Bad news first

Zaria had her very first fever yesterday evening. Jelly (Daddy nicknamed her Jelly brains, which I think it’s quite mean, but then, she is, well,…. jelly brains) didn’t even realise, and I discovered when I came down to feed her at 6pm. Sigh. Her temparature was 38.4, and she was hot! Trust the maids? *shake head*

Brought her to see a GP nearby, and kept sponging her when we got back. She was very active still, babling, crawling, cruising, just like her usual self but took lots of short naps in between. 

In the night, it shot up to 39. Being the mum, I was the one who went sleepless; sponging her, checking on her, feeding her medicine. This morning, we brought her to see her paed just to make sure she’s alright.

She’s still running a fever, and probably fighting a viral infection, according to the doctor, she should come out of it by Sunday. So, more sleepness night for me.

Daughter fever, mother suffers. 🙁

Since we went to the paed, got her latest measurement :
Height : 74cm; Weight : 7.8Kg (thin…); Head Circumference : 45cm

♥Good news now♥

Zaria has started addressing me on Wednesday night. Not Ah Meen, or Mama, and I didn’t have to wait for 14 months like Zara.

She calls me in her sweet little voice, “Maa-meeee”, when she sees me and it’s in the mood.

Daughter fever, mother willingly suffers.

Maa-meeee

I’m not an expert in this field, but I tried to sign to my girls as soon as they were able to give me eye contact. Since babies’ fine muscles for hands will develop sooner than their muscle required for speech, baby signing will equip them with some means to communicate to us even when they are too young to speak the words.

I don’t believe the maids or myself can master too many signs, so I’d only picked a few signs which I think is important, such as, Milk; More; Eat; Drink; Sing; Pain; Scared; full (patting the stomach); and I love You; and I taught the maids the signs.

To help the girls associate the sign to the word, we do the sign when we speak the word.  Example : “Do you want milk?” When the word milk is spoken, we clenched our fist to sign milk. In the end, the girls may pick up the actual sign, or they may invent their own which is suitable for their little hands. The most important is, we are able to communicate with signs.

I pick up baby signing through these sites : 
Singing with Babies, just to get started
American Sign Language (ASL) Browser, which lists words alphabetically, and provide you with videos of each sign.

An archive pix of Zara signing “MORE”

When the child knows you can understand her when she tries to communicate with you, she will try to communicate more. That’s my experience. So watch out for your child’s own baby signing, or babling which may mean something.

Just to share two incidents where baby signing helped save the day for us:
1st :
It was Zara’s 1st birthday, and at 3am that night, she woke up wailing. We tried pacifying her thinking it was just one of those nights. However, she kept signing “pain” while crying. We immediately brought her to the nearest A&E. She actually had very bad stomach flu, with bad stomach ache, purging and vomiting. We wouldn’t have known and rushed her to the hospital if she didn’t tell us she was hurting.

2nd :
The 2nd day Zara attended her class, she was still scared to be left in class. I told her we’d be waiting outside. On a few occasions, I peeped in through the opening of the door to her arts and craft class and signed “I love you” when she looked up warily. She nodded, and smiled, then went back to work. When she needed the re-assurance, she just looked up and I repeated the sign to her. It was like a secret code, calming her and making her feel good.

I love watching Zaria’s expression when she’s watching TV.

Look at Zaria, all geared for the show, even before the show began she was already signing ‘more’.

The show began, the animals were appearing, Zaria was getting real serious.

The cows went Mooooo, look at Zaria attempting to do moooo.

Watch Zaria signing bath (again, her own version but not the ASL standard) as the pigs were bathing now.

More animals were coming out, Zaria was getting really excited.

The show was about to end. She’s probably asking, “Where are the animals?”

The last scene where all the animal puppets appeared for the last time. Watch her go “THERE……”

Finally, when the show has ended, she wanted me to play it again. “I want more!”

I love to see these expressions. While Zaria is watching Baby Einstein – Baby McDonald, I’ll be watching her. 🙂

What is Beauty, what is pretty? Who is it to judge if one is beautiful?

Even Zara at the age of 3, judges beaty by its appearance. I had this conversation with her a week back :
Me : Zara, will you still love mummy if mummy is old and wrinkly.
Zara : No.
Me : *teasing* So you want to have another mummy?
Zara : Yeah. Next time when mummy old already, not pretty any more, Daddy will marry another girl.
Me : You want to have a step-mother?
Zara : No. No. Daddy will get married with a kind girl (she relates step mother to wicked)
…. Giving her father the go-ahead to marry another, if I got wrinkly.. o.O” ….

I talked to her further about beauty, and taught her to judge beauty by the heart and not the looks, or what people wear. Etc etc. In the end, when I repeated, “So now, Zara, will you still love mummy if mummy is old and wrinkly.” Her reply was,“Yes, because mummy is a kind mummy.”

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

How many young girls out there think they are not pretty enough, how many even think they are ugly? How do most define beauty?

Dove Self-Esteem Fund, a global program, invites us all to play a role in supporting and promoting a wider definition of beauty, to raise self esteem of girls and young women to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day.

As a mother of two girls, I thought this is a wonderful program, but I wonder how they intend to reach out to more people especially outside of the US. My two girls will grow up one day, and would be part of the crowd who are hung up on looks. This same crowd may have their self esteem affected if they think they are not the stereotypical beauty.

This program will help young girls out there understand what is beauty, and it’s not just about looks, which in turn may help raise confidence of these young girls and women.

The program is looking for passionate and genuine real beauty advocates to be part of this online community of supporters. If you are interested, do drop by their website.

Note : This is not a paid post…Oh well, I only got a t-shirt to spread the word. The conversation I have with Zara is 100% real, not made up at all.

Ever have your children ‘interfering’ in a fight/quarrel debate you have with your spouse?

As Zara grows older, she becomes more ‘involved’ in the adults’ conversations and tries to include her opinion of things.

Sometimes, we speak in Cantonse so that she won’t understand and she will remain quiet; but when the discussion becomes a bit too out of hand heated, she’ll say, “Shhh.. Shhhhh Daddy.. Shhhh Mummy.” she actually helps to clear the tension that’s building in our conversation, and helps straighten my knotted brows.

Last week, the below happened :

Daddy was angry with some small fault of Jelly, our Filipino maid. He was giving a lecture to Jelly over dinner, and I was getting a bit annoyed (dinner time in the house always ended up being a time he reprimands the maids).
Me : “Next time I’m going to have my dinner earlier before you come home. So stress eating dinner like that.”
Daddy : “So, you think I should just shut up is it?”
Zara : *matter-of-fact-ly* “Yah, Daddy. I think you should shut up and just eat your dinner.”
Daddy : *jaw dropped for a moment* “Oh, Zara, please don’t get involved in this.”
Mummy : *stiffling a giggle* “See, your daugther also tells you to just eat your dinner.”
We never used “shut up” on her before, so I guess, she doesn’t know the ‘seriousness’ of the phrase at all. She probably thought Daddy was yakking too much, and ought to stop and have his dinner.  😛

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

Can’t remember what I did, and Daddy made the remark.
Daddy : “Are you nuts or what?”
Zara : *Quickly went over to Daddy and told him*“No no no. Mummy is not nuts. Daddy is nuts!”
I was stiffling a laugh, thinking to myself, that’s really sweet of her to defend me.
Zara : *added* “Daddy is Nuts. Mummy is Bread.”
Me : Huh? (now, it doesn’t make sense)
Zara : *continued* “Daddy likes to eat nuts ma, so Daddy is nuts. Mummy likes to eat bread, so mummy is Bread.”
Me : *roll eyes*
Still, Daddy is nuts, not me, that’s the important point.  😛

Zara is very clingy to me, especially when she knows it’s a weekend, or it’s after working hours (I normally declare by shouting “DING DONG“ to the girls to indicate I’d finished work), and I’m supposed to be the one who ‘jaga’ (Malay : Take care of) her.

I tried training her to sleep on her own by giving her milk, wait for her to finish, and then conning telling her I need to take my shower first, before I join her in bed.

If she’s willing, she’ll agree, and will tell me, “Mummy, you take bath, but don’t close the door ok?”
Most of the time when I’m done showering, she would have fallen asleep.

There are times when she’s not willing to sleep first, and she’ll say “pat pat me first” or “You sleep with me first, then only take bath.” At times like this, when I insisted that I needed a bath, she would say she’ll join me in the bath.

What she’ll do is, she’ll pull a stool and place it outside of the shower cubicle, and then watch me shower; after that, she’ll pull the stool and place it near the sink and watch me brush my teeth.

Yesterday, I wanted to use the toilet and she told me she wanted to come with me.
So I told her, “Mummy want to poo poo la.”
She insisted, “But I want to come!”
“Very smelly la. You don’t follow me.”
Her response, “Never mind. I stay in the toilet and do like this..” And she pinched her nose.

o.O”

After rain in the evening, Daddy went for his jog, and I brought the girls out to the park.

Me : Can mummy go jogging with Daddy or not?
Zara : No no no.. Cannot. You bring us to the park.
Me : Mummy always never get to exercise, mummy will become fatter and fatter.
Zara : I don’t want mummy to be fatter and fatter. You go jogging la.
Me : I go now ok? Aunty Jelly will stay in the park with you.
Zara : Cannot.
Me : I thought you say mummy can go jogging?
Zara : The road so wet and slippery, after you slip and fall. You don’t go now.

o.O”

Yesterday about 7:30pm, after we’d gone to the park :
Me : Can mummy go jogging now?
Zara : No no no.. Cannot..
Me :  Yesterday you said mummy can (could) go?
Zara : It’s dark outside. It’s dangerous. After you cannot see, you bang on the pillar how?

o.O”

Me : Then mummy go tomorrow morning then.
Zara : No no.. I want you to sleep with me.
Me : I’ll sleep with you in the night, but in the morning before you wake up, I’ll go for a jog.
Zara : *pondering*
Me : Can or not?
Zara : Daddy jaga me?
Me : I don’t know, if you wake (woke) up too late, maybe Daddy has gone to work.
Zara : You don’t go la, you stay at home with me la.

My reason to be fat.

Zaria will be turning 1 end of this year, it means we’ll have to upgrade her car seat from the infant carier to a proper toddler car seat.

Now we have 2 choices :
1) to upgrade Zara’s current Maxi Cosi Priori SPS (takes a child up to 18Kg, about 4yrs old) to the Maxi Cosi Rodi XR (takes the child up to 36Kg, about 12yrs old) which is a booster seat; and then let Zaria have Zara’s Maxi Cosi Priori SPS
2) to leave Zara with her current car seat, and buy another Maxi Cosi Priori SPS for Zaria

The Maxi Cosi Priori SPS

The Maxi Cosi Rodi XR

Both SPS and Rodi cost about the same, but getting a Rodi XR means Zara can sit on the car seat for another few more years, and stretch our money further. The only reason why I’m hessitating to get the Rodi XR is the min weight for a child to use that car seat is 15Kg, and Zara is only about 12Kg.

Unlike most children, Zara prefers to be in a car seat, and as parents, we prefer her to be in one to.  So I don’t think we’ll take her out and place her in the pessenger seat like an adult so soon yet.

 What do you think? Should I go for option 1 or option 2?

WidgetBucks – Trend Watch – WidgetBucks.com

On a day when she had flu and she knows she can’t have anything cold :
“Kakak you warm up the ice cream for me la.”

On Daddy’s drinking in the restaurant :
“Daddy, you don’t drink beer la, after you mabuk (Malay : drunk) laaa.”

On her not able to handle her umbrella (kid’s size) in a windy, drizzling day :
“Mummy, I cannot handle any more. *Passed me the umbrella* You help me la.”

On me choosing her a DVD to watch (as she kept asking for the same one to be played in the evening for the past week) :
“Mummy, why you so stubborn one? I said I want to watch this show la, not that show.”

On Daddy blocking her in the toilet (Daddy brushing teeth and she needed to use the toilet bowl) :
“Excuse me Daddy, your big back side blocking me la.”

On me not wanting to bring her to the mini market :
“Mummy, you don’t be so selfish, you bring me to the mini market also”

Thanks to Leap Frog, we saw her using phonics the other day (nobody prompted her, she just picked up a book and did it):
*Referring to a picture of cat* Ke-ke-ke-ke Cat
*Referring to a picture of fish* Fe-Fe-Fe Fish
*Referring to a picture of a yo-yo* Ye-ye-ye-ye Yoyo
*Referring to a picture of a diamond* Die-Die-Die Diamond
The last bit made me laugh!! But, anyway, she got the concept right.

Notes : I’m the culprit who speaks with all the ‘la’s at home. Daddy has been ‘advicing’ me not to use so much la in my conversation with her, as she’s picking up all these from me. But I’m Malaysian la!