I have slightly more than a month to go before No. 2 arrives. There are 2 things which I’m cracking my head with.

1st : No. 2’s name
Daddy and I can’t decide on a name for No.2. We wanted a two syllables name which starts with Z and ends with A. That doesn’t leave us much choice. Daddy doesn’t like my choice of names, and I don’t like his choices.

Anybody has any names to recommend?

(Some jokers have suggested Zebra. Well, even if they named their kids Hippo or Oinky, we still won’t name ours Zebra)

2nd : What are we to do with Zara when I have to be in the hospital to have the baby?
When Zara was born, Daddy was in the hospital with me the 2nights I stayed there. Now, Zara has never slept without either one of us at her side. I’m not sure what we are going to do when I have to be admitted this time.

1) Have Daddy stay at home with her, so I’ll be alone in the hospital?
2) Have her stay with us in the hospital together?

We asked her if she would be ok to sleep at home with Kakak when mummy goes to the hospital. She said, “Cannot. I want to sleep with mummy only.”
The only person she’s willing to sleep with without mummy is Sam, her favourite jie-jie. She said, “Can sleep with Sam jiejie, mummy stay in hospital.”

For those who have two kids, what do you do with no. 1 when you were in the hospital giving birth to no. 2?

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Zara is getting more and more clingy even with Tuyam back. They can play together, Tuyam can feed and change her; but when it comes to nap time, Zara would be whining for me, “I want mummy to sleep with Zara.”

When it’s time for her evening bath, and if Daddy wanted to bath her, she would say, “Don’t want Daddy. Want mummy do only. Mummy do, mummy do.” followed by crying if we don’t oblidge.

At night, only I can sleep next to her. If Daddy stayed on too long at her side after saying good night to her, she would say, “Daddy sleep there (pointing to Daddy’s side of the bed).” or “Daddy go down (from my bed)” If Daddy lied on her bed.

Yesterday, when Daddy got her things ready and wanted to brush her teeth (most days I do the brushing), she told Daddy, “Daddy brush la. Use Zara’s toothpaste, use Zara’s tooth brush. Ok? Daddy brush la, use Zara’s water to rinse mouth. Zara don’t want”.

I wonder how I will be able to cope with a clingy 2 year old, and a new baby.

Today is Zara’s actual birthday, I’m supposed to write about her monthly development, but I’ll do that later. I want to write about her negotiation skill and how good she’s getting at it.

Zara : Mummy, I want to watch TV. (she started using lots of “I” instead of Zara now)
Me : No, bed time already, go and brush your teeth and change to your pajamas.
Zara : Mummy, one time only.
Me : No, it’s bed time.
Zara : Mummy, please. One time only. *puting out her pointer to show ONE*
Me : Ok then. One time yeah.
Zara : Ok. *happily sat down and wait for me to put on her program for her*
After finishing
Me : Ok, time to get ready for bed.
Zara : Mummy, one more time.
Me : No. Enough already.
Zara : Please. Last time. Last time only.
Me : No. Just now you said one time only. So, you already watched one time, so get ready for bed now.
Zara : Last time please. *looked at me with Bambi eyes*
Me : Ok ok.. one last time.

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She had fever yesterday, and started recovering today.
Zara : (for lunch) I want to eat nasi lemak (Malay : Coconut rice) with little fish.
Me : No, you still have a bit of fever, cannot eat nasi lemak with little fish.
Zara : I’m feeling better already.
Me : No, not today. When you are all well ok?
Zara : Little bit only. Please.
Me : No. (not this time)

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Tuyam got her a set of toy bathing set from Indonesia which came with hair dryer, shampoo, comb etc. After opening up Tuyam’s present, she wanted to try it on Sam, and ‘wash’ Sam’s hair.
Sam oblidged, but after the N-th time, she wanted to stop.
Zara : Sam jie-jie, I want to wash your hair.
Sam : No thanks.
Zara : You must wash your hair. *pulling strands of her own hair to show Sam* After sticky. Got cockroach in the hair. Got bugs. Got lizard. I wash for you, ok?
Sam : ……

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When she asked for me, and I’m in a meeting, she would wail and cry for the whole duration of my meeting. So I asked her :
Me : Why Zara always cry when mummy is in a meeting.
Zara : Because Zara loves mummy.
Me : *melted* Mummy loves you too, but why you cry?
Zara : Because Zara don’t (doesn’t) like mummy to close the door
(I always close the door to the study when I have a meeting just in case the people on the other side of the line can hear her)
Me : Oh.. But mummy needs to close the door because mummy needs to talk to uncle and aunty on the phone. It doesn’t mean mummy don’t love you.
Zara : *look at me like she understood*
Me : Mummy will always love you ok? Even when mummy is upset or angry, mummy still love you. Mummy love you very much. But mummy just can’t carry you or have you sit on mummy’s lap when mummy have meeting ok?
Zara : ok. (not sure if she understood though, but she loves being re-assured that I love her)

We have been planning for Zara’s birthday party for a while, and when we asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, she recalled my friend’s daughter’s 1yr old birthday party in the hotel and she said, “Like mummy’s friend, party in hotel. Got clown one. Got many balloons one.”
We were kiam siap (Chinese: Stingy). We did the finances, and thought it would have been better to keep the money saved (from having the party in a hotel or restaurant) in the bank for her. Instead, we have a small party at home, invited just our immediate family members. None the less, it was fun, and the food was good.

The guests : My friend’s kids’ Jensen and Yen Mae, who dropped by in the afternoon to drop off their presents for Zara. Eldest sis’ daughter, Tasha. Youngest sis’ son, the shy Norman.

We had Nasi Lemak for dinner, prepared by Tuyam and my sis’ maid KC. Daddy said this can beat any best nasi lemak in town, I would have to agree with him. It’s absolutely delicious. Zara loved it as well, although all she took was nasi lemak with ikan bilis (Malay : little fish or anchovies) and fried chicken.

I ordered a cake from A Piece of Cake, with Zara specifying the design, “Want got cow girl one. Got pony one. Want dog dog” This is the cake that comes with a cow girl riding on her pony with her pet dog.

The beautiful and yummy-licious cake; The kids were all waiting to attack the cow girl and the pony while Zara munched away the candies on the cake; Zara busy stuffing herself with the sugar beads and stars on the cake; The cow girl and the pony after the kids’ attack.

For the album : Our family; My dad with all his grand children; With my in-laws; Zara with her cousins

A very happy birthday girl: She loved the part where every body sang Happy Birthday to her; she was scared of the fire from the candle so she stood far away from them while trying to blow them out, and eventually just shouted for help.

She had a good time and slept only at 12am, 2hrs passed her bed time.

Tuyam is back! Hooray! Things are back to normal now. Zara missed Tuyam, she was touching and kissing Tuyam upon seeing her when she arrived yesterday.

Tuyam said Zara has grown taller, and Zara is speaking faster with a lot of more new words which she’s not familiar with. None the less, they are still able to communicate, which is important to Zara.

I’m able to concentrate on my work now, which is absolutely piling up!

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We visited A Famosa again 2 weeks ago. It was Daddy’s company’s trip, and family members were asked to join. This time we stayed in the Condo within A Famosa, a spacious studio just for the 3 of us.

This 2nd round wasn’t as fun for us, it was overly crowded (lots of school organised tour groups); and maybe the novelty has worn off.

Zara had most fun at the Monkey Island (probably since we didn’t go the first round), and watching the cowboy show (which was a yawn to me).

The carnival

Zara having fun at the carousel; and the elephants having fun teasing Zara.

Animals at the Animal Safari

Monkeying at the Monkey Island

*YAWN*

I have 9 more weeks to go before I pop. Put on 9Kg so far. Baby is doing fine, kicking and moving a lot, especially when she hears her jie-jie’s (Chinese : big sister) voice.

Zara is reaching Terrible Two and becoming a bit of a handful, very demanding, very whiney (very tiring for mummy).

The arrangement with MIL coming to stay with us and babysitting Zara didn’t work out. By day 2, she totally refused ‘Mama’ (Chinese : Paternal grandma), and worst thing was, she started crying from morning till night, unless she’s at my side. Can you imagine how tiring it was for me, especially if I needed to work as well? I took a day off on Thurs and Daddy helped out by working from home on Fri, that made me survived the week.

When we asked Zara why she didn’t like Mama, she told Daddy, “Mama no fun”. I think Mama is over protective, not allowing Zara to do lots of things in fear of Zara falling or hurting herself, and then there’s also this communication problem. Mama speaks Chinese, Zara speaks English. but she learnt fast, by Day 3, she started saying “Bu Yao” (Mandarin : Don’t want) every time Mama came near her.

Now we’re back to my sis’ place. Zara has accepted one of the Kakaks to play with her (although she still refuses to let the Kakak change her diaper, bath or feed her), so it’s easier on me, and she’s also very happy to have my nephews play with her when they come home from school.

My maid will be coming back next Wednesday. Thank goodness.

This morning, when she woke up, Daddy told her, “You be good girl ok? Kakak jaga (Malay: look after) you and you let mummy work.” Her replied, “I don’t want mummy to work work anymore.” Ha. I told Zara, “Then you have to ask Daddy to work harder and make more money so mummy don’t have to work.”

By 11pm every night, after doing a bit of house work and packing Zara’s things for the following day (when Zara has gone to sleep), I can feel my shoulders and back aching. And that’s when I tried to catch up on some work which I couldn’t finish up during the day because of the interruptions from Zara. Work is piling up.. So I’ll be taking a blog break. See you all again when my maid is back.

Some of her conversation with us that tickled me.

Me : Do you want to watch Chinese jiejie show (referring to ??? musical VCD).
Zara : Want. Chinese jiejie got hair clips. Zara’s hair clip upstairs in the box (referring to the box I kept all her hair clips).
Me : Yeah. But Zara doesn’t like mummy put hair clip for Zara. You always want to take it out.
Zara : Because it’s painful. Mummy put hairclip is painful. Take out then must comb comb the hair.

Daddy : Tomorrow is Sunday where does Zara want to go?
Zara : ……
Daddy : Maybe we can go to Lake Gardens. Can go to the dinosaur playground, feed the monkeys. How about that?
Zara : Sounds like fun!

Zara : Don’t want kakak KC.
Me : Why?
Zara : Because kakak is so uh-gree (ugly).
Me : Oh, that’s not nice. If you have good manners you won’t say something like that.
Zara : *spent a few seconds thinking* Because kakak is not family. Mummy, Daddy and Zara is family.
Me : But you let kakak Tuyam jaga (Malay : Take care of) you.
Zara : Kakak Tuyam is oso (also) family. This one new kakak, not family.
Me : ….

I had a short nap while Daddy looked after her, and when I woke up, she came to me and stuck her face real near mine and asked, “Mummy, Are you feeling better now?”
..She’s really growing up…

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Btw, it has been crazy for me over the last few days. Sis’ Filipino maid has to go back to Philippines because of family emergency, and sis needs her Indonesian maid back. So no one to baby sit Zara (although I could still send her to my sis’ place, Zara just refused to let the Indonesian maids care for her) and do the housework. Guess who we enrolled for help? MIL for baby-sitting Zara.

MIL has been staying with us since Sunday. Zara refused MIL as well, so she has been climbing up the stairs to the study to come to me when MIL is not looking. And I have to do the diaper changing, milk feeding, VCD/DVD playing. She won’t allow MIL to touch her, and MIL is too afraid to turn on the VCD/DVD player. Major disruption for me at work.

Another 14days before my maid returns. Hope I’ll still be sane by then.

Psst, my future in-law, do you want to help baby sit Zara? I’ll give you discount on the dowry.

14 years ago, Daddy in his attempt to impress me, brought me to Morib for a date. There, he whipped out his Bunsen burner and brewed tea for the 2 of us at our little picnic. He did impress me (see who I ended up marrying?).

Since then, we’d never been to Morib. Usually when this is suggested by him again, I would say, “Morib? What’s there to do?”

During our Hari Raya holiday, we asked Zara what she wanted to do, and she said, “Want to go to the beach, want to kick kick the sand.” The boss wanted something, and she got it. We packed a few snacks, took some cold drinks in our Coleman, and headed to Morib, the closest beach.

Crab up on shore; Pine tree lined coast; One of the trees that provided picnic goers with shade; Our picnic corner.

I’m surprised it was a very pleasant trip. We picnic-ed at the pine trees lined field facing the beach. The weather was nice, cloudy but not hazy, and the breeze from the sea was really cooling. Daddy brought Zara out to the long stretch of beach, showed her some little crabs, let her wade in the shallow pool of water and played in the mud; while I sat on our picnic mat watching the 2 of them from a far.

What a nice break..

23months! One more month before Zara celebrates her 2nd birthday. We are really happy with the way she’s growing. Every night after she goes to bed, we like to stare at her, and talk about her achievement in the last 23months. It’s just amazing, how much she’s grown.

~ Weight : 10.1kg (2 weeks ago)
~ Height : 86cm (3 cms in a month? But we do realise some of her pants just suddenly shortened)

Dexterity
~ Started feeding herself with a spoon
~ Able to press pieces of play dough in a mold to get the shape and print she wants.
~ Floating in a pool with her arm floats (actually she started this in Aug but she’s getting really good now)
~ Hold a pencil, marker the proper way (nobody actually taught her this), and able to draw circles or lines or curvey lines (she said she’s drawing snakes or worms) intentionally (though not perfect yet)
~ Able to do the thumbs up sign to indicate “Good” and thumbs down to indicate “Bad”
~ Walk up and down stairs without holding on to the railing (but we still insist she hold on to the railing for safety reasons)

Emotions and character
~ Becoming very homely, prefers to stay at home most of the time. And wanting to go home after spending some time out.
~ Started to have strong dislikes about some people. These people make her cry or fuss when they go near her. Like the case with Daddy’s friend and KC.
~ Sometimes she pretends to be a baby. When she doesn’t get her way, instead of telling us what she really wants, she whines. When we change her, she likes to making the ‘ooh-weh’ ‘ooh-weh’ sound, and says, “Zara’s a baby”
~ She’s very into manners now, so she’s using Excuse me, Thank You, Sorry, You’re Welcome, Please when appropriate.

Language
~ Since Phuket, she started pronouncing her name perfectly, stressing the Z and the R. She’s no longer calling herself ‘Wawa’
~ She’s using words like ‘accidentally’, ‘uncomfortable’ now
~ She’s picking different words to differentiate baby and adult animals; and some cases masculine and feminne of animals.
She goes like this, “Daddy horse is called stallion; Mummy horse is called Mare; Baby horse is called Foal.”
“Daddy chicken is called Cockerel; Mummy chicken is called Hen; Baby chicken is called a Chick.”
~ She likes to pretend to speak in different voices and tones to represent the baby, the daddy or the mummy talking (just like voices I used when I read her Goldilocks and The 3 Bears) when she’s at play.
~ She’s able to sing a few songs completely, e.g. Old Mc Donald, Do Re Me, London Bridge Is Falling Down, Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars etc.; and recite some nursery rhymes, e.g. Wee Willy Winky, Pussy Cat Pussy Cat, Hey Diddle Diddle etc.

Learning
~ I’m trying to teach her phonics, and so far, able to teach her the B sound and the C sound.
~ I’m teaching her Mandarin, so far, she knows how to say 嘴巴(mouth), 鼻子(nose), 眼睛(eyes), 耳朵(ear), 没有(don’t have, no more), 要(want), 不要(don’t want). We don’t speak Mandarin at home, so I think it’s quite an achievement. 😛

No Maid
Tuyam has gone home to Indonesia for a month for her Raya holidays. Oh boy, this mummy with big stomach has to take care of Zara most of the time.

I’m having my sister’s maids to help out in caring for Zara (and I work from my sis’ place), but since Zara is still not quite used to them, she keeps coming to me for things and for a cuddle.

28 more days to go before the maid comes home (if she did come back).

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New Phrases
Zara is using words and phrases she learns either from the TV or from us. Here are some new ones.

Me : “Zara did you touch Rusty (our cat) just now?”
Zara : “No way! Zara didn’t touch Rusty.”

In the car,
Zara : “Mummy, Zara want eat pop corn”
Me : “Mummy forgot to bring.”
Zara : “Say Sorry girl girl (sometimes we call her girl girl).”
Me : “……. Ok. Sorry girl girl, mummy forgot.”

Me : “Mummy loves Zara so much”
Zara : “How much?”
Me : “….. Very much.”

While swimming,
Daddy : “Wow, Zara can float now!”
Zara : “Pefect!”

After dinner,
Daddy : “Good girl, you finish your dinner.”
Zara : *grinned* “Excellent.”

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Yakking
On days when she’s in the mood, she yaks non-stop. Here is a conversation taken yesterday when she was telling my nephews what she was going to do to get ready for bed:
“Mummy change this baju (Malay : clothes) for Zara”
“Dirty already mummy.”
“Must take off and Zara put in the laundry bag”
“Then kakak will wash wash the baju with the hands.”
“Zara brush teeth, and don’t let the water run (the latter phrase is from Barney)“
“Then change Pajamas”
“Then mummy spray rose water on the face (when I apply my skin care in the night, I spray some rose water for her as well).”
“Zara smell so nice”
“Then read books, then bed time.”
She was saying this without pausing for a reply or response from us. My sis Filipino maid said she talked like an old lady.

Sightseeing
I’m into my 7th month already, and hence I can’t go on a speedboat. No island excursion for us this round. We hired my colleague’s friend’s taxi for a day trip around Phuket island on our 2nd day.

When we asked what Zara wanted to do, she said, “Zara want to sit on elephant.”. Our first stop was to a place near by for Elephant rides. To our disappointment, Zara refused to take the elephant ride. She said, “Zara scared. Elephant so ugly. So black, and hairy.” Since we were already there, we bought some bananas to feed the elephant (yes, just ONE elephant available), and even that Zara didn’t want to feed. She kept asking me to do it. So much for Elephant ride!

Next stop, we went to Khao Rang, highest point in Phuket town to have a panoramic view of Phuket island. It was nice and breezy, and Zara just slept on her pram throughout. Then we had lunch in town, at this local shop serving Hokkien mee (fried and soup). By far, this was the worst meal we had in Thailand! After the crappy meal, it was shopping time, where we visited the Phuket market and then Robinson Departmental Store.

We then headed to Cape Promthep (southern tip of Phuket), best for sunset viewing. Beautiful place, and if I wasn’t pregnant, we probably would have gone all the way to the tip of the cape (some hiking required).

She had a good nap on her pram, then she started monkeying around. The last pix showed her interested in wanting to pat and hug all the elephants surrounding the alter.

Zara wasn’t interested in the view at all, she was more interested in the Elephant statues available at the prayer alter nearby.

The driver then took us to Chalong Bay to dine in the famous Kan Eang Restaurant. Food was really good, and Zara was occupied throughout playing ‘cooking’ with the cucumber slices, and chives sticks.

Kicking some sand at Chalong Bay before dinner

The Beaches
We stayed in Surin area, waves are a bit rough there and not suitable for swimming. However, during low tide, it’s pretty pleasant to stroll on the beach. The beach side is lined with local restaurants, where you can covered your feet in sand while you have your meals, and the price is relatively reasonable (much cheaper than the ones on the street in Surin town). Too bad, we only discovered this towards the end of our stay, and had 2 very good lunches there ~extremely delicious fried rice and fried fish.

Surin Beach in the afternoon and evening (it got dark at about 6pm+ daily while we were there)

We took a tuk-tuk to Patong beach one evening to do a bit of shopping and to dine at the famous Savoey Restaurant (another orgasmic dinner, but Zara was chanting “Want to go back Hotel” throughout dinner because she couldn’t stand the loud live performance there, so even though the food was good, we couldn’t slowly savour it).

Patong beach seems to be nicer (wider, longer stretch). But that area is really too congested for my liking.

Sunset at Patong. The ‘boss’ demands to be carried most of the time or to ‘ride’ on her pram.

Others
We wanted to spend most of our time at the resort, hence we didn’t go out much. We have most of our lunches at Surin area. Most of the time during lunch, Zara fell a sleep, so Daddy and I could munch and enjoy our food at our own pace.

On our last night, we wanted to do a last round of shopping and went to Canal Shopping Village at the Laguna area. There were really not many shops. A waste of time (for shopping). Luckily, we found a nice restaurant, and had a very good dinner, at least our trip wasn’t fully wasted.

Waiting for lunch to be served at the beach front restaurant. She wanted Daddy to get her the Pooh bear from Robinson, but of course we said NO. Snoozing at the beach, while Daddy and I had our lunch. Time to go home, and feeling happy.

Thailand is always my favourite destination for a holiday. Glorious food, cheap shopping, and best of all, good service and friendly people. Oh well, our next trip will probably be in 1.5yr time, when no. 2 is old enough to travel.