This only happens if you work from home full time.

I have a week’s training to conduct in a KL hotel so on last Sunday, I told Zara I wasn’t going to be at home for the week, and will only see her in the night.
Zara : “Mummy I want to go with you.”
Me : “No, you can’t. Mummy is working and you cannot be in the (function) room with mummy.”
Zara : “I can wait for you downstairs.” (recalling the security guard didn’t allow her to go into our office previously)
Me : “Mummy is not going there for a short while, mummy has to be there for the whole day. Anyway, uncle Chintan (my colleague from Sydney whom we met 2 weeks ago) is also going to be there.”
Zara : “Uncle Chintan is just your small boss (which I told her when we met him during his earlier visit), you don’t have to listen to him right?”
Me : “But mummy’s big boss also asked mummy to go to the hotel to work.”
Zara : (knowing she’s not winning) “You know mummy, if you are not at home, I cannot sleep properly.”
o.O”

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As for Zaria, she’s getting quite good with self defence.
When she tried to touch a forbidden object, I told her I’ll ‘flick’ her hand if she tried to.
Zaria : “Don’t shoot.”
Me : “If you are yai-yai (Cantonese : naughty), and you touch it, mummy will shoot you. How will mummy shoot you?”
Zaria : “With arrows!”
o.O”

Once when she let go of my hand and ran to the middle of the road, I picked her up and smack her buttock, telling her what she did was dangerous.
Zaria : “Don’t! Don’t smack my buttocks!”
o.O”

And every time when she gets hold of a toy, and Zara starts reaching for it too, Zaria shouted, “Don’t snatch. Che-che, Don’t snatch!”.

One of our colleagues came from Sydney to Malaysia for a holiday, so Mom2Ashley and I met up to have dinner with him. We brought our kids along.

Ha, we didn’t plan this, but both Ashley and Zara wore the same outfit which we bought for them from US. Not to mention, I too wore the same outfit, because Zara insisted that I wear the same top as her.

When the 2 first met, Zara being the brave one, went over to shake hands with Ashley. Ashley was a bit shy, and she just stared at all of us smile-less.

At the restaurant, we put both of them seated together.
Zara initiated, “Can I borrow your car.”
Ashley said, “Yes”
They both played with a car separately.
After a while, when we said we wanted to take a photo with the 2 of them, Zara sat over at Ashley’s seat and put her arms around Ashley (See Ashley in the photo, still hardly warmed up yet).

Next moment, spark flew. They started playing like old friends, chasing each other around, laughing at each other’s jokes. When Ashley needed to go to the toilet, Zara followed too, holding each other’s hands. We can see both of them were enjoying each other’s company.

When it was time to leave, Zara asked me, “Why we go home so early? I was having fun with Ashley.” o.O”

That’s no way I can have as much fun with Zara as she could with her own group of friends. Just like the last time we went to Jazzmint‘s place, she too had lots of fun with Faythe. So we’ll need to organise some kind of play group for them in the near future.

Oh what about Zaria? That girl was too busy exploring, no time to make friends, if she could just sit down quietly like Aidan half the time, that’ll make us less tiring.

When we were at St Anne’s, I’m not sure what happened but Zara suddenly started to sulk and no matter how I tried to coax her, it didn’t help. So I let her be and walked away.

She followed me closely, but I let her be and didn’t try to say things to make her happy any more. She suddenly stopped me and said, “Mummy, be happy.”
I replied, “How to be happy? Bring you for holidays then you want to sulk for no reason.”
She answered back, “Mummy, this is a church. You come to church you must be happy. Come, be happy.” o.O”
(I think this is her way of ‘recovering’ from the situation without explaining why she sulked earlier on).

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I was just saying out loud to myself, “Aigh, I’m old already.”
Zara heard and then quickly came over to tell me, “Mummy, don’t say you are old ok? If you say you are old, then you’ll be old. You must say you are young, then you’ll be young. Next time you better say you are young. Don’t say you are old ok?” o.U
(This is her advice on ‘positive thinking’)

Man, she’s turning into a ‘sin-ka’ (仙家, Cantonese sarcasm for a ‘sage’)

Before the Raya mad rush, we took a week off and headed North for our once a year trip to Penang.

The night before, Daddy asked, “You sure we need to bring along Jelly?” (he was thinking of bringing his dad instead).
Imagine we’d been having this bring-don’t-bring conversation since August, and made a decision and now this?
I was ‘tulan’ (Cantonese : annoyed) and replied, “If you can feed the girls, bath them, wash the bottles after their feed, then no need to bring.” Grrrrr…
Of course Jelly came along eventually.

We took off on Saturday, with a car choked full of things. It’s no joke travelling with 2 young kids.

When we had a pitstop at an R&R some where near Tapah, we kidded with Zara and told her that we’ll be staying in one of the outdoor pavilions; nearby, some goats were bleating. She was worried, and when she was convinced we were staying there, she said, “I think we better go home.”
Daddy still teasing, “We thought both of you like farm stay, that’s why we chose this hotel.”
Zara replied, “I don’t like farm stay, I like home stay more. We go home better.”
I pretended to cancel this hotel and told her we’ll try to get another room in Penang. She was relieved, but still added “If no nice hotel, then we drive back home ok?” o.O”

First stop of course is St Anne’s (church) at Bukit Mertajam.

In the old chapel, Zara said her prayer while all Zaria wanted to do was blow off the candles at the alter (of course after Happy Birthday singing). -.-”

While looking around, Zara stopped at the statues showing Jesus’ crucifixion looking very sad and asked me, “Mummy, why the people so wicked they want to nail Jesus on the cross.”
Seriously, for me who still have questions about my religion, I don’t know how to answer her.

We stopped at Bukit Tambun for dinner, the restaurant that we went to last year was closed to public for a wedding so we had to go to another restaurant (some fishing-floating restaurant). Food was lousy. Phhhhbbbbbt…

We arrived at Bayview Beach Resort at 8:30pm. Zara was so happy and relieved when we stepped into the room. We took the L-shaped family room again. The room is spacious and clean; 4 of us took the king bed, and Jelly took one of the single beds. We had an early night although I was tempted to sneak out to start my DVD shopping.

Sunday morning was spent at the pool and at the beach. Zara preferred the earlier, while Zaria the latter.
When we brought Zaria to the pool and took her to a deeper end where her feet couldn’t touch the ground, she said, “I’m scared.” or “I don’t yike(like)”. When we asked Zara to go to the beach, she said, “I don’t want, the sand is so rough.” So we had to split into two groups. 1 to the beach, 1 at the pool.

For lunch, the girls had Pizza from Papa Pizza at Tanjung Bunga, while we had char kuey teow (Hokkien : fried flat rice noodle) behind Papa Pizza. I think the pizza was better than the kuey teow.

Love this shot of the girls, just up from their naps and attacking the left over pizza.

In the evening, we headed to the Botanical Gardens. Zaria, the adventurer, tried to get close to the monkeys, and a few times almost got attacked by them. She was a bit disappointed to know that the monkeys were ‘not-friendly’ and ‘naughty’.

They loved the place, the flowers, the plants, the space.

A lot of people were crowding around this guy at the entrance of the garden. He was selling curry puffs, spring rolls, wades, samosas. What made it so special is after you’d chosen what you want, he’ll cut them up and pour asam laksa soup over them. I had a piece of ‘asam laksa’ spring roll, and it was quite good.

Dinner was at Nonya Breeze (we never missed it). Still so good, still so reasonably priced.

Monday morning after breakfast, we visited Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. We missed 30mins of the guided tour, and still, the girls were getting a bit restless following the guide for the rest of the 30mins. This place is beautifully maintained, but girls have no appreciation for all these.

We had char kuey teow at Lorong Selamat. Yummy but very expensive. RM14 for 2 plates and even the boiled sugar cane water cost RM1.70.

After the girls’ nap back in the hotel, we split into 2 groups and let them chill out at the pool and beach again.

Guess what we had for dinner? Papa Pizza was so good we went there for dinner (actually, it’s also because the Phang Hainanese Seafood Restaurant we wanted to go was closed).

Tuesday morning, we finally managed to see a horse at the beach (horse riding was one of the reason why we chose to stay in Batu Feringgi). After agreeing on the price (RM50 for 2 rounds), I took the girls. Poor horse had to endure the weight of the 3 of us. Zaria was really happy to finally get to ride on a horse. She kept patting and saying, “Hello horse.”.

(Some sad fact : This horse used to be a race horse, and retired after 5 years of racing. It became a horse for holiday goers to ride on at the beach until it reaches 10years old. What happened next? The owner will sell it to some Chinese who’ll turn it into horse satay. Humans are so cruel. -.- )

Zara spent more time at the pool after the horse riding, and I squeezed in a foot massage by the pool. Zaria went back to the room with Jelly for a nap. Before 1pm, we checked out and left the hotel. On our way out, we had a very tired Zara snoozing, and a very energetic Zaria singing.

Zara used to be a wailer, you know the crying-for-1hr-like-a-banshee kind? The no-matter-what-you-do-will-not-calm-her-down-once-it’s-started kind?

She was at her worst when she was around 18months~30months old. Not that it was’t bad when she was younger, but that time I thought she was still a baby (and a high need one) and I could tolerate it better. This so stressed me out.

When she started her wailing;
I used to hug her, didn’t work.
Talked to her and tried calming her, didn’t work.
Put her in the naughty corner, didn’t work.
Once, when she was standing right in front of the study screaming her head off (while I was working), I got so angry, I lifted her like a sack of potato, brought her to the room, placed her on my lap gave her 2 big smack on her buttocks. It didn’t stop her crying but instead made her cry even louder, and made me feel extremely guilty and lousy.

Daddy kept telling me it’s her state of mind, and nothing we did would stop it, so we should just let her cry it out.

Eventually, I took the approach. I just told Zara I won’t hold her or hug her until she stops. She can wail or shout or scream, I won’t touch her. “If you are upset, or angry, crying is ok, but you have to control yourself and not cry and shout like you are crazy. Mummy will hug you when you calm down.”

I’m not sure if this helped, or she is just growing up and went passed that phase. Nowadays, when she cries, it will be only for a short while. Sometimes, the crying is replaced with a sob, and she’ll come over and say, “Mummy, I can control myself already.” occasionally adding, “Because now I’m 4 years old.”

I have been telling her, I’m really very proud of her. I really am.

TV can be so useful, to ‘baby sit’ the girls, and for the girls to pick up new words, some of it good and some may not. And I also saw a lot of reaction from the girls, which in normal day to day life may not surface.

Zara being the sensitive girl, held my hand tight with tears forming in her eyes when she first watched Mulan and heard Mulan singing the song Reflection.

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My sister told me when we missed the return ferry out of Pulau Ketam, Zara kept saying, “My mummy will kill me.” to my sister. When I asked her where she learnt that from?
Zara said, “Ariel (from the Little Mermaid) said that when she missed her concert (musical debut). She said her daddy will kill her.”
o.O (Thanks Ariel)

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Zara asked Daddy, “Daddy, do you know what is San Diego?”
Daddy replied, “It’s a city in America.”
Zara said, “San Diego is a beach with lots of sand.”
I looked at her and said, “How do you know?”
Zara said, “The zebra in that zoo show said so.”

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

When she saw her cousin’s lantern which is a horse with wings (I would have called it that), she said, “I want to play with the flying pegasus lantern.”
(This she picked up from Barbie’s Magic of the Pegasus show).

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

And we have Zaria, watching the war scene in Mulan, shouting excitedly, “Oh Gosh. Oh Gosh. Oh Gosh.” o.O

She also started calling Daddy, “Papa”. Obviously, picked up from Mulan too.

We always think that Zara is advance with her speech development, but come to her penmanship, we were getting a bit worried.

She could write numbers, but not alphabets. I thought her to remember my mobile number (just in case she need to use that info one day) by singing my number to her, “ZERO ONE doot, doot dooot doooot, doot dooot doot dooot (*censored*) mummy’s telephone.” to the tune of Twinkle-twinkle Little Star repeatedly.

She could recite/sing out the number quite a while back and a month ago started writing them on papers. Woooooot!

During the 1 week school holidays, I got her to start practicing to write the letters A, R, Z. Although she can recognise the letters, she had difficulty remembering how to write them.

To make her remember the stroke of the letters, I have to say,
A is like a tippee
R is like half a lollypop which is wearing a skirt (P = half a lollypop; that strokes -> |\ is a skirt); if the skirt is too tight, the lollypop will not be able to walk, if the skirt is too wide, the lollypop is making a split.
and
Z is a lightning, or a zig zag.

It may not make sense to others, but she use that info and started practicing, and on the 2nd day, she managed to write her own name. Wooooooot!!

And then we also started seeing her putting more details in her drawing. Woooooooot!

This is one of her work. Our family with her ‘signature’. I guess you can kind of make out who is who.

Sometimes, we have to take it from her.

♥Language Police♥

Daddy is trying to get rid of all the LAs, MAs, WUTs, MEHs in Zara’s English. And eventually after enough drilling, she promised Daddy she’ll drop them.

When she accidentally used them, she’ll say, “Rubbish. Ptui Ptui *pretending to spit*” Before rephrasing it to remove the LAs, MAs, WUTs, MEHs.

And when I use them, she’ll be correcting me, “Mummy, in English there’s no MEHs ok? If you use that, nobody will understand you in England” (sounding exactly like Daddy).

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

♥Belief♥

We were stuck in a jam in a parking lot of a mall, caused by a group of people trying to change the tyre of a car. They didn’t have a jack, and guess what they did? About 6 of them lifted the car up for the 7th person to install the spare tyre.

Daddy got real grouchy because of the jam : “Idiots!”
Zara : “Idiot is a really bad word, you shouldn’t say it.”
Daddy : “But they are idiots. I cannot BELIEVE what they are doing.”
Zara *sage-like* : “If you think about it long enough, you’ll believe it.”
Daddy’s mood change with her remark : “Zara, I like what you’d just said. If I think long enough, yeah, maybe I’ll believe them. Can I use what you’d said at work?”
Zara *still sage-like* : “No. These are my words, you cannot use them.”
Any traces of foul mood has been removed from Daddy while he laughed away at the wise daughter’s remark.

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♥Our Marriage Counsellor♥

Now, we don’t mean to quarrel in front of the kids, but Daddy and I both have very strong temper, and when we’re unhappy about each other, we’ll raise our voice at each other.

Once, Zara was in the car with us, she said wisely in the middle of our argument trying to make herself heard, “You know or not? Family are supposed to love one another!”

Another occasion, I was angry with Daddy, and told Zara Daddy made me angry. Zara went to Daddy and said, “Dad, you must love mummy like last time. Make mummy love you back”

At 3 years 8 months, Zara weigh 13Kg, and she’s 105cm tall.

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

My weeks seem shorter these days because of the amount of things to do at work. I’m glad to have the girls entertain me and help me to destress.

These 2 weeks, these are some of the things Zara said that tickled me.

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

On school snack.
Zara never eats the snacks in school, she always eats the Baby Bites or Jacob biscuit that we packed for her. On the way home I asked her what she ate in school, and she told me the food from home.
“What did your school served today for snack?”
“Chicken rice.”
“Chicken rice? How come you didn’t eat the chicken rice? I thought you like chicken rice.”
“Because the chicken they used is low quality chicken; and you know, it’s so boring, they only used salt and pepper to cook the chicken.”

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On her being naughty.
“If you don’t behave, I’ll put a black mark on the calender. When there are 20 black marks on the calender, I’m going to buy a cane.”
“I’ll buy a magic eraser from Teacher Pauline (her class teacher), and I’ll rub away the black mark. Then no more black marks on the calender.”

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

On breasts
“Now I only have nipples, so small.”
“When you are a big girl, then your breasts will grow”
“Yah, my breasts will pooooooffffttttttt puff up like puffer fish” And she cupped her breasts, then extended her arm.

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On haze
While driving her home from school, pointed to her the hazy surrounding.
“Look Zara, the whole place is so hazy.”
“I think God is wearing glasses, so every thing is blur.”