She likes the flower making set that Samantha has given her, and she could play with it for a long time, making ‘umbrellas’ and ‘vege’, as she calls it. I was working from home, and when I went down for a drink, here was what she’s made.

And here is another way she spends her days at home, playing with her balls. She says she’s playing badminton, using her toy masak-masak (Malay: cooking set) spatula as the racquet. She’s muttering “Oh-Dear Oh-Dear” when her ball got kicked away from her sight, and she’s saying “What to do? What to do?”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-BANPlAvE]

It’s really fun to see her play, as she talks and laughs and sings to herself a lot. That’s the thing about working from home, if I hear some gigling downstairs, I can always go check out to see what she was up to.

Last night during bed time, I got her to agree to stay in bed while I went to shut down my pc in the study. When I got back, 5mins later, she told me, “Zara no cry!”.
I have to give her some hugs and praises, and told her how brave she was (the lights were all turned off except the night light, I think that was very brave of her to stay in a semi dark room all by herself). I pushed my luck further and asked her if I could go downstairs to have a cup of milk. She said, “Mummy go drink milk milk. Zara lie down.”
So I went down, had a glass of milk, rinse her bottle, went back to the room, and there she was on the bed with a big grin, “Zara so bave (brave), mummy go down drink milk milk, Zara no cry.”
I carried her and shouted “Hooray” gave her more praises, just to make her kembang (Malay: feel good about herself).

I was making her early morning bottle of milk in the room, and she started walking on the edge of the bed coming towards me (our bed has a thick wooden frame which she likes to walk on). I warned her, “Don’t walk at the edge, after fall down huh.”
She ignored and still continued to move towards me, and true enough, she slipped and got her foot stuck between the bed frame and the wall. She looked at me rolling my eyes, and she said, “Very good!” scolding herself (I wonder who used that on her before).

She was leafing through our wedding photos, and then she pointed to Daddy and said, “Daddy so cute!” Then I asked her, “What about mummy?” She looked again and said, “Mummy handsome!” *slap head*

On Sunday, I prepared her for bed, and told her she’ll be going to King’s Wife‘s place on Monday.
Me : Zara likes our house more or Ah Kim’s house more?
Zara : Ah Kim’s house.
Me : Why?
Zara : Ah Kim’s house got Mr Bean (we don’t subscribe to Astro and hence no Mr Bean cartoon at home).
…
Later in our conversation.
Me : Tomorrow Zara bring dinasaur sweet (just bought her some gummies in the shape of dinasaur) to Ah Kim’s house, must share with jiejie yeah?
Zara : Give Sam jiejie dinasaur sweet. Give jiejie Alicia dinasaur sweet.
Me : Yes. Clever. Must share share ok.
Zara : Ok.
Me : Can share with Navisha jiejie (King’s Wife’s neighbour who likes to hang around with her girls) or not?
Zara : *tears started flowing down so suddenly* Don’t want. Don’t want give Navisha jiejie. Zara don’t want.
Aiks.. it was time to pacify her and end of conversation.

We had string beans sprouts (Kuai Dao Miu) for dinner yesterday, while Zara had her own dish. After dinner, my niece Samantha took a bowl of string beans and started eating in the living room.
Zara saw what Sam was eating, so she asked for some, “Sam jiejie, give Zara beans please”
I took some from Sam and started feeding Zara, “Zara likes the beans?”
Zara said, “Like!” Then she added, “Jack bean stalk!” and laughed at her own joke.

(Tuyam told me this happened just now)
Zara was messing around her box of VCDs/DVDs, trying to take out some of the title sleeves.
Tuyam : You don’t do that. After mummy scold you.
Zara ignored Tuyam, so Tuyam repeated herself.
Zara stopped what she was doing and stared at Tuyam, “Zara angry!”
(She’s very good in bullying the maid, but with me, she will never use such tone and said such things.)

I was trying to test the water to check if Zara was ready for my upcoming business trip.
Me : Zara, can mummy sit airplane and go work work? (That’s what we say when Daddy is away for his business trip).
Zara : Cannot. Daddy go only.
Me : Why cannot?
Zara : Mummy stay you.
Me : *don’t understand* Huh? Mummy don’t understand Zara. Can mummy sit airplane and go work work or not?
Zara : Cannot. Mummy stay you.
Me : *still don’t understand* Why cannot, Zara sleep with kakak, ok or not.
Zara : Cannot. Mummy stay Zara.
(oh.. I finally got it. She meant “Mummy stay with me” when she said “Mummy stay you”.)

Zara is a thumb sucker since birth. We did try to give her the pacifier in the very beginning but she used to spit it out, and stuff her hand into the mouth instead (before she found her thumb). She has a permanant bump on the thumb and sometimes when she sucks too hard, a little cut is found.

Last week, I found her thumb was even bleeding a bit from all the sucking, so I took out the pacifier and tried to offer it to her. She did suck on it, like trying out a toy. Here is a video captured with her using pacifier. She had her hand placed below her chin all the time, afraid of the pacifier falling, a sure sign that she’s not a pacifier user.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p63bdSFP-g]

5 minutes later.. it was back to the thumb (photo below taken on a different day).

Zara’s speech development is just so amazing. There are things we didn’t consciously teach her, but she just picks up along the way. She also pronounces most words very accurately, just like an adult. At times, she surprised us with how her little mind words, stringing those words together. Here are some of what she’s able to say.

In the mornings, when Zara wakes up and hears the sound of shower in the bathroom, she’ll point to the bathroom. “Daddy taking shower in the toilet.” Points to me, “Mummy lye down on the bed”. Points to herself, “Zara sit down on Zara’s bed (her cot).”

Daddy wanted to shower Zara, and told her, “Come Zara, Daddy bath you.”
Zara exclaimed, “Oh Ma (my) God!” then, she continued to say, “Don’t want Daddy do. Want mummy do.” and she ran towards me.
(don’t know if she knows what Oh My God means, but she uses it so appropriately)

I took a tub of yogurt to the car thinking of having it in the office. In the car, Zara spotted it and said, “Yogurt! Yogurt!” wanting some.
Tuyam took her Petite Miam (yogurt for kids) out, and asked her, “You want mummy’s one or this one?”
Zara said, “Zara wants this one (pointed to her Petite Miam). Mummy’s one not so nice. Zara’s one nicer.” (I was surprised she knows how to use the word ‘nicer’.)

We were in the car and Zara suddenly just said, “So hot outside. Wind blowing blowing. So nice.” (She saw some branches swaying in the wind under the hot sun.)
I was surprised at her remark, but I responded, “yeah, nice right, the wind blowing?”
Zara continued to say, “Nice. Wind blowing Zara’s face. Wind blowing Zara’s hair. In kakak’s room.” She was referring to the fan in Tuyam’s room.

She recently is also able to differentiate: market for wet market (where we “buy fish, buy vege, buy manana/banana, buy papaya”); supermarket for grocery shopping (where we “buy vitagen, buy cheese, buy bread, buy pear”); and restaurant (where we “eat dinner”). She pronounces market, supermarket and restaurant perfectly.

Here are few of her common vocabulary blips. She sometimes call a porcupine pineapple, a guinea pig guinea pork, sun as sunflower (she knows what a sunflower is before she knows what sun is). And of course she can’t differentiate Me and You, she’s always asking people to “Carry you” when she meant “Carry me”.

Here is another shocker.

Last Saturday, we went to Bangsar Village to do our grocery shopping (good for gourmet Cheese, and good European styled bread).

While I was claiming for parking at the information centre, Zara suddenly let go my hand, and ran towards a boy shouting, “Handsome boy!”.
She stopped right in front of a startled little boy aged about 7yrs old, who was quite good looking. She grinned broadly, touched the boy’s face, waved her hand and said, “Hi! Handsome korkor.”
The boy looked surprised, but politely waved back at her and walked on.

Zara continued staring at his back profile. When he reached the exit and turned back to look at Zara, Zara waved back, “Bye! Handsome kor kor.” And started giggling, like a love struck teenager.

Daddy and I just looked at each other utterly shocked at her behaviour! Mind you, my little girl is only 18mths old.

We brought Zara to the football field in our residential area on Sunday morning. Nobody was playing foot ball, so we got the whole field to ourselves. It was wonderful, Zara was so happy to be running in such a big flat grass field.

She was happy chasing after her ball, throwing or kicking the ball.

Daddy kicked the ball into the goal post and Zara shouted hooray (trust her be the goal keeper huh?)

Happy, Sweaty Zara.

For lunch, I made Pumpkin soup using the recipe from River Cafe Cook Book. However, because I didn’t have any chicken stock, I used the Maggie chicken granules (the one without MSG); gosh, it was so yucky (maybe because it’s change of taste bud for me as well), all I could taste is the chicken stock taste, blech. Daddy walloped his bowl without complaint though. The avocado, zucchini and turkey breast sandwich was oh, so good.

As for Zara, she has been crazy about cheese. On both Sat and Sun, all she wanted for breakfast and lunch was, “bread and cheese”. Offered her anything and she turned her face and said, “Don’t want”. So it was bread and cheese for her.

On Sat morning, she even woke up and I think she was trying to tell me what she dreamt about (but of course she’s too young to know what a dream is). She told me first thing in the morning when she opened her eyes, “Got big big cheese.” before she smiled and stretched.

Anybody knows any good but not too salty cheese to go with bread or cracker for the little one? I’d been giving her Kraft, Baby Bell and the smiling cow cheese spread. We give her some of our gourmet chedder as well, but it’s too salty and I always feel guilty after giving her some.

Hui Sia asked why I don’t mention much about the pregnancy in my blog. Actually I wanted to wait after the 1st trimester before I include updates of the pregnancy since things can still be very uncertain.

We went to see the Dr 2 weeks ago for my first check up. By right at 7 weeks, the baby’s heartbeat should be visible. However, the Dr couldn’t find one. He told us to return in 2 weeks time. You can imagine how worried we were.

Yesterday we went again. This time, the heartbeat was visible (at least to the Dr). From the size of the baby (slightly more than 1cm), Dr thinks that I’m only 7weeks + pregnant. Still very early in the pregnancy.

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Weaning Zara wasn’t difficult. After I knew I was pregnant, I increased another feed of formula to Zara. I still let her nurse 1st thing in the morning and before she went to bed. I think my milk supply reduced a lot, because she still asked for a bottle after nursing.

A week later, the nursing time also reduce, sometimes she just politely pulled down my t-shirt when I offered her the breast and said, “Close. Want bottle milk.“. At this stage, I found that the taste of the milk has changed as well, from something sweetish it has become a bit sour, probably due to the pregnancy hormones, nature’s way of weaning a child.

By the time she turned 18mths (3 weeks later), she totally stopped wanting the breast. Happy to just have the “bottle breast“, as she calls it.

I was expecting engorgement, and some discomfort, but maybe because the weaning process was spaced out, I do not have any of this. The amazing thing is, the breasts immediately shrunk 2 cups smaller! Just like that. (If only the tummy can shrink in this manner.)

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I’ve started telling Zara about the baby as well. She likes to bounce on my tummy, and I’d told her she can’t do that anymore because there’s a baby in my stomach, and the baby will feel the pain if she jumped on me. She seems to understand it.

Now, if she forgot and started bouncing on me, I’ll tell her, “Zara cannot jump on mummy”. She would quickly stop, kiss my stomach and say, “Got baby inside”.

Zara wanted to play with some paint on a rainy day, she started making a mess. So I stripped her and let her paint herself silly in her tub.

When I was not looking, she found my really really old tampons, unwrapped the plastic wrapper, and started playing with it.

We were at my sister’s place on Sunday, and she had a good time playing with her cousins. Here is here trying to strum the guitar.

She’s trying to do a yoga bridge, after seeing King’s Wife’s daughter Samantha did it.

And here is her extremely tired, waiting for daddy’s car at the lobby of my sis’ apartment

Cocka Doodle wants to know what gives me pleasure, but he should know, it’s everything to do with Zara, but I’ll try to add in others too which is not related to her.

1) Smelling Zara’s skin and hair after her bath or early in the morning
2) Having her wrapped her hands around me, giving me a hug
3) When she plant those lips on mine without being asked
4) Zara laying her head on my shoulder when I lift her up
5) Her funny ways of using words
6) Seeing the naked little bum of Zara’s
7) The way she looks up on me to do things she can’t do yet (like putting on the CD for her, helping her to climb up a chair, or reciting the nursery rhyme). “Mummy help” or “Mummy do”
8) Daddy shuffling my hair (a sign of his affections)
9) Biting on that piece of juicy duck with crispy skin.. Aaaaa
10) Seeing the 2 love of my life enjoying the food I’d cooked for them

I won’t tag anybody but it’s an easy tag to do, if you are interested, please go ahead and do it.