I started singing her the song, “If You’re Happy And You Know it”, 1 week ago.

I used the action “clap your hands”, “wave bye bye”, “give me five”, “kick your legs”, “stamp your feet”. In the beginning, she knew how to do the first 4, and when I stamped my feet, she got attracted to the sound, and looked down to see how I did it. She was quick to learn. After a few rounds of singing, over the weekend, she showed me how she ‘stamp her feet’.

She was holding on the the bed frame doing her usual round of cruising, and when we reached the part “stamp your feet”, she lifted one of her feet up, and stamped her foot. I sang the whole song, and she stamped her feet every time we reached the phrase with the action.

We were so pleased with her, and cheered and lifted her up to praise her. She was pleased with herself too, smiling her cheeky grin.

Now, every time when I sing her the song, she will follow the action phrase and do the action. Sometimes she’s a bit slow, and I have to wait for her a second or two, and repeat the phrase, or tell her “Zara, wave bye bye la”, or “Zara, give mummy five”, and she’ll carry out the action after the reminder.

These few days, she also started mastering opening and closing her hands while we sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. She’s trying to imitate the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” action as well, but I guess that will take a while.

Of all the Baby Einstein DVDs that I bought for her, she likes the Old Mc Donald one the most, and only the bit where the song was sung.

She enjoys children songs a lot, and especially like it if there’s some action bits which she can contribute. Sometimes, she sings too, but I can’t make out what she’s singing. She’ll be ‘aaaaah…. mm baaaa.”, then she’ll open and close her hands, and I guess she’s probably singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The whole of Klang Valley was hit with the bad haze (caused by burning of plantation in Sumatra), a layer of smoke enveloping the whole city, visibility was down to 500meters. Every breath taken outdoor caused a choke, and you can feel your lungs working extra hard. This situation caused lots of people with respiratory related illnesses prolong their suffering. Zara was one of the victim. Although she has recovered from her fever, she still has a quite a bad cough and a bit of runny nose.

When we’re in Karen’s place, she is so fretful, and wants to be near me all the time. I guess with me working from home didn’t help much, as the more she knows I’m around, the more she will ‘look’ for me.

Her usual excitement during bath time, had also turned into some kind of torture. The minute she’s taken to the bath room by Elizebeth, her shouting and screaming bout starts. Nothing can consol her. We have to resort to topping and tailing her most of the time.

When we’re back home (we lived in one of the worst hit area), we spent most of our time in our own room, with the aircon (with in-built air filtration and ioniser) on, and if we needed to be in the living room, we have the ironiser turned on full blown, and all the windows shut tight.

It seems the haze is going to be with us for a while until the wind changed directions or the monsoon arrives. We will have to endure more of this till then.

It was Zara’s turn to be ill. I had passed on the virus to her, not sure by being near her, or by nursing her.

She started just like me, a cough. We brought her to the Pediatrician on Tuesday. She was still so full of energy, trying to reach and touch all the babies, toddlers, older children in the waiting room. When it was her turn to see the Dr, she marched in (with daddy holding on to her arms helping to support her).

In the middle of Tuesday night, she started running a temperature. I was awaken by her moaning in her sleep, she was as though in some kind of pain. I was worried sick, taking her temperature every 15mins, trying to sponge her or keep a cold towel on her forehead throughout the night.

On Wednesday, I took the day off to look after her at Karen’s place as I need Karen’s maids to help out. Her temperature was a constant 38.3~38.5. She didn’t want to have anything to eat, and didn’t want to have any water. All she wanted was to nurse.

The whole day, she was glued to my breasts. She would be sucking and when I try to sneak off to go to the toilet or go for a munch, she would wake up crying.

Giving her medicine was another big challenge. She would wail and scream when we try to feed her the medicine. She would hold the medicine in her mouth and not swallow it, while screaming on top of her voice until her voice turned horse. When we try to close her mouth to force her to swallow, she screamed even louder with big drops of tears streaming down and face turning all red. After that, she would throw up, milk, medicine and everything else.

My breasts sore, my muscle ache (from all the carrying), my body exhausted (from lack of sleep) and my heart broken (to see her at this state).

I was so glad in the night, her temperature was back to normal. Her fever has gone.

When babies fall ill, mummies suffer more than when they themselves are ill.

While Tuyam is away for her vacation, I will work from Karen’s place and have Karen’s 2 maids (one Indonesian, and one Filipino) help me look after Zara.

Zara’s first day with Kakak and Aunty wasn’t very exciting, until Nicholas (my 11 year old nephew) came home and started strumming the guitar.

She was intrigued by the guitar. Nicholas ko-ko tried teaching her how to strum the guitar, but she just didn’t understand or know how to ‘strum’ the strings. Instead, she preferred to hit on the wooden casing of the guitar.

A bad cough crept into my system on Friday, followed with over all body ache. Yesterday, when we sent of Tuyam to the airport, it got worse. I started having a bad headache.

What timing! Here I was sending off my domestic helper cum baby sitter for her 1 month vacation, and the fever, cough virus eagerly came for a visit.

Without a maid, we couldn’t really care for Zara. I got weaker. I continued to nurse her (which I’m not sure if it was such a good idea under such condition), and tried to just watch over her while lying on the bed. Daddy, although is a good play mate, isn’t such a great child carer. We sent an SOS to mum in law. She agreed to help out and would stay a night at our place.

For the rest of the weekends, I laid in bed all the time with a very bad fever, and was vomiting out anything that I ate.

Mum in law was the one caring for Zara for the 2 days, but Zara was fretting a lot. She preferred mummy. Anytime when she was changed in the room, Zara would reach for me. After a feed, she would want to stay for a while near me, leaning her head on my chest, lying next to me playing with my fingers or my pendant.

I dare not give her kisses, worry that I may pass the virus to her, but couldn’t help giving her some cuddles and hugs.

You can’t be sick being a mum, the baby needs you, and nobody can replace you. This is even more true if you are still nursing the baby.

I was glad, I got better at night. Still weak, but my headache and vomiting had stopped. I didn’t know then that the week was going to be a long one…..

Her night time ritual consists of changing, playing with her toileteries, trying to climb down of the bed, cruising. Mummy or daddy always have to be near by to watch over her, just in case she falls.

Zara has learnt how to crawl, stand up (supported), cruise around furniture, stand and sit herself up within these last 2 weeks.

I think her own achievement has excited herself.

She has been sleeping quite promptly at 9:30pm the last few weeks. After I changed her to her pajamas, she would lie down to nurse, then drift off to sleep; or worse case, she would lie in bed with me, and after a few songs and some patting, she would fall asleep. Her usual routine is 10hrs of sleep in the night, and she takes 2 naps which total up to 2 to 3hrs.

But this week, after we’d come back home, she’s still wide awake, even though I know she’s very tired (since her nap time remain the same, and she is physically more active now). After nursing, she would want to get back down on the ground, do more cruising, practice more standing herself up.

She wouldn’t stop, even if I turned off the lights, and tell her it’s time for bed. She would toss and turn and sit up, and toss and turn and sit up. A few times, to calm her excited self down, I have to lay her on my chest with her tummy against mine, and her head on my chest; or I carry her in my arms and rock her to sleep, that way she’ll drift to sleep in 5mins or so.

We have also raised the bars of her cot as she’s now able to stand herself up. This is what she does now in the morning at 6am when she wants to come over to our bed to nurse, she’ll stand herself up, hanging on to the bars facing my direction, and shouts for me “Aaah.. Eerr” until I come to her.

This is her still up and alert at 11pm wanting to practice more cruising.

Zara leaves the house together with me in the morning, and I drop her off in Jenny’s place (before) or Karen’s place (now) together with Tuyam. The journey takes about 25mins (smooth traffic) to 45mins (bad traffic). Here’s she, on a typical day.

Getting into the car, she’s all excited and happy.

Songs and games keep her going.. but not for long

Starts to put thumb in the mouth, indicating she’s tired

Sucking her thumb (she always covers her face either with her own hand or with a piece of muslin cloth/hanky) to sleep.

The Pigeon Trainer Toothbrush set is a really good buy, with 3 brushes for different stages. We got Zara a set, and she’s currently using the Step 1 brush, it comes with a safety shield which prevents choking.

When we first introduced the tooth brush to her, she bit on it like a teething toy. She didn’t mind us moving the brush around for her, and sometimes she’ll hold it herself.

I’d been carrying her while I brush my teeth lately, and now when we give her her tooth brush, she’ll put it in her mouth, and move the ‘brush’ around, probably trying to imitate my brushing.

She’s ‘brushing’ her gums most of the time, and I have to help her with her 4 pearly whites (she’s corporative all the time, allowing me to move the brush around her teeth).

I also rub Weleda Children’s Tooth Gel on her teeth once in the morning and once just before she goes to bed.

Not sure if it’s the daily brushing and the gel, or babies are just like that, but Zara has no morning breath at all. She always smells good in the morning!

Tuyam is going back to Indonesia for a month starting next week.

Zara instead of going to Jenny Ah Kim’s house, will go to Karen Yee Yee’s house, since Karen has 2 maids who can help to look after her.

We started bringing her over today. She was having a tough time trying to adjust to the new environment and Elizabeth (my sister’s Filipino maid). Tuyam told me Zara didn’t want Elizabeth to handle her at all, sticking closely to Tuyam all the time. Tuyam couldn’t leave Zara(with Elizabeth) to take her shower or to cook, because Zara would cry on top of her voice, and had tears rolling down. A pitiful sight. She refused to let Elizabeth carry her, and turned to face the other side when Elizabeth reached out for her.

In the evening, when she saw me walking into the house, she squealed happily, and grinned, and started to crawl towards me. What else could please me more than this sight after a hard day’s work? I picked her up and gave her a big hug, as she deserves one!

It is going to be tough for her these few days, but she’ll have to cope. I’ll work from Karen’s place the next few weeks until she settles in or Tuyam comes back (whichever is earlier).