We were in Ikea last Sunday, and I just grabbed one of the soft toy, a dog, available from the kids section and placed it in the pram for Zaria to play with. When Zaria fell asleep, Zara took over the dog and started cuddling it, talking to it, stroking it.

At the check out counter, I said we’ll return the dog back to Ikea. Zara went, “Maah-meeEEEE. I really like it.” So I got it for her. RM39, not to expensive, ok la.

She immediately named the dog Fifi, claiming Fifi to be her ‘child’.

Now, she watches TV with Fifi, sleeps cuddling Fifi, she reminds me to bring Fifi along when I go pick her up from school. Zaria tails Zara calling after Fifi, “Fee Feet” but only gets to cuddle Fifi when Zara is at school and not watching when Zara is feeling generous.

The other day, Zara said in the car cuddling Fifi, “You know, mummy, I’m the luckiest person. Only I have Fifi. Nobody else have.”

Remember Mr Blue? He has been cast aside to make way for Fifi. “Mr Blue’s skin is so rough now.” That’s her excuse. She still lets Mr Blue sleeps with her on the bed, but only Fifi is in her arms.

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 wasn’t in one of my better moods because the day was long.
Daddy wasn’t home and I had to handle the 2 girls.

While reading to Zara, I tried to get her to read the words meant for toddlers on each page. A three words phase like A Big Nose, or A Big Mouth. Tried as I may, she wasn’t able to read them, even after I’d done the phonics part for her.

I blew my top and started raising my voice, telling her she wasn’t paying attention, nor was she trying. Our conversation went something like this.
I don’t know mummy
Zara, try. Bbbbb-ih-guh, you join the sounds and say it quickly what do you get?
I don’t know mummy
Bbbbb-ih-guh, B-I-G. BIG! Big what? *pointing to the picture of the nose*
I don’t know mummy *looking at my face*
*shouted*ZARA! LOOK AT THE BOOK, NOT AT MY FACE. I DON’T HAVE WORDS ON MY FACE!
*started crying*Mummy, don’t do like that mummy. I’m scared of you mummy.
READ! WHAT DOES THE WORDS SAY? (why was I pushing her so hard?)
*said this softly*Daddy never read like that mummy.
WAIT FOR YOUR DADDY TO COME BACK AND GO ASK YOUR DADDY TO READ TO YOU THEN. (why on earth did I say this?)
*sobbed*Mummy, I want you to read mummy.
THEN TRY TO READ THE WORDS
…

Boy, this went on for the whole reading session. You can imagine how my blood was boiling, and how upset Zara got.

When I cooled down later, I asked myself why I did what I did? I told her I was really sorry, and she hugged me and sobbed. I promised her and myself that I will try not to do this any more.

I’m not proud of what I did, actually I feel rotten. I’m writing this not to clear my concious but really I want to  record my promise to Zara and myself, and hope this will never happen again.

I’m so sorry Zara.

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. 🙂

Since Zara started school beginning of the year, the girls have been infected with all kinds of viruses.
Zaria gets fever almost every fortnightly.
Zara gets cough, runny nose frequently.
Both girls have their first course of antibiotic this year. *sigh*
The girls have never looked so dirty before, there’s always snot on their faces, and dried booger in their noses.

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It’s school holidays and Zara is home whole day.
This morning we have this conversation,
Zara : Mummy, you going to work today?
Me : Yes. Mummy will be working at home.
Zara : Mummy, don’t work today. You play with me.
Me : No, Mummy must work, or else, will have no money to buy food.
Zara : You use my money loh mummy.
Me : You have money meh?
Zara : You use my money from my ang pow. Then you no need to work loh.
(if only it was that simple).

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Zaria is pointing at things and naming them, or some times asking us to name them.
She’ll point to an object (mainly from books), “(What is) This?” and turn to look at us to wait for an answer.

The other day, she pointed to a picture of a computer on a book and said, “(compu)Ter.” and started tapping the picture with her fingers from both hands mimicking typing.  (She must have seen me typing in mine and connected the two.) 😛

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My uncle met Zaria for the first time and wanted to carry her. Zaria waved her index finger and said, “No No.” And then patted her chest, indicating she’s afraid of him.

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Had a conversation with Zara the other day about milk.
Zara : Milk comes from cow
Me : Yes. Which part of cow gives out milk?
Zara : Milk comes from the breast
Me : Yup. Girl cow or boy cow have breast?
Zara : Girl cow. But I’m a small girl. I only have nipple, I don’t have breast. Mummy have breast, so mummy got milk. Daddy also only have nipple, so Daddy don’t have milk.
Never knew we can differentiate nipple and breast in that way. 😛

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?

My brother, the romancer the king, threw a not-so surprise party for King’s Wife to celebrate their 20th anniversary. He had the event planned out with the help of my nieces and his staff.

(I was sms-ing my niece, Ally, before the party, if King wanted a real surprise, he should have invited some of her blogger friends.)

It was a garden party in a down town restaurant; the place was adorned with flowers, and candles lining the path to the dining area, very romantic set up. They also hired a music machine for the night.

The royal family arrived after everybody. King’s Wife wasn’t quite surprised because my brother burst his own bubbles in the car. Haih. Nonetheless, I think she must feel very ‘lum’ (Cantonese : touched to the core).

My nieces gave an opening speech, followed by my brother, and then without any planning, this happened.
.
.
.
.
.

Zara took on the stage with little coaxing from Sam, her favourite cousin, and started singing totally irrelevant A, B, C song, and then a Chinese New Year Song (Gong Xi Gong Xi Gong Xi Ni) to an audience of ~40 people. What guts she has! (My dad said she was just like me when I was her age, ever willing to stand up and sing a song to entertain his friends.) o.O

After her, my brother’s staffs made him sing ‘their song’ for King’s Wife, accompanied by a violinist. No prize for guessing who went on stage to dance.

(It wasn’t a karaoke party, so the singing stopped here).

Ally conned her mum into giving her all their really old photos, using the reason that she needed them for school project. Using the photos, a photo slide was done on the royal couple’s courtship to the 20years they’d been married. Everybody had a good laugh seeing some of those really ancient photos!

The food was a disappointment, but when the DJ started playing all the 1980s hit, every body hit the dance floor; even Daddy, who normally shy away from dancing (I trust he had a bit too much to drink too). Haha.

The girls, especially Zara, really had a great time.  What a great party it was!

Last week, we brought Zara along on our weekly visit to the wet market. She was with Daddy next to the chicken stalls while I was busy with picking up the vegetables for the week.

Daddy told me she turned her head away from the chicken stalls and said, “I’m very angry!”
Daddy asked why.
And she said, “I’m very angry because they are slaughtering the chickens. I don’t like to see them slaughtering chickens.”
Daddy told her without them slaugthering the chickens, we won’t get chicken to eat.
She said, “But I’m still angry they slaugther the chicken.”
She turned her nose up and really did look angry.

On another day, we were talking about beef.
Zara : “I don’t like beef.”
Me : “But you like Ikea’s beef balls.”
Zara : “No. Today I don’t like. Because I don’t like the cows to be slaugthered. You know, beef is from cow?” (like I don’t know).

On another day, “Eating fish is ok, because they are dead already.”

Ha!

!#$%!#!

My Italian junk car just went dead on a busy road on my way to pick Zara up from school.
Car zoomed me by, drivers glared at me for slowing them down, but nobody offered to help!
And 2 of our traffic police stopped by and asked me what happened, instructed me to lift up my boot up to notify cars zooming by my situation, so that I don’t get rammed. And they too didn’t offer to help push my car to the side!

In the end, it was Axa that came to the rescue. I called their hot line, and they sent a tow truck to tow my car away. All free! (next time when you buy car insurance, make sure the company you buy from offer such services at no additional cost)

Daddy too rushed from the office to pick Zara up (her school was quite good, changed her and fed her lunch while she waited for us) and then home to check on the car, he declared my battery has totally gone flat. !#$%!#!

Sigh!

Zaria had recurring fever since Christmas. Her fever always fell on holidays, and got well after the holidays so she’d only been checked out by GPs. Yesterday, on her 4th fever, we brought her to see a paed.

It seemed, she had middle ear infection, and so had to be put on antibiotic. Sigh!

Baaah!

Zara’s school has a post Chinese New Year celebration today, and they had placed the notice in Zara’s bag. Neither Daddy nor me checked her bag ever the last few days.

Today when she went to school, all her friends were in their Chinese New Year’s best and our girl was wearing her uniform!! What kind of parents are we for not being more interested in the girl’s school work bag. Baaah!

Another 3 more days to go and it’s the end of Chinese New Year and this will be stale news.

This year, we have such a low key Chinese New Year, mainly because the 2 weekends before Chinese New Year, I was in Japan. There was no cookie baking or buying at all, and the decoration in the house is minimal. Thanks to Daddy who didn’t do anything during my absence.

This year’s reunion dinner was held at our house, and we did something different from the past 9 years! We had steam boat, instead of the anual steam fish, steam chicken, stewed mushroom that MIL always dished out. I was busy in the kitchen and later with serving everybody food that I forgot to take photo of my handy work. *sigh*

1st day of Chinese New Year is always the same, we visit MIL and FIL in the morning, and then it’s off to lunch with my family and then a visit to my close to 90 year old maternal grand father.

And that’s it for us, the rest of the new year, it’s stay at home (except for the open house that my bro threw). So low key, huh?

Some of the photos taken during the New Year.

Yearly, we serve tea to my dad and wish him good health, and in return get a big ang pow. This year, Zaria joined in as well.

Zaria enjoying a stroll and a roll in the royal garden.

Zara playing those (hopefully kid friendly) Pop Pop fire crackers. Red Cheong-sum was hand-me-down from my niece Samantha (and Zara’s favourite cousin) who wore that to my wedding 10yrs ago!

It’s always a difficult feat to take photos of the cousins together. At some point, one will try to sneak away, or one or two will cry. These few are by far the best shot during this Chinese New Year.