We took an early flight to Phuket on Thursday (5/10). A Phuket colleague of mine arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the airport for a fraction of the price that the hotel would charge if we booked the car from the hotel.

Being nosy on the plane. Enjoying a cool towel and welcome drink in the resort

The Hotel
Twinpalms Resort is a small boutique hotel located in the quiet beach of Surin. Just like its website, the place is beautiful. We got really good rates from the internet after doing some shopping around, and I don’t believe you can get anything near that kind of accommodation (and service) in M’sia for that price.

We stayed in the deluxe room on the ground floor the first night. Zara liked the room very much, it has a roomy balcony, and a few steps away from the pool. Since there was no bath tub provided, I asked for an anti-slip mat for Zara. I was delighted that the hotel instead loaned us a Winnie The Poo bath tub, together with a set of complimentary baby toileteries (which included bottle and nappy wash). Now, how many hotels would give you some thing like this? So far in my experience, none (not even our famous Pangkor Laut or Tanjung Jara resort).

Horsing around in the room, and the resort

For the rest of the 3 nights, we upgraded ourselves to a Grand deluxe room (err, because the cheaper rooms were no longer available in the bargain website I booked the room from) located on the 1st floor. The room was bigger, and it came with a bathtub. Zara of course enjoyed the new bath tub very much.

Big tub fun, and exploring the resort

The Pool
Twinpalms has 1600sqm of water surface, the pool runs across the middle of the premise, with rooms surrounding it. Some of the rooms even have direct access to the pool (i.e. the room is directly connected to the pool).

Zara went swimming every day, spending about 1 to 2hrs at the pool. There’s no baby pool available, but they have shallow slope leading to deeper end, so she spent most of her time walking up and down the slopes.

We don’t have to hold on to her, she paddled about herself, even when her feet could not touch the ground. We just have to be nearby to assist her if she has her head accidentally dipped in the water.

The Pampering
This is more of relaxing trip for me. Daddy has been great, taking care of Zara most of the time since he knows I’m too big to be running after or carrying Zara.

I also got a surprise gift from my best friend in New York. She bought us a spa voucher in Twinpalms without me knowing, and I was very surprise to see this in our room when we checked in. Our anniversary isn’t until end next month, but this is such a nice gesture from her.

On top of this, the booking website also gave us a 2hrs spa treatment voucher for booking more than 3 nights stay.

Daddy is not a spa person, so I got all the pampering in the spa, making use of these vouchers, while Daddy looked after Zara in the room. I had such a good back and shoulder rub, oh, it was orgasmic! (Thanks Ping!)

And then, what’s more blissful than lounging at the poolside sala, sipping herbal tea, while watching the kid and Daddy play in the pool.

(Thanks Daddy, for allowing me this luxury by looking after Zara.)

That’s the way Zara says Sawadeeka, i.e. Hello in Thai.

We just came back from our 5 days Phuket trip late last night. It was a slow pace do nothing much trip.

The moment we arrived in the hotel, the very nice Twinpalms Hotel, Zara has started to want to go home. “I want to go home” was something she said so frequently when she’s bored. When we told her we won’t be going home so soon, and we’ll be staying in the hotel for a few nights, she changed and said “I want to go back hotel” when we’re out and there’s nothing much interesting for her to see or do.

She said she missed her macanoni (macaroni) and cheese, her toys, Russ our cat, and playing with Kakak; and when we arrived home yesterday, she was really happy!! Wanting to play with all her toys and flip through all her books that she missed. She didn’t sleep until about 12am going through her stuff in the house while I did the unpacking.

I guess Phuket has not much to offer to a kid that young, or maybe Zara has begun to be very attached to her home.

I have lots to catch up at work, so I’ll be posting the photos later.

Just when I thought Zara is getting used to her bed, we had this conversation yesterday during bed time.

Zara : *just out of the blue* “Kakak put the cot away already.”
Me : “No, Daddy put the cot away, in the other room.”
Zara : *pointing to her bed* “Mummy, throw the bed away”
Me : *shocked!* “Why?”
Zara : “The bed so slippery” (so untrue, but I guess she’s just coming out with excuse)
Me : “No, the bed is not slippery.”
Zara : “The cot is better. Throw the bed away. Zara want the cot.”
Me : “But Zara is already a jiejie (Chinese : Big sister). Cot is for babies, Zara is not a baby, but a jiejie now”.
Zara : “…. ”
Zara : “Mummy, Zara want go downstairs.”
Me : “It’s bed time, why does Zara want to go downstairs.”
Zara : “Zara sleep downstairs.”
Me : “Downstairs got mosquitos and lizards at night, and Zara will be lonely if Zara sleep downstairs alone.”
Zara : *tears started rolling down* “Zara don’t yike (like) the bed”
Me : “Zara sleep on mummy’s bed then, mummy sleep on Zara’s bed. Ok?”
Zara : “Zara want mummy hug hug to sleep.”
Me : “Ok, Zara sleep together with mummy then”

So she slept on my side of the bed.

We never used to take note of such events, but since we have Zara now and would like to expose her to as much as we could, we spotted a banner around KL the other day about this Lantern Fest in Central Market happening on Sept 30th.

While dressing Zara up, she asked for her jeans to wear. When I took out the jeans we bought recently, she said, “Don’t want this one. Not nice. Want the flower one. The button got flowers one.”.. So she chose what she wore.

Off we went to KL town. Firstly, a stop at Lakes Gardens (yet again) to feed the monkeys and a round of play in the huge play ground.

While feeding the monkeys, one of the monkey touched Zara’s hands while trying to reach out for the peanut. She immediately said, “Don’t yike (like) monkey touch Zara. Go home (asking us to bring her home)! Don’t want feed monkeys any more!” (Recently, although she likes animals still, she prefers not to touch them or let them touch her except the cat in our house.) We finished throwing the last bit of peanuts from the open pack (with Daddy carrying Zara), and then left for the play ground.

She greeted the ‘friendly’ dinosaur first. Then it was off to the ginger bread man bridge. She loved the swing there. She said the see-saw is better than the one from our park.

When it got dark we headed to Central Market and had a quick bite at the food court. The Lantern Fest was at the Central Market car park. They were giving out free paper lanterns, goodie packs with drinks and mooncake (but we didn’t take it since we don’t really fancy mooncakes). There was a lantern making contest, and the lanterns were hung in Central Market itself for every one to view and judge. There was also a stage put up for some cultural performance.

While some VIPs were making speeches, we just explored the surrounding. We found out there was going to be a lion dance, and a lantern procession.

Touching the Lion’s head, she only wanted to touch the head with her straw. Exploring while waiting for the speeches to be completed.

We even managed to see a Dragon Dance, something not as common as the Lion Dance. It was quite nicely done (with the dragon twirling, twisting, flipping about chasing after a ball), and our very first experience seeing one.

Lantern procession (the photos didn’t turn out quite well). Dragon and Lio Dance.

We left when an elderly lady took on the stage to sing some Chinese oldies. 😛

Zara is really turning into a fussy little girl. She demands and specifies what she wants and if we don’t give in, she would make a big fuss or nag us.

E.g.
If she ordered macaroni and cheese but you give her oat for lunch, she just refused to eat, kept saying, “Zara want maca-no-ni and cheese only!” “Don’t want anything else”
If she wanted grape flavoured Vitagen and we gave her apple flavoured, she would be repeating, “Zara want purple (grape) Vitagen only! Don’t want green (apple) one!”

Sometimes we’ll have to tell her some white lies to make her accept what we offered or just ignore her cries, other times, we’ll just have to give in to her demands.

On Tuesday, we brought out the lantern for her to play. I lighted it with a blue candle. She was making such a big fuss, chanting, “Don’t want this candle, want pink one!”, “Want pink one!”, “This candle not nice.” “I don’t yike (like) this candle! I yike pink one!”

I refused to budge, for the whole time the blue candle was burning, she complained.

Then when Daddy wanted to shoot some photos with her and the lantern, and the flash went off a few times, she started complaining. Cringing her eyes, and saying, “So bright the yight (light). Mummy, take sunglasses for you (me).” “So bright!” “Don’t yike (like) so bright.”

These are the best shot we could take.

She enjoyed the ‘blowing the PINK candle’ in the lantern after Happy Birthday had been sung.

On Saturday, we collected a nice cake ordered by Eve (someone I got to know through blogsphere), before we went to have dinner at Mizu, Bangsar Village (the set dinner there is just oh so wonderful, but the price is a bit high, so we only go on ‘special occasion’).

Since it’s my day (not to mention Daddy upset me earlier in the car), Daddy looked after and ran after Zara at the restaurant, while I slowly savoured my chicken tepanyaki (which I normally don’t fancy, but Mizu does it so well).

After dinner, we proceeded to TGIF to meet with Daddy’s friends. Zara was acting up, the minute she spotted one of Daddy’s friends, she started crying, and pointed to the exit “Want go home! Want go home!” “Go there! Mummy, go there! Want go home!”. We tried very hard to distract her with the things hung on the wall, but she just didn’t calm down.

After about 10mins, we gave up. We thought it might be due to the lighting in TGIF, so we adjourned to Secret Recipe and told our friends to meet there. The moment she heard we were leaving, she waved bye bye to everybody at the table, “Bye, See you later”.

Zara was her happy self again in the brightly lighted Secret Recipe. While playing with some sugar packs, Daddy’s friends walked in. There she went again, started crying, and kept saying, “Go home! Want go home”. Daddy’s friends thought they better leave as her crying was getting louder. Zara immediately calmed down after they left. That is so strange, she has never shown such fear or dislike for any person, not with so much tears and emotion.

So it was just the 3 of us, in Secret Recipe, cutting up the huge cake collected from another Secret Recipe. (Thanks Eve again, for the cake..)

Zara ate the crispy flower and leaves on the cake

On Sunday, we drove all the way to Lake Gardens for Zara to feed the monkeys. A car stopped next to us, and a lady carrying a baby watched us fed the monkeys from the car. She then asked me if I was Zara’s Mama. I almost went pale (what a reaction). She said she’s Vanitha, who also has a blog. Daddy gave me that “see!-post-more-photos-la” look after they left.

After the monkeys, we brought Zara to the big play ground in the gardens. She absolutely loved it!
She wouldn’t go near those wired dinosaur frames (meant for plants to creep on and grow) around the play ground, she said they are “big, black and uh-gree (ugly)” but loved the colourful dinosaur, saying they are so “nice and friendly”

(Anybody knows Vanitha and her blog URL?)

Saturday was the big day for Zara to relocate from her cot to her single bed. She calls it her ‘jie-jie (Chinese : big sister) bed’.

We got her involved in ‘helping’ Daddy to install the bed, pretending to be ‘Bob The Builder’.

Upon completing the installation, we saw a hint of disappointment in Zara. We asked her, “Do you like your bed?”. She said, “Don’t yike (like).”

When she woke up from her afternoon nap, she cried and wailed, asking me to hold her for almost 30mins. When we asked her what happened, she said, “Zara so yoneyee (lonely)” and then later, “Got bad dreams”. I wonder if the new bed gota do with this.

In the evening, after all the bedsheets and bed guards have be put up, she seems more interested in her bed. I told her she can still roll over to sleep with me if she wanted, and that I can still hold her hands in the night when she goes to sleep (something she likes).

However, the last 2 nights, she didn’t sleep very well, waking up in the middle of the night, and wanted me to cuddle her. Daddy said maybe she miss the scent of her old bed.

I hope she gets use it to real soon.

Zara turned 22 months today. I have been so busy with work and also planning for the next family holiday (before I get into 3rd Trimester), I haven’t been updating my blog that frequently. Anybody has any nice hotels to recommend for Phuket, with nice beach and especially away from the parading ‘ah kuas’?

Ok, ok, this is not about my prep for my holidays. This is about Zara.

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

~ Weight : 10.3kg (2 weeks ago)
~ Height : 83cm (is it possible that she keeps gaining weight but not height?)

Dexterity
~ She likes to drink from a cup instead of a sippy cup, and if she pays attention to what she’s doing, there won’t be any spillage.
~ She likes feeding herself with a fork and doing very well. Still need some assistance when she uses a spoon

Emotions and character

I start to see her displaying some ‘Terrible Two’ characters.
~ She never used to walk too far away from me when we’re out. Now, when she insists that she wants to leave or go somewhere else, and I tell her to wait for a while, she walks away mumbling, “Zara want go home (or wherever)”. And without looking back, she walks straight on.
~ She cries and shouts when she doesn’t get her way (but I totally ignore that)

She’s also doing lots of ‘pretend’ play nowadays
~ She has conversation to herself and her soft toys, something that goes like that,
“You want milk?”
“Don’t want.”
“You want cheese?”
“Want”
“Here, cheese. Take.”
~ She dresses up and pretends to be a queen, a cowboy, or even an animal

Pretending to be mummy carrying a baby

She sometimes have emotional tussles with herself, and have conversation like this with herself
*reaches her hands out to me* “Mummy hug hug Zara”
*put her hands down* “Don’t want.”
*reaches her hands out to Tuyam* “Kakak hug hug Zara”
*put her hands down* “I don’t want. I don’t want.”
*reaches her hands out to me again* “Mummy, mummy, carry you (me)”.
*put her hands down* “I don’t want. I don’t want anybody” *starts making crying sound*

Logical Thinking
She’s able to think logically,
~ when we asked her if she can fly, she will reply, “Cannot, because Zara don’t have wings”.
~ she knows, “Zara’s family got Daddy, mummy and Zara.”
~ she knows she’s still small and can only do certain things, e.g. “Zara now small jiejie, cannot play with scissors. When Zara big jiejie, Zara can cut cut with scissors”

Language
~ She’s talking non-stop, and picking up new words all the time. Some of her pronunciation is still off (e.g. In-doh-nee-sah for Indonesia; Taffik yike for Traffic Light), and we sometimes have a tough time trying to figure out what she’s saying, but when we do, we can always see the smile on her face, that she finally made us understand.
~ She loves books and picks up lots of new words from books. She can spend a lot of time flipping through books, and sometimes reading to herself (retelling the story in her own words).

Her book moment before bed time

Note : I’m absolutely trying to catch up on my blog reading, so don’t mind if I’d not been visiting.

We didn’t go any where else during the weeked except to get Zara her new bed from Ikea. But here are 2 conversations which took place last week which makes me wonder what kind of thoughts Zara goes through in her mind.

Daddy wanted to take a shower. I asked him to see if he can shower Zara.
Daddy: “Zara, come, Daddy bath bath you.”
Zara: *stared at Daddy’s naked body* Don’t want!”
Daddy: “Why don’t want.”
Zara : “Because Daddy so ugly. Like ugly duckring (duckling).”
Daddy and I both tried to stiffle our laughs.
So Zara thinks Daddy is handsome, but has got an ugly body.
Daddy said this is probably her ‘natural defence’ against men, no naked men should go near her, even Daddy.

On another occasion, Zara asked me to go down to play with her, and I said I don’t want.
She said something I couldn’t hear from upstaris, but Tuyam repeated what she said. Tuyam claimed that Zara must be angry for me rejecting her, and she told Tuyam, “Kakak, cut cut mummy. Then cook mummy. And then eat mummy.”
Now upon hearing that, I quickly went down and question Zara.
Me : “Why Zara said Zara wanted to eat mummy?”
Zara : *quiet* (her way of showing she’s embarrassed at what she’d done
Me : “Zara eat mummy already, then no more mummy. Who sleep with you?”
Zara : *quiet*
Me : “Zara is Goliath? So naughty one huh?”
(she has recently started reading some bible stories, and so far, David and Goliath is her favourite)
Zara : “Nooooo. Not Goh-lier. Cut cut fish and eat fish only.”

There are times when Zara wakes up in the morning, and refuse to have Tuyam take over the caring of her.
“Don’t want kakak jaga (Malay : take care) you (me). Mummy jaga you (me).”
“Mummy need to work. Saturday and Sunday then mummy will jaga you.”
“Mummy don’t want work work. Jaga you (me).”
“Cannot. Mummy don’t work work, then no money to buy Zara cheese, chocolate, and fish”
As though she understands, she’ll follow me downstairs.

However, on such a day, there’ll be some protesting when Tuyam gives her her monring bath.
“Mummy bath bath you (me)! Don’t want kakak do.”
And if mummy didn’t oblidge (which I won’t on weekdays), she will cry, while taking her bath, while being changed.

And after that, she’ll walk to the study (where I work) with more complaints.

“Go mummy there. Mummy jaga you (me).”
(The cry is very fake)

And some days, there will be lots of shouting from downstairs from the little girl, asking me to go down and play with her.

“MUMMY! COME DOWN AND PLAY! PLAY BALL WITH ZARA”

Fun eh? Working from home?