of Ribena.

30mins later, we were at Ikeno, and went to Manhattan Fish Market for dinner (Fish & Co still the best!). Zara had the kid size fish and chip, and it came with a glass of orange juice. She ate almost 2/3 of her meal, and drank up the whole glass of orange juice. Jelly couldn’t finish her fish & chips, and we packed it up, and the restaurant gave us a big plastic bag to hold the small styrofoam box.

Zara was coughing quite badly while we walked to Ikea. The girls stopped at the play area near the customer service counters. Suddenly Zara just stood still and started vomiting, two blobs landed on the floor. I managed to quickly put the plastic bag from the take away near her mouth while she continued to throw up. Her puke filled up like 1/8 of the bag. All she cared about after that was, Mummy, my beautiful dress! which she had stained a bit. o.O

After changing her to the spare clothes (which we always bring along for the girls), she was back to her normal self hopping around and checking out things at Ikea. We especially spent a lot of time at the children section where she picked up another Fifi (the soft toy dog) for a hug before we headed downstairs to pick up the mattress.

I was carrying Zaria and we went down the escalator first. Jelly was holding on to Zara’s hand and the light weight pram following behind. Just a few steps down, I heard Jelly shouted, “Zara!”. I turned around and saw Zara missed her footing on the step, and with Jelly pulling her up right, she stood up for a while and then plunged down into a sitting position on the step. Fifi was 2 steps below away from her. I shouted to Zara, “Stand up Zara”. Instead of standing up, she lunged forward, trying to grab the fallen Fifi. Luckily Jelly was holding her firmly, and she didn’t fall. I was screaming, “Zara, leave Fifi!”. Zara still tried to lunge forward. Jelly very quickly kicked Fifi away, so that Zara stopped attempting to pick it up.

2 seconds later, we’d all got out of the escalator. I dragged Zara to the side and asked her, “Zara, what was wrong with you!!?? Why didn’t you stand properly. I told you many times don’t fool around on escalators. Why did you want to pick Fifi up? What you did was very dangerous!” blah blah blah. Then I saw her face turning pale. I calmed down, and realised I didn’t check how she was. I gave her a big hug and told her I was so worried (actually, I probably missed a few heart beats thinking Zara was going to fall), and asked her what happened. She spoke weakly and said she wanted to sit on the pram. After putting her in the pram, she sobbed a bit and looked as though she was about to go to sleep. So I asked her gently again. She said, “Just now I was so tired and my leg just went soft.” Jelly then only spoke up (she’s not someone who offers information freely) “Mum, I hold her mum, and then she just fall mum. Like no more streght mum.”

Zara was in the pram looking pale and her eyes half closed. I kept stopping and checking with her if she was ok. She said, “Mummy, I’m just very tired. I want to sleep.” I then realised she might have fainted because of her earlier vomiting. I asked her if she wanted something to eat, she asked for sweets. We’d none but I told her I’d go grab a donut for her. I quickly paid for the mattress then headed out to get her something to eat. She asked for pop corn when she saw them. The colour on her face return as she started eating, and then she started telling me, “Just now mummy, when I stepped on the escalator, I feel dizzy. So my legs just went wobbly.”

I kept reminding her about her safety being more important than a toy, and it’s ok to loose a toy because we can always buy another for her. I knew she was back to herself when she told me, “If no more Fifi, mummy can buy another for me. If no more Zara, then Daddy and mummy have to get married again. And then Daddy and mummy will have a new step daughter.”

That’s my girl and her logic.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Have you heard of this saying before?

Two incidents we had with Zara which reminded me of this.

1st
I wanted to show Zara how a real Queen and Princess look like on movie, so I showed her the beginning part of Elizabeth, The Golden Age. When it got to the part where this fellow was about to have his tongue pulled out, I stopped the movie and told her that’s all she could watch. She said she wanted more. I refused, and told her they were too violent. She insisted, so I told her again the rest was too ‘scary’ and only adults can watch,
She said, “Next time when you old already, got scarry show, I don’t want to watch with you also. Then you cannot watch also.” o.O”

2nd
Both Zaria and Zara were fussing at the dining table, one spitting out her porridge, the other climbing on to different chairs and not eating.
Daddy said, “I think huh, both my daughters so yai-yai (Chinese : naughty), I better go and buy a cane already. Who don’t want to eat properly, I’ll whack her with the cane.”
Zara’s reply, “Daddy, you don’t buy the cane huh? If you buy the cane, next time you old already you naughty I also buy cane and whack you.” o.O”

I sing a lot to the girls, sometimes giving instructions in songs (which I made up the lyrics), sometimes just songs to sooth them, to entertain them, to teach them.

E.g.
Before bed time, I may sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars, or Barney’s I Love You.
To get them to bath, especially Zara, I’ll sing (a silly song and tune I created), “Your hair so smelly smelly, It’ll kill all the buggies. Quickly go washy washy, to get rid of the smelly.”
Or we’ll have Jackie Cheung’s karaoke at home.

The girls grew up with songs, and hence their minds are filled with songs too.

When Zaria sees a moon (the real thing or in the book), she’ll point to it and say, “Moon”.
Then she’ll ‘sing’ “Ke Ke… Star”; her version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars.

When Zaria sees a rainbow, she’ll point to it and say, “(Rain)bow”., looks at me “Uh.. Uh”.; and waits for me to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Zaria after a bath. (This has got nothing to do with this topic but I really like this photo.)

Zara is constantly entertaining us or herself with song singing throughout the whole day. Sometimes at the most inappropriate time as well, like during dinner time, she’ll sing with her mouth full or takes forever to finish because she’s singing more than eating.

She also likes to create her own tune and lyrics to reply to me, like e.g. “No, no, no, I don’t want to eat this one” when a vege she dislikes is offered to her.

Yesterday I made some pan cakes for breakfast, and got Zara to help me. While helping she sang a new song I never heard before,
Mix the pan cake
Stir the pan cake
Pour it in a pan
Turn the pan cake
Toss the pan cake
Catch it if you can.
(She said she learnt that from school)

So if you are in this neighbourhood, you’ll know which house is mine with all the melodic singing coming from. 🙂

On Saturday, it was Daddy’s birthday. Zara asked for some baloons for herself but I said no, because there were already 2 I pumped up for her in the house the day before.
As an excuse, she said, “It’s Daddy’s birthday, we need to have some more baloons!” o.O

Daddy bathed her and dressed her up. I checked with her later if Daddy applied her lotion for her or combed her hair.
She said, “Nope….” and then asked, “Do you think my Daddy is stupid?” o.O

We were in a DVD shop, and we didn’t realise there was a table laid with those XXX films, with naked bodies sprawled on the cover.
Zara came over and pointed to that table, “Mummy, why got shows like this one? Children can watch or not?” o.O”

Zara can do most things by herself, or play on her own, so most evenings, I concentrate more on Zaria, and spend more time with Zaria.
When Zara falls down, even though it’s a smallest fall, she’ll come to me, “Mummy, I fall down and hurt myself you know? Can you sayang (Malay : stroke) me or not?”
And then one day, Zara reminded me to spend equal amount of time with her. I was reading to Zaria, and Zara stood in front of me and said, “Can I play with my mummy now?” o.O”

She asked me where her soft toy lamb is, since I don’t know where it was and didn’t bother checking, I just mumbled it must be down stairs. She immediately pointed at me and said, “Mummy, you don’t tell lies huh? You hiding my lamb behind you. o.O” In deed, the lamb was actually behind me.

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I’m actually a very impatient mum, and I snapped at Zara quite frequently. Unconciously, Zara says things like these when I got angry, and reminds me of my shortcomings :
“Mummy, I love you, you know or not, but sometimes you always scold me.”
“Mummy, why are you so upset?”
“Mummy, don’t be angry, it’s a small matter.” o.O”

Zara, mummy is really working on this, ok?

I bought a new set of pajamas for Zara and had her put on tonight.

Me : *pretending* Who bought this pajamas for you, huh?
Zara : “Mummy bought from Reject Shop (this shows how often I buy her clothes from Reject Shop) one.”
Me : “This is not from Reject Shop. This is from Marks & Spencer. Do you like it?”
Zara : “Yah it’s very nice.”
Me : *testing her*“Mummy used your ang pow money to buy the pajamas you know?”
Zara : “It’s ok, you can use the money.”
(Talking like an adult!)
Me : “What about other things? Mummy can use your money to buy other things or not?”
Zara : “You are my mummy, of course you can use my money. Other people cannot use my money, but mummy can.”

^.^ How sweet.

If she said this to me when she’s 20, that’ll be really nice.

What a week it was. I put in 12hrs daily at work, slept at 1am 2am; even worked on Thaipusam day and still, I couldn’t finish what I should have finished.

Zara had really high fever last night, almost reaching 41degrees. Schools are the best places to pass on germs!
She was sweating profusely in her sleep one minute, and then another, she woke me up saying, “Mum, I’m very cold.”. True enough, her hands were cold and she was shivering.  I stayed up almost the whole night to watch over her, give her suppository, sponge her.

This morning when we asked if she was ok, and if we should bring her to see a doctor, she said “I’m feeling alright. I just feel very tired only.” How comforting to hear this.

Zaria woke up with a slight temparature too. Sigh! What bad timing, as I’ll be away for a week for work, and I’ll be worried about them. Tonight, Daddy will be looking after Zara, while Jelly will look after Zaria.

While I was packing, there was a thunderstorm, and Zara was accompanying me.
“Mummy, I don’t want you to go Japan.”
“Mummy has to, mummy’s boss wants to meet with mummy.” (can’t say ‘work’ because she told me I could work at home)
“Mummy, I want you to play with me.”
“Mummy will play with you when mummy comes back ok?”
Then there was a loud thunder, and she said, “Mum, you hear or not? Even the thunder don’t want you to go! See. Mummy, don’t go mummy.”

Wait till the girls are bigger, and both are able to say such things! *sigh*

Hope they will get well soon, and Daddy will take good care of them.

Just before she turned 1, there were occasions where Zaria would do a poo, and she would stand still in a frozen state and utter, “Poo Poo”.
3 weeks ago, when I checked with Jelly on Zaria’s bowel movement, Jelly told me Zaria has been doing her business in the toilet bowl. “She said poo poo mum (that’s the Filipino pronunciation for Maam), I put her in the toilet bowl, she poo poo mum.”

I didn’t believe Jelly, as well as Zaria’s ability.
It was the same story Jelly gave me for the next 2 weeks, although there will be occasions where Jelly said Zaria did it on the diaper. Still, it’s hard to believe what Zaria could do.

Yesterday, while I was taking care of Zaria, she suddenly froze, and said, “Poo Poo” and held out her hand (to indicate she wanted to be held to walk).
I quickly asked, “Meimei want to poo poo is it?”
Still with hand outstretched, she repeated, “Poo Poo”. and then had the expression that she’s pushing something out.
I did a quick check of her diaper, and saw a stool just being pushed out. Yikes.
In an urgent voice I told her, “Meimei wait, mummy bring you to the toilet.”. In a dash, I removed her diaper and sat her on the toilet bowl. “Meimei can poo poo now. Mmmm Mmmm.. Mmm Mmm.” (urging her).
She sat still and really did it! She did 2 more big poops, and then wanted to get down. Probably an indication she’s done!

I didn’t believe what Jelly told me, but when I saw it myself, I was really amazed. Even Daddy think this girl is unbelievable. And there was no concious effort to toilet trained Zaria. Not when she’s still so young though.

Zara was able to tell us she’d done a poo only after the fact at 18 months. Zaria hasn’t reached 13 month yet, and she is able to tell us before she actually does it! I find this really amazing.

My google ranking is ZERO now! (actually not just now, but since Jan 1st)

Daddy is not around, so I have to send Zara to school in the mornings, getting stuck in the heavy traffic!

Only 1 maid at home, cannot do my own things or work after 6:30pm until the girls are asleep.

Zara throwing lots of tamtrums, probably missing Tuyam, and maybe also because she’s tired sleeping late and waking up early for school.

So many escalations lately at work. Working late all the time!

I want to do this tooo…..
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(but then I’ll be careful and not knock my head so hard until I get a permanant bruise on my forehead)
(this also explains why I have not been visiting your blogs)

My two girls rarely fall ill. *Touch wood*. Even if they did, they normally recover really quick, from a cough, a fever or a tummy upset.

But then this month, one week after Zaria, it was her turn.

For 3 nights, she had fever as high as 39, and I had to wake up middle of the night to sponge her, check on her, and even gave her suppository twice. She was rather happy with all the attention I’m channelling to her. However, I was drained.

Now that their fevers have gone, both girls are coughing, although Zaria’s not as severe as Zara’s.

Sometimes, when she gets a bit upset with all the medicine drinking, she asked if she could have the bum-bum medicine instead, thinking the suppository can cure all. o.O”

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By the way, do you read the label on those medicine they give to kids? I saw Paraben in Zara’s cough mixture, something we don’t want in our skin care and toileteries (most organic skin care and toileteries claimed they are without) now found in their oral medicine? Scarry.

I think I’ll go boil her favourite dessert, birdnest, instead.

Malaika’s mummy tagged me couple of weeks ago, asking if I spare the rod when disciplining my girls.

I don’t own a cane at home and I try not to smack Zara. However, at times when she really pushes me to the limit, I will smack her on the buttocks; E.g. the time when she pinned Zaria to the ground when Zaria tried to reach for a toy she’s holding; or when she broke an item in the house even though I’d repeatedly told her not to touch it.

Most of the time, when she’s misbehaving, I’ll put her in the naughty corner, set the timer, and told her she can only get out when the timer alarm goes off. Sometimes, she will even go there on her own when she knows she’s done something wrong.

Last 2 days, she really drove me up the walls. Not so about her behaviour, but the way she talked back. When we told her off for some mischief she’s done, she said something like this, “Hush!” “I don’t want to talk about it, ok?”, then turned her head to face the opposite side.

Then yesterday, when she lifted her dress in a busy shopping mall, and later pulled down her dress so that her body was in full view of passer by, both Daddy and I told her, “Zara, that’s not a very nice thing to do in public ok? You are a girl, please don’t show people your underwear or your body like that.” She sulked big time, refusing to hold my hand when we walked to the car. Didn’t want to sit on her car seat on our journey home, folded her arms and faced the car door throughout.

I tried to coax her, by saying she’s our daughter, and we were only saying that so she knew right from wrong. She replied, “I’m not your daughter. Zaria is your daughter. I am kakak’s daughter.”

Daddy said she must be tired (she didn’t nap the whole day) and becoming irrational. I tried to coax her still, by offering my hand for her to hold, by saying, “Come on, lets give each other a hug”. I must be in one of my more ‘zen’ state, because when she scratched my hand twice, and then slapped my face, I didn’t smack her. I issued my last statement, “We are a family, so please don’t behave like that, ok?” She pointed at me, daring me, and she said these slowly, “You   and   I   are   not   family!”

That’s it. I walked away. Very very upset (actually I was really hurt!). That was when she cried and shouted, “I WANT MUMMY!” “MUMMY I’M SORRY!….WAAAAH” And tried to hug me and not let me go.

Daddy said I shouldn’t take it too personally, she’s only 3 year old, and she is just like me, when I’m tired, I like to use words to retaliate which I later regret.

This is The Look she gives, when she talks back

Does your child do that to you? What would you have done if you were me? Should I invest in a cane now?