Zara came face to face with a crow yesterday, and the crow was making “Ak Ak Ak” sound throughout. I explained to her that the bird bird says “Ak Ak Ak”; just like cats say “Ao”; dogs say “Wof Wof”.

While we were in the car, I started asking her, what should does this animal and that animal make and she seemed to be able to do a few sounds.

The cow, which is Moo
The dog, which is Woof woof
The cat, which is Aao (like the way she calls a cat)
The monkey, which is Ooo-Ooo Eh-eh-Eh
The elephant, which is … I mean you get it, I don’t even know how to spell the sound.

To listen to her making these sounds, click

She has also started to be able to call different people by their titles:

Ah Ku (my brother, the King) – as Ah Tu
Ah Kim (King’s Wife) – as Ah Tim
Ah Kong (my dad) – as Ah Kng
Ma-ma (my MIL) – as Ma-ma
Ku-Che (my SIL) – as Kng (a pause, then) Teh
Che-Che (my nieces) – as Teh Teh
Daddy – as Pa Pa
Kakak (which she already said long time ago) – as Tak Tak
Me – as …. *silence* Yes, this little girl still refused to call me!

As mentioned in my earlier post, while Zara eats, she needs to have some food on her own plate to self feed or play with.

Here are some photos taken during the weekend where she attempted to self feed herself with some rice.

I was so glad my eldest sis brought along her maid, Sandra, and she helped me with feeding and entertaining Zara (I normally don’t bring along Tuyam, our maid, because I prefer Zara to be taken care by only Daddy and myself during weekends, I think Zara needs a break from Tuyam after spending 5days with her).
Zara : Mmm, chomp, chomp!
See the mess, luckily I don’t have to mop the floor later

Zara : Hahaha, This is so much fun!

Zara : Oh o, looks like my plate is empty already!

Aunty Sandra : OK, wipe your hands now.
Zara : beh-beh, power, putter-pie *suddenly took an interest in the bear, flower and butterfly motive on the plate*
Zara : Hug Hug. Thank You Aunty Sandra for playing with me while my mummy pigged out.

Last week, while waiting for her to fall asleep, I just got her to speak after me on the words that she already knew.

Half way through, she started talking in her baby language, and giggled. To listen to the recording of the ‘conversation’, click here .

Zara is spending too many hours or nights sleeping in our bed with us. I really don’t mind her sleeping with us, but our bed is a Queen size bed, and she’s growing bigger, and tossing and turning more in the middle of the night. We have to squeeze ourselves to the sides of the bed so that she has more room in the middle.

On a normal day, after I’d nursed her, I would lie on the bed with her until she’s asleep. I would then carry her and placed her in her cot. If she woke up in the middle of the night, she would sit up, and start faking a cry. I have to then carry her to our bed, she normally will immediately fall back asleep when sandwiched between us, waking up only in the morning. This (wanting to come to our bed) can happen anytime from 1:30am to 5:30am.

Yesterday, I tried to ‘train’ her to fall asleep in her cot. After nursing her, she’s dopey and almost going to knock off; I put her into her cot. The minute she was laid down, she opened her eyes, her hand reached out for me. I said, “Zara big girl already, sleep on your own ok?”.

She sat up, tears welling up, and then the crying started. “Wah, Wah, Wah!”. Very pitiful, her eyes following me.

I told her, “mummy’s bed is just next to you, you want mummy, mummy will come, but today you sleep on your own ok?”

“Wah! Wah! Wah!” was her replied. Tears were flowing down, by now, she stood up and her arms reaching for me.

I tried to be firm, and said, “Zara sleep on your own, mummy hold your hands, you lie down and sleep.” She shook her head (NO NO NO). I laid her back down and held her hand. She sat up again, this time howling, and occasionally, not sure if it was acting, she made the vomiting sound, as though she’s going to puke if I don’t pick her up soon.

Gosh, what am I to do now? The books said I should lay her down firmly, and tell her it would be ok, and be nearby so she can see me. But look at her, I can’t do it. My mind working to look for an answer. Ok, Ok, I’ll compromise. I carried her up. Immediately, she laid her head on my shoulder, the howling stopped, but she was still sobbing. I said, “mummy pat pat you, then you go back to sleep in the cot ok?”. After the word has spoken, she raised her head, shook it, and started crying again.

Ok ok, comfort her first. I started patting her again, and she calmed down. When I thought she was calmed, I put her back into the cot, and said, “Good girl, Zara, sleep on your own ok?”. The howling started again. This repeated a few times.

Daddy heard the commotion and came in to kay-poh(nosy) investigate. “What happened?” He asked. “Trying to train her to sleep on her own, but she’s making a fuss.” I replied. “Aiya, just let her sleep with us then.” Zara saw Daddy to the rescue and started making the vomiting sound again, “URK! WAH WAH WAH! URK”.

Ok, I give up! I put her down on our bed. Miraculously, the tears stopped, but she still looked at me pathetically, it’s like giving me the “aren’t you going to sleep with me like you always do?” look. Ok, ok. I laid down next to her, and immediately, she wrapped her arms around mine, still sniffing, but drifting off to sleep.

Zara 1, Mummy 0. Aigh.
See, the small space I have to sleep on every night.

I love these few shots of Zara. Despite Daddy’s Fear, I’ll still post them.

Zara was trying to fake a cry to get her way with something.
Zara was giving her favourite che-che (big sister), Sam a hug. This was taken during her birthday, when she wasn’t feeling very well, and she just wanted to ‘manja’ (get pampering from) her che-che.

Zara playing with Daddy, part of her nightly routine.
And the best of the lot, Zara giving me a kiss on the lips after lots of pleading from me.

You get 15% off for toys, stationeries, clothing; and you get 5% off for baby items and in the supermarket. Very attractive. So I took a day off yesterday, and went shopping with King’s Wife.

We met up at Delicious at 1-U for lunch. I had a grilled vegetable sandwich, and offered some to Zara. The fussy eater has developed new skill to refuse food must be due to too many force feedings from mummy. She let me put the food in her mouth, but she just casually trusted her tongue to push the food out. Clever indeed! So, she didn’t like the sandwich.

From her knapsack, I took out a hard boil egg, to the gasps of my nieces (“You have an egg in your bag!?”). I thought maybe she’ll have the egg for lunch instead. I offered it to her, she took it, but just like earlier, she pushed the egg out with her tongue. OK, didn’t like the egg as well.

Luckily I have another back up, I took out a banana (My nieces: “A banana?? What else do you have in the bag??”) for the just-in-case situation, because Zara never refused bananas. True enough, with the banana, she happily took and swallowed it.

After she finished her banana lunch, and my nieces were done with theirs, King Wife’s and I got them to bring her to the big cushion right in front of the restaurant to play while we slowly enjoyed the rest of the lunch as well as our drink.

Once we’re done over stuffed ourselves with lunch, the shopping spree began. We thought we had ample time, so we took our time glancing at some of the shops in the new wing, and had afternoon tea before we went to Jusco, by then it was already 4:30pm.

We regretted not coming to Jusco earlier, because there was so much to buy. We spent almost 3hours shopping for Christmas presents, since there’s 15% off for all toys (within the family, Christmas presents are only meant of the kids). Zara has been very good, most of the time she just followed Sam around, playing with some of the toys, or happy just being able to explore, touching this and that.

I bought a bicycle for Zara, toy house for Sam (she chose it herself), model figurines for my 2 nephews, and Alicia (King’s wife older child) chose herself some earrings and necklace. I stocked up on lots of baby wipes and bottle cleaner as well. When I saw the bill at the cashier, my jaw just dropped, close to RM800RM600 even after all the discount! Christmas is a very expensive season!

With supermarket items having 5% of discount, guess it’s only wise to stock up on things. I bought more rubbish.

At the end of the 8hr shopping spree, my whole car was stuffed with shopping bags (just enough room for Zara’s car seat), a very big hole in my wallet, and a very tired Zara. She’s good though, not much fretting, and just went along with us.

Jusco is sure smart to have such a deal going during this time of the year, and I’m (along with King’s Wife) always such a sucker for sales.

We went to One Utama to shop for some masak-masak(cooking set toy) for Zara on Saturday.

On our way to ToysRus, we went past this shop with 2 huge Christmas trees. I thought it was a good time to introduce Christmas to Zara, so I walked her to one of the trees, and pointed to her, “Zara, look, Christmas tree”. She looked at it, scanned the tree from bottom to top, and then frowned and went hiding behind my back.

Daddy squatted down and tried to bring her near the tree again, but Zara was just clinging on to my clothes, hiding her face behind me (peeking occasionally though).

“Zara scared scared?” I asked her, she patted her chest (indicating she’s afraid). I tried to tell her that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and pointed to her all the familiar ornaments like stars, bears, balls etc to her. However, she just refused to go near the tree, and kept patting her chest. We thought maybe the tree is too big, and she got frightened by the size, and didn’t pursue.

After ToysRus, we went to Jusco to look for a tree for our house. We were glad to find a 4ft tree with ornaments going for RM49.90. Since we’re such al-cheapos We thought it was a good buy, and quickly grabbed one.

On Sunday, Daddy set the tree up, and placed it in the living room, next to the TV. Every time when Zara wanted to get near the TV console (to reach for her own VCDs), she avoided the path nearer to the tree. Sometimes, she would throw glances at the tree and pat her chest.

I wonder why she’s afraid of the tree! Not so afraid that she would cry, but enough to make her want to avoid it. However, this really suits us, we don’t have to worry about her pulling the ornaments or the tree down! *grin*

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And the latest addition, brushing her teeth with toothpaste at the sink..

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I used to brush her without toothpaste in the earlier months, but I thought I should start her with toothpaste since she has 6 teeth now, and is eating lumpier and more fibrous food. She seems to enjoy it a lot. She is swallowing the water used to rinse her mouth even when I’d asked her to spit it out; I think it’s because she likes the bubble gum taste of the Oral B kid’s tooth paste.

Am I too early in brushing her teeth with toothpaste, especially since she’s eating the toothpaste instead of spitting out? When did you start your kid on tihs routine?

Here’s a video taken today of Zara talking (of course with me instigating).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7MDd2QLNk0]

Here is what she said just in case you have problem understanding what she’s saying.
She replied, “Za-ah”, when I asked her what was her name.
She said “Bi-kngh” after my ‘biscuit’ (her new vocabulary, which she is repeating quite frequently).
And she said Park when her shoes were handed to her.
(it’ll take a while to load)

Zara’s car seat is long overdue for an upgrade. Although she has not reached the weight limit of her infant carrier (9Kg), she has already exceeded the height limit (72cm) quite a few months back.

Even though we’d bought her a front facing car seat during the mega sales in August, we didn’t replace it immediately because the infant carrier is very portable (easy to install into my car on weekdays, and move to Daddy’s car on weekends) and has a canopy (good for transporting her in and out of the car during rainy days and shield her on sunny days) .

We set ourselves a target, when she turned One, we’ll do the upgrade. Finally, yesterday night, Daddy installed the new car seat into my car (after 30mins of struggling and some swearing).

This morning, when it was time to leave the house, I told Zara “Come on, lets go, we’re going to Ah Kim’s house already” She automatically wobbled towards her infant carrier and wanted to climb into it. We told her, “Zara now big girl already, che-che (big sister) already, no more baby, must sit in BIG car seat now”. It was like a ceremony, 3 of us (Daddy, maid, myself), fussed over her and placed her into her new car seat. And thank God she likes it, and didn’t complain.

Now, while driving to work, she’ll be seated behind me, instead of next to me (like she did when she was in her infant career). I can’t hold her hand or stroke her face while driving any more…. *sob sob*.

Just for the records, this is her in the Infant Carrier in August.
And today, the big girl has been upgraded to her spacious car seat.

Why do I feel as though I’m going to marry her off soon?? *Sensible me talking : I have to get a grip of myself!*