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.

On our way back from school, Zara told me, “Lin Jing and I are in love you know. But he’s going to marry Rachel. Sigh”
I asked, “How do you know he’s in love with you?”
“CL told me that, CL told me Lin Jing loves me, but he cannot get married with me. He can only marry Rachel.”
Love can be really complicated for a 5 year old.
o.O”

Last week, when I picked her up on the last day of school, smiling happily she showed me a heart shape magic wand Lin Jing gave her. “See, Ling Jing gave me this. He loves me.”
I asked her just out of curiosity, “He only gave that to you?”
“No, he gave all the girls one.”
“Huh? So he gave everyone?”
Defensively, she said, “He’s very kind you see. He knows girls like magic wand. So he gave all the girls one.”
o.O

In the car on our way back, she told me, “I’m so sad, after today, I won’t be seeing Lin Jing again.” Lin Jing is a year older, and he’ll be in Primary one next year, in another school.
Soon after, she added, “Never mind, I’ll find a new boy friend. Mickel will be my boy friend next year. Luckily I have a replacement.”
o.O”

Confused with her school concert date, we decided to celebrate Zara’s birthday a week earlier, thinking the concert would be held on her actual birthday, but it is actually a week later. We are obviously parents who do not read school notices.

On 14th November, we invited our neigbours, 6 families all in plus my SIL and MIL who also moved to our neigbourhood recently, to celebrate Zara’s birthday. This time, I ordered Nasi Dagang, fish curry and fried bee-hoon from a new restaurant near our place; at home, Jelly fried a veg, some chicken wings, and I baked some cheese puffs, apple crumble, and of course, Zara’s cake.

Zara has been very much into mermaids these days, so I thought I’ll create a mermaid cake for her with sea creatures all included.

Baking of the cake and cupcakes started Friday morning. In the afternoon, I tried to mould a mermaid using fondant, and in fact it was a nice mermaid with a tail that sparkled. I’m not sure what went wrong, but I suspect it’s due to the humid weather, the mermaid started sweating, and turning soft; by evening, it was one fat and flat mermaid. So at night, I started creating another mermaid, this time making its body thinner, and then I left it in a air tight container with dehumidifier sachets. I can still see the mermaid softening a bit, but it was better than the fat mermaid. Because of the softening of the fondant, I didn’t feel comfortable creating more sea creatures for the cake.

The fat mermaid that was ‘sweating’ away.

I decorated the cake and the cup cakes till 2am on Friday, and this was the end result.
Still a lot of room for improvement, but I guess for a first fondant cake attempt, it’s not too bad.

The cake (for adults) surrounded by cupcakes (for the kids).

Side track, on Saturday morning, Zara was being a bit naughty, and due to lack of sleep, I was getting grouchy, and I told her off, “If I knew you would be so naughty, I wouldn’t bake you the cake.” Now this was before she actually saw the cake I completed the night before, and guess what my spunky daughter said? “It’s ok mum. I can ask Daddy to buy from the shop. The ones in the shops are nicer anyway.” *crack! went my heart*
After she saw the cake, she felt really sorry, and started apologising profusedly. But you see, she is capable of saying such things.

Ok, back to the party.

It was a good turn out, and the girls have fun playing with their play mates (whom they regularly meet and play together at the park). I am thankful to my SIL who was entertaining 11 children in the play room with baloon fights and all, while I spent time chatting with the neighbours.

Now, Zaria has been attending friends’ parties, and she has stopped crying during birthday song singing since early this year, so we thought there won’t be any drama on Zara’s birthday. When the birthday song singing started, she was quiet for a while, and then suddenly burst into tears.
Later, when we asked her why she cried, she said “Everybody was singing so loud.” o.O”

Thanks to Kathy, who still caught Zara blowing her candles amidst the chaos (the loud bawl from Zaria, and Daddy running off with Zaria to calm her down).

One of the children came to me at the end of the party and said, “This is the best party ever. I have so much fun.” I give my SIL credit for entertaining the kids. 😛

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On Friday, a day before Zara’s actual birthday, we celebrated Zara’s and Zaria’s birthday in school. Zaria’s birthday is not until end of the year, but she wanted so much to celebrate with her friends and teachers in school I thought we’ll do this 1 month earlier together with Zara’s.

The day before, Zara helped me to think of how to decorate her cupcakes. She wanted flowers in the middle of each cake, and I got her to decide on the colours (with me making a few small batches of fondant in different colours). The final product, was a batch of cupcakes decorated with (store bought) sugar flowers.

I sent them to school in the morning, and stayed till their break time. I helped the teacher to set up the snack area to prepare for the ‘cupcake party’ (since that’s the only food served)

Zara and Zaria were beaming with happiness. When the birthday song was sung, Zaria didn’t cry, but was smiling and looking around. (Later when I asked her why she cried in jie-jie’s party, but not in school, her reply, “I only like children singing, I don’t like adults singing birthday song.” She’s sure full of excuses).

They were both happy to distribute their party packs to their friends too. Later, when Zaria came home without a party pack and started sharing Zara’s goodies, Jelly asked Zaria, “Why you didn’t take one party pack home?” She replied, “The party packs are for my friends. Not for me.”

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Happy 5th Birthday Zara, may you grow up healthy and filled with love and happiness. Daddy, mummy and mei-meil love you very much.

Here is Fifi

Here is Flower.

Here is Daisy.

You think they are the same ‘dog’?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But they are not.

Zara has had her Fifi for almost 3 years now, this is the soft toy she brings on her trips, she hugs to sleep, watches TV with.

This is the soft toy she plays pretend with, and every time when we tell her about an experience, or a fact, she’ll always apply it on Fifi and tell us in return, “You know right, Fifi also been to China before with her mummy…” or “Fifi eats a lot of carrots, that’s why her eyes are very sharp, she can see very far away….”

Last weekend, we went to Ikea, to get Zara a new Fifi, because hers was wearing out, she named her new Fifi, Flower. Zaria insisted she wanted a Fifi too, so we got her one, and Zara named it Daisy.

Zaria hugged Daisy to sleep the 1st night, brought her to school on the 2nd day, and then chucked it away and only took it out when we reminded her about Daisy.

Fifi is easy to identify, as she’s scruffy looking. I had to write Daisy’s and Flower’s names on their labels so the girls know who is who, but I guess after a while, when the soft toys take on their owners’ scent, they’ll be able to identify who is Daisy and who is Flower. (Actually, Zara already know how to tell Daisy and Flower apart. According to her, Fifi has sad eyes, Flower is always frowning, Daisy has normal eyes) However, I doubt Zaria will still show interest after a few days though.

One day, Zara handled an expensive toy lizzard roughly and torn a big piece of fabric where a sucker was glued to the palm of of the lizzard.

I was really upset. Although I bought it during a sale, it’s still none the less expensive. I told her “From now onwards, I won’t buy you any more toys!”. I could see she was upset as well with my reaction, but she didn’t say anything.

I went to our bed room and did some reading. Zara came in, with trembling voice (not from fear but rather on the verge of crying) she said, “It’s ok, you don’t have to buy me any more toys. I don’t want any.” and before I could say anything, she walked away.

Then 2 mins later, she came back in holding a sticker, with tears in her eyes, she said, “Actually I wanted to give you this. But now I won’t.” Again, she walked out of the room before I could react. I didn’t go after her either, because the book I was a page turner.

Another 10 mins later, Zara walked back in with a drawing. She just gave it to me, and walked out of the room. Below is her drawing.

You can see that she has drawn me crossing her out in my thoughts, and both the love next to our names being crossed out, she said it shows that we don’t love each other any more.

After looking at the drawing, I went out and saw her standing at the door sobbing. I told her I didn’t really mean what I said, and I was angry but now I forgave her for breaking the toy. She asked me, “Do you still love me?” I told her “Of course.” She asked me to wait, and she went back to the table to draw, and 5 minutes later, she came back with this.

She said now we have a lot of love for each other, and both of us are happy

We see Zara growing up beautifully and we’re happy for her development. She speaks politely most of the time, using proper English, and she tries to influence people around her to do the same.

We were told in school, she will correct other children’s English, or manners. And she correct her music teacher’s English too, when the teacher uses ‘la’ or ‘ma’ in her instruction.
“Teacher, don’t speak sloppy English.”

She shows more interest in Mandarin now, and always asks me to speak to her in Mandarin. She will try to speak or reply in Mandarin, mixing in English words when she doesn’t know or forgot the word in Mandarin. E.g. “老师对不起，我没有做功课。因为我went out, 没有time做” (Sorry teacher, I didn’t do my homework because I went out and didn’t have time to do).
or “妈妈，我可以吃那个biscuit吗?” (Mummy, can I eat the biscuit?)

She’s becoming more mature in her thinking, i.e. She has been playing and walking our neighbour’s dog, and one day she came back and told me, “Mum, can you buy me a dog?”
I told her we’ll need to get a bigger house first, or else we won’t be able to accomodate a dog.
“Then from now on, you should not buy me any more things. Even if I deserved it.”
She said that way we can save more money to buy a bigger house.
When I asked her what about her birthday, she deserves a present, but should I get her one?
She replies, “No, my birthday is different, you must get me something. Maybe you draw me a card?”

She does her homework on her own after her nap daily, she puts back her things after using it. She’s doing well, really. She’s very honest even when she knows if she confessed something she may get punishment.

Of course, there are times she still snatch things from Zaria, or bully Zaria, but she always have her excuse (the same one), “I got a bit carried away.” o.O”

Her strength is defintely around the liguistic field.

We’d celebrated Hari Raya and also Deepavali in the same month. For us, it’s really just a holiday break. For the girls, it was a time for them to discovered the differences in each of this celebration.

Zara drew this in school for Hari Raya. She knows there’s ketupat and the pelitas (some type of Malaysian wall candle sconces or oil lamps) in this celebration.
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And then for Deepavali, she realises that there’s Kolam drawing every where, and she made one herself on paper.

Zaria, not to be outdone by Zara, did a drawing too. She has been very proud of her drawing, and kept showing it to us. Can you tell what she tried to draw?

Here’s her answer : “See, my birthday cake drawing. I draw (drew) decoration on the cake. They are sweets. This is the baloon. See, Daddy and mummy is (are) also there. My picture got present also.” Zara helped to write Zaria’s name, and put in the words (ok, she spelled that phonetically); she also drew Zaria next to Daddy and mummy, drew a present (which Zaria later coloured), and also some candles on the cake.

Lately, I feel so tired all the time. Even with all the supplement I’m taking, and sleeping early, it’s still the same.

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When I call Zaria Little One, she tells me, “I’m not little any more. I’m big girl already.”
When I ask her to do something on her own like clean up or yesterday, to wear her own socks before bed, she said, “I’m still a small girl. I cannot do myself.”

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

Every week, we get Zaria telling us :
“I love you mum.” one day; then another day “I don’t like you anymore” or “You are not my daddy any more.” or “I don’t friend you then you know”

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One day when Zaria was super naughty, since there’s no cane in the house, I took hold of a paintbrush the size of a cane (in circumference not in length), and smacked Zaria.
Later, when it was Zara’s turn to be naughty, I threatened to use the same method on her, and she said, “You smack me with the paint brush, I’ll ask Aunty Jelly to call the police and catch you.”

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I asked Zara who was her favourite aunt, Karen yi-yi, Teresa yi-yi (my sisters), ku-ma or Ah Kim Jenny (my SILs). She told me “I like Ah Kim the most.” When I asked why, she told me the reasons, “Because Ah Kim is the most rich” Then further added “And also because mei-mei doesn’t like her. If I don’t like her, then she’ll be very pitiful.”

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I enrolled in a baking course ran by Taylors but last minute decided to pull out because my neighbor who’s done the course before told me it wasn’t worth the money. Zara was quite keen in me joining the class, so that I can bake big cheese pies for her and also nice cakes (that’s what she said). So I asked her, “Will you blame mummy if mummy didn’t go for the class?”
Like an adult she told me, “No, I won’t because it’s your property.”
Then continued, “You just learn from books then, and also watch TV to learn.”

When I picked Zara up from school, Ling Jing, the boy Zara likes, was there too waiting for his transport. When we got to the gate of the school, Zara told me to wait and turned back, “I need to go back and give Ling Jing a hug.” o.O”

In the car we had this conversation. It goes something like this :

Me : Why do you like Ling Jing so much?
Zara : Errr….. Because he’s a bit taller than me.
Me : Mikel (who was his dancing partner in her concert) is nice and quite good looking also, why don’t you like him?”
Zara : Mikel is not so tall ok. How can I marry some one shorter than me?
Me : Oh, you like someone tall. Then you should marry mummy’s boss. (my boss is very tall, fyi).
Zara : Your boss is too tall, his head is going to poke through my car. o.O”
Zara : And Mikel should marry Chi Ling, because their skin colour is the same. (both have darker tanned skin) o.O”
Me : Then why don’t you like Ze-Wen (another boy in her class)? He’s tall.
Zara : Do you know Ze-Wen has a problem?
Me : *o.O* What problem does he has? (I thought he has learning disability or something)
Zara : You know he’s only five years old and he’s so t-a-l-l, something is wrong? o.O”
Zara : Ling Jing’s height is perfect for me!
Me : Does Ling Jing speak well?
Zara : Ling Jing’s Chinese is very good.
Me : His English is not good?
Zara : His English is ok, he doesn’t speak sloppy English (at home when she uses lots of ‘lahs’ and ‘mahs’ and ‘wut’.. Daddy will say she’s speaking sloppy English)
Me : Is Ling Jing nice to you or not?
Zara : He’s very shy. You know, WY (her best girl friend in school) also likes Ling Jing. I have to see how to get rid of her. Maybe I’ll set a trap to catch her. o.O”

I don’t think she meant the last remark, because she said it while smiling.

One day we were talking about love.
Me : Do you think mummy love you more or mummy love meimei more?
Zara : I think you love me more, because I’m good girl and Zaria is very naughty
Me : No. Mummy love both of you the same. Because both of you are my daughters
Zara : I think I love you more than Daddy.
Me : But mummy always scold you.
Zara : *reassuringly*It’s ok, you scold me for a reason. Daddy dilly dally for no reason, just always like to dilly dally.

Zara was angry with me for something I said in the car (actually, it’s just a small matter, we said we’ll go for a holiday without her, and she got so upset), and when we got to the supermarket, she didn’t want to hold my hand. She even said, “I don’t love you any more. You are just a piece of junk.” (if you are asking whether I’d used such words to her, NO, I never did).
She was walking in front, and I was just following behind. When she took a turn, she got blocked by some dry grocery sacks (where I was tall enough to see her, but she’s not tall enough to see me). I just stood still on the same spot to see what she’s up to.
Then, she turned back and couldn’t spot me. I could see her turning white, then red, she took a few steps forward, then backwards, terrified, she started shouting, “MUMMY! MUMMY!” and then started crying. I raised my hand up and said “I’m here.”
It took her a while to calm down, she kept asking me, “Where were you? Why I couldn’t see you.
I told her I was right behind her and because she was angry, she couldn’t see me.
She said, “I was so angry until my eyes got fire, and I cannot see clearly. Now I’m happy, my eyes got water, wash away the dirt and everything, and then I can see clearly. o.O”

Zara went to the shop with me and when we got back, she swung the car door too hard, and knocked into the pillar in our porch. The car door has a slight scratch. Of course Daddy wasn’t happy. He brought it up again after a day :
Daddy : So, what did you break today?
Zara : Nothing.
Daddy : The rate you are going, one day you wake up and you’ll find the whole house collapsed.
Zara : Dad, I don’t want the house to collapse.
After thinking for a moment..
Zara : But the house and the car is not connected wut!