You asked about Zara’s dark side? Here it is..

She worries too much.

Over school spelling/ting xie (听写)
Zara : I don’t think I have ting xie tomorrow. But what happens if I have?
Me : Did you check your gong ke biao (功课表/homework list).
Zara : But what happens if I copied wrongly?
Me : Did your teacher say there’s ting xie tomorrow?
Zara : No, he didn’t. But what happens if I heard wrongly? Then I get everything wrong? I’ll get smacked.
Me : If it’s not in your gong ke biao (功课表/homework list), and you didn’t hear your teacher say there’s ting xie, then there is no ting xie! OK!
Zara : But…..
Me : Zara, please…..next time double check your gong ke biao, and if your teacher says tingxie or something, write it down somewhere so you’ll remember.
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried. o.O”

Over school homework 1.
Zara : Can you read the instruction and tell me if I need to colour the picture
Me : *read* No, it just asks you to write the sentence that’s all.
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried.
Me : *impatient* What is it now?
Zara : What happens if I need to colour?
Me : The instruction didn’t ask you to colour!
Zara : What happens if I my teacher asked me to colour? Can you call him and ask? o.O”
Me : We only call teacher for important thing. This is not important.
Daddy : If you think you need to colour then colour.
Zara : What happens if I colour and my teacher didn’t want me to colour, then he scold me?
Daddy : If the instruction said no need to colour, and you went and colour, it’s doing extra work. Teacher won’t scold you for doing extra work.
Looked exceptionally troubled, then relieved.
Zara : I think I’ll colour lightly, if teacher didn’t want us to colour, I’ll just rub of the colour when I’m in school.
(Whatever!)

Over school homework 2.
Zara : I need a photo from our holiday.
Me : Do you really need one? *read the instructions* Instructions says you either stick a photo, or draw a picture of you on holiday.We don’t have a photo printed, so you just draw.
Zara : What happens if my drawing doesn’t look real? Then teacher will beat me.
Me : You are only 7 yrs old, your teacher cannot expect you to draw something that look real.
Daddy : Ya, your teacher wont’ expect you to draw like Picasso or Van Gogh.
Ok, that settles it. She started drawing herself climbing a tree which she did during the March holidays. After finished drawing and colouring, she looked worried.
Zara : What happens if my teacher asked me where are my parents?
o.O” OMG!
Me : *patiently* Just tell him, we are watching you from afar, so we are not in the picture
Zara : What happens if he said, “你的爸爸妈妈在那里？做什么没有在图画里？”(where are your parents, why are they not in the picture) and scold me.
Me : *impatiently* Zara, your teacher is not unreasonable. Just tell him what I told you. Your parents are watching you. If you are so worried, then just draw 2 shadows of us watching you.
Zara : What happens if cannot, every body must show their faces?
Started shedding tears, kept very quiet, looked worried. o.O”
Me : *very impatiently* Zara, it’s not the end of the world. Your teacher doesn’t beat you or scold you for no reason ok? You won’t get scolding or beating for things like that. Please. Little thing you worry, little thing you worry. If you worried so much, next time just copy down all the instructions the teacher gives, then you won’t miss it.
Daddy : Next time, just take your friends’ phone number. Better still, take 2 friends. Then if you are not sure, just call them and ask.

……..

I was expecting the next question, What happens if they are not home?” o.O”
But phew… luckily she didn’t start..

……..

And no, her teacher is not really unreasonable. I’m not aware she’s been scolded or beaten for any homework related thing. So far, she’s been caned (she said lightly) on the palm because her nails were not clipped according to the teacher’s standard (not all the way to the skin), and Daddy has already gone to the school to tell the teacher to exercise more care in his punishment, teacher apologised and told Daddy he will.

……..

Tell me, if your kid is like that and how you handle it?

Some of the characters and behavior of Zara seen at this age.

She says thank you generously.
“Thank you dad, thank you mum, for bringing me out.” After a shopping trip.
“Thank you Auntie Minerva for cooking us dinner.” After dinner at home.
“Thank you mom for the story.” After bed time stories.
“Thank you mom, for doing revision with me.” After doing revision with her and scolding her many times for things she couldn’t grasp after a few telling.

She likes to join in adult’s conversation, and will share her thoughts as and when, but never being rude.
“Excuse me, can I say something here? …. (yada yada yada).”

She is getting more responsible in getting her homework done on a timely manner, revising her spelling / ting xie (听写) on her own before coming to me to go through with her.

She is generous with her money. E.g.
1) She stopped taking her RM5/week allowance from me, as she said I can collect the money and sponsor a World Vision gift on her behalf.
2) When I mentioned I was interested in a Thermomix but have no money, she went to the room and took out her life savings piggy bank and passed it to me. “You can take this and buy whatever you want.”

Rarely does she throw tantrum, but when she does, it’s normally because she’s very tired.

She makes friends easily, and plays well with most kids.

She dislike having male teachers.
Her class teacher this year is a male teacher, she told me she doesn’t like him.
She cried last weekend refusing to go to swimming class because they changed her teacher from a female to a male. When I asked her why, her reply, “I don’t like boys to touch me.”
(I was worried and probed further, wondering if the male teacher touched her inappropriately, she told me he just held her elbow when teaching her the stroke, but she didn’t like it.) o.O”

She can take a lot of my crap, like my shouting and unnecessary scolding (mostly happen during revision). She will wipe away her tears, and then continues listening me. In the end still says, “Thank you mum, for helping me.”
Making me feel very guilty.
However, she will insist I say sorry to her later.

These are all her mature qualities.

She still plays like a crazy kid, jumping on beds, climbing poles/trees.
Picky on her food.
Eating like a connoisseur, “This fried rice taste likes there’s no garlic and onion in it, I don’t like.”
She still bullies Zaria occasionally, giving her pinch, or a smack sometimes for no apparent reason; although most of the time they are best of friends.

This is Zara, my girl who’s turning into a little lady.

After 24 days without a helper, with many broken promises from our Agent, and many missed datelines, our new helper Minerva finally arrived on Feb 29th.

In the beginning, with Minerva’s arrival, my schedule was still in a chaos.

1) I had to finish the 4 photobooks that I’d ordered via groupon by March 12th.

2) My boss had asked for the impossible to happen, which is to roll out the tool that I’m responsible for to China within 2months (when in normal circumstances, minimum 3 months lead time is required).

3) Zara was having her first exams in March, and I had to revise with her.

4) Daddy was away for almost 2 weeks.

In between working, I would be training Minerva and chauffeuring the kids. After work, I’ll be doing revision with Zara. And then when the girls were off to beds, I would be completing whatever work that wasn’t completed for the day, and then worked on the photobook.

For as long as 2 weeks, my average sleeping time was 2am!

My crazy schedule is finally over.

Zara’s exams are over, and the girls now have a week of school holidays, so no more revision and chauffeuring required!
Minerva is starting to understand our schedule and work.
Photobooks are done and submitted for printing.
The stake holder responsible for China roll out has agreed to a deployment in June, giving us more time to work on things.
And Daddy is back (not that it helped, because he caught the flu bug and all he’s been doing around is sleep since he got back).

The biggest pay off for all the hard work? Zara scored 100% for her Chinese! Yee Har!

You’ll be seeing more posts after this.

7 year olds’ friendship is sooooo fragile.

One day it’s like this :
(from Chloe to Zara)

Another day it’s this :
(they have a disagreement in the car today and talked about breaking up)

Mind her spelling, she just started reading and writing independantly.

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

Another incident unrelated to the above.

I met my secondary school mate in Midvalley one day, and I told the girls she’s my BFF.
Zaria said, “Huh? I’d never seen her before. How can she be your BFF? BFF is supposed to see each other everyday.”

Me and BFFs definitely need to meet up more frequently.

OMG! I just realised I’d not put in a single post yet in October. I have been busy at work, and after work, it was to do revision with Zara to prepare her for her final exams.

Now the Final Exams Are Over!! At least I’m less busy at night (if I don’t have to work).

Yesterday, while Zara was sorting out her school bag, I just realised, she’s almost coming to the end of Standard 1! How time flies.

She’s done well for the 1st year in Primary school. Her 2011 at a glance….

She didn’t speak much Chinese last year, now she can quarrel with me in Mandarin.

She didn’t read much Chinese, and was getting ~8X% in Chinese for her first 2 exams, now she’s getting ~9X%.

There was a Li Bai’s poem taught in school, with the ending 2 sentences :
举头望明月，地头思故乡 (which is translated to : I lift my eyes to watch the mountain moon, Lower them and dream of home). And when I asked her if she knew what it was about she told me something like, “You look at the moon, then you think about the good old days.” o.O”

She said she corrects her English teacher’s English in class at times. o.O”

She started picking up bits of Cantonese from school, and she asked me one day, “How come all the Cantonese words are the 3rd sound?” (Chinse intonation 3rd sound). Quoting examples like, sek-farn (eat rice), fei-poh (fat lady).
Aaaa.. I didn’t notice that.

She’s now started swimming laps in her swimming lesson while trying to perfect her stroke.

She sleeps without bed guards, and knows when to ‘pull the breaks’ at the edge and not fall off the bed.

Although she prefers to be read to, she now started reading on her own too. Reading Sponge Bob comics, Geronimo Stilton etc.

She can bath herself now, and at times even bath and shampoo Zaria. Sometimes in times of need, even wipes Zaria’s butt after Zaria has done her poop.

She manages her own pocket money of RM5 a week (spending most of it buying useless things from the school bookshop).

She’s definitely done a lot of growing up in 2011.

(continue from here)

When we stopped over in Ipoh for breakfast, we told the girls Ipoh is famous for beautiful girls.
Zaria asked, “Where can we see them? Can you bring us to see them?” (like they are some zoo animals)
We ate in this coffee shop, and it was mainly operated by elderly people.
I overheard Zara told Zaria, “Ipoh girls all old ladies only wut.”

When in Penang, there are 2 eateries that we’ll never miss. Nonya Breeze, and Jalan Siam Char Kuey Teow.
After an extremely satisfying dinner at the Jalan Siam Char Kuey Teow stall, seeing that the stall owners (father and son team) were less busy as it was the end of business day, both Daddy and myself went up to them and chatted a bit as well as praised them.
“Your char kuey teow is the best!” We told them.
When we went back the following day for another plate of char kuey teow, it wasn’t as satisfying, as I think the uncle put too much chilli in ours. And the girls too thought their plate of chilli-free kuey teow wasn’t as good as the night before.

We went to Nonya Breeze twice as well this round. Once for dinner, and once for lunch. It was good both times. We had this conversation in the car.
Daddy : We should have just eaten the char kuey teow once. Too much of a good thing is not good
Me : No not true, we ate Nonya Breeze twice and both were equally good.
Daddy : Hmm, yeah, why huh?
Zara : That’s because the char kuey teow man is a show off
Me : Huh?
Zara : Ya. You went and said his char kuey teow was good right the 1st time? So he became arrogant. That’s why 2nd time not so good already. Nonya Breeze you didn’t tell them their food was good, so they just continue to do what they do.
o.O”
(She believes that I shouldn’t praise her too, or she’ll be too proud. So everytime when I say played a piano piece well, or her drawing is nice, she’ll put her index finger on her lips and said, “sssssh..”)

On our way back from Penang, I told the girls, “So girls, we’d spent all our money in Penang. I guess we don’t have money for other holidays anymore.”
Zara replied, “You don’t lie to me. You only spend your Penang money. You still have Hong Kong money, Singapore money and other money you haven’t spent yet.”
I went, “Huh?”
Zara said, “Ya, you only spent your Penang dollar. Your Singapore dollar and Hong Kong dollar you didn’t use wutt. You don’t try to lie to me, ok.”
o.O”
Have to work on her money concept, this one.

I took off a couple of days last week, so that we can spend the girls’ school holidays together, and also go on our yearly trip to Penang.

Here are some conversations worthy to mention on our trip.

It was a wet day when we travelled to Penang. When we passed by the limestone hills in Ipoh, the girls saw the fluff of clouds floating around the hills. Zaria said, “Look, God’s spirit is everywhere.” o.O”

We talked about sleeping arrangement in the car. As Zaria has been really naughty the past few days, I told her, “I think I’ll sleep with jiejie, and Zaria can sleep with Daddy.”
She replied, “If I sleep with daddy, I’ll kungfu his kukujiao (Chinese : penis)” o.O”

We stayed in Traders Hotel in Penang. Every time when we turned on the TV, the Shangrila Hotel channel will come out first, showing the various Shangrila Hotels and Resorts world wide.
I commented one day, “These places are soooo nice, I wish I could go to these hotels to stay. Too bad your Daddy is not rich.”
Zara replied, “It’s not that he’s not rich. He’s cheap.” o.O”
Oh my, wonder what gave her that idea, but we had a good laugh hearing her reply.

Zaria told me later that when she’s older, she’ll bring me for holidays, and stay in those hotels. She said “I’ll bring you to Paris, and Italy.”
While swimming at the hotel pool, I asked Zaria to remove her float and tried to swim without (since she’s been attending swimming class for a month now).
She refused even after lots of persuation.
So I told her, “Next time when mummy is old, and you bring me for holidays, what if I fall into the sea, and you don’t know how to swim, then who’s going to save me?”
Zaria replied, “We are going to Paris. There’s no sea right?”
I told her in Paris there’s River Seine, a big river.
She then asked, “What about Italy? Is there river?”
I told her Italy is surrounded by the sea.
She thought for a while longer. “I think you go to Italy and Paris with jiejie (because Zara knows how to swim) then. I bring you to Ipoh.” o.O”

Kiasi (traditional Chinese: 驚死, 惊死, kiaⁿ-sí) is a Hokkien phrase, literally means afraid of death, to describe the attitude of being overly afraid or timid.

Since she was very young, Zara has already shown sign she’s very kiasi.
She’s afraid of the dark.
She’ll try to eat healthy so that she’ll not fall ill.

When she was 3+, she sometime had nightmare which woke her up in the middle of the night. Her nightly prayer during that time would include a line like “Jesus, please don’t let me have nightmare.” and she would ask me everynight, “Mum, will I have nightmare?”

She’s never been on a nebuliser, but had seen kids using it. When she’s not well, she will eat her medicine on a timely basis even though it’s extremely yucky. She will not touch cold drinks when she’s having the flu/cold/cough because I’d told her if she didn’t take care when she’s not well, she might need to use the nebuliser.

When she learnt about Hand Foot And Mouth Disease and H1N1 in school, she started checking her body frequently, and when there were ‘suspicious’ spots, she would ask worriedly, “Do I have Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.”; and when a stubborn cough or flu continued for a few days longer, she would ask, “Do I have H1N1?”

Early this year, she started having frequent nose bleed. A couple of times, it bled in the middle of the night, making everybody worry. I initially taught it was caused by extreme ‘heatiness’, so I told her to watch what she eats, and drinks more water.
Her prayer became “Jesus, please don’t let me have nosebleed.” and she would ask me everynight, “Mum, will I have nosebleed?”
She stopped having chocolate and deep fried food although those were her favourite (Even if you tempt her and placed them in front of her, she’ll just say, “No! After I’ll get nosebleed.”)
We eventually found out the reason for her nosebleed. She has extremely sensitive nose. No nose picking and no nose spray (anto-congestion nor salt-water spray) and that fixed the problem.
She’s back on her favourite food now.

She eats most vegetable although she may not like them just because they will make her healthy.
She makes sure her hands are clean before picking up anything to eat.

Recently, I started making homemade ice cream and told her that most ice cream sold had some sort of chemical or preservatives to make them last longer, so best for her to just stick to my ice cream. I shared with her as well some ice cream use artificial sweetener which may cause cancer.
So now her favourite question is, “Will I get cancer.” when she touches something which I told her might contain artificial flavouring or sweetener. o.O”

The Little One is very into drawing lately although we did not start her on any arts classes.

In the beginning, she liked copying what Zara drew. E.g. Zara drew this.

She drew this (even the font for her name, she’s trying to copy Zara).

And guess what movie they were drawing about?
TANGLED.

Then she stopped copying, and started creating her own. Some following movies she’s watched, like these :

Some following famous characters.

(See if you can make out what she’s drawing, answer is at the end of the post)

Sometimes she just drew whatever that came to the mind.

Or inspired by what she was doing (taking photos, plucking flowers, and wearing the dress that she wore in the photos above).

I was praising her and then I called her Little Van Gogh one day. And since we told her briefly in Singapore who’s Van Gogh and what is he famous for, she replied very quickly, “Don’t call me Van Gogh, after I’ll cut my ear suddenly.” o.O”

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

Of all the subjects in school, Zara scored the worse for Arts (She got As for all subjects, but B for arts). Hmm.., I think her drawings are quite original, I would have given her higher score myself. Then again I’m her mother, so I may be buyous.

These are the 2 that she did recently and passed up for arts class.

Topic was to desgn and decorate their names.

Topic was to draw something from or with Angry Bird.

Not too bad right?

And answers to Zaria’s drawing : Monster Inc.; Power Puff Girls; Angry Birds (a bit abstract though).

(You’ll probably be able to relate to this more if you know Chinese)

After more than 4 months in a Chinese school, how is Zara doing in her Chinese? I would say she’s doing well, but her Chinese is probably at the level of a 5year old native speaker. I’ll quote some examples later.

What language do they speak in school? She told me when she’s in her class, she and her friends speak in Mandarin; but once outside the class, they will start conversing in English. Her school has many English speaking kids, so this is good, as she still gets to speak English while improving her Chinese. However, the down side is, she started mixing 2 languages in her speech, unconciously.

She told the teacher, an Indian, from the maths centre, “Teacher, I got 一百分for my maths in school.” She repeated a few times and couldn’t comprehends why the teacher didn’t understand her, not knowing she said, 一百分 instead of one hundred.

So to make her concious of only speaking 1 language at a time, I implemented a system for her and her (carpool) friend, James, in the car. Each day, they are to speak only 1 language, either English or Chinese, fully, on our journey home. On an English day, should they or even myself accidentally use any Chinese words, we’ll have to pay a RM0.10 fine, and vice versa.

Initially, we collected a lot of fines, but after a while, I saw them making a concious effort to speak only 1 language. This helps to improve their Chinese proficiency too, because on Chinese day, they’ll try very hard to find the word they need to describe something.

Here are some “Chinese Day” conversation taken on our journey home.

Zara : 今天，有个男孩子…err.. muak muak 我的朋友Ohana. [Today, there’s a boy who muak muak my friend Ohana] (obviously she doesn’t know how to say kiss in Chinese)
Me : 今天, 有个男孩子吻我的朋友 [Today, there’s a boy who kissed my friend] (corrected her)
Zara : (repeated) 吻我的朋友 [Kissed my friend]
Me : Ohana是马来人吗?[Is Ohana a Malay?]
Zara : 不是, 她是中文. [No, she’s Chinese language] o.O” (She’s supposed to say 华人or中国人the words for Chinese people)

She was playing this hand game with James.
Zara : 公鸡, 母鸡, 小鸡, kay-poh-jee [rooster, hen, chick, kay poh jee]
Me : kay-poh-jee 不是中文来的，kay-poh-jee中文是八卦 [kay poh jee (nosy) is not Mandarin, kay poh jee in Mandarin is 八卦]
James : 啊我知道, Bak-gua [Oh, I know, Bak-gua (BBQ pork slices in Hokkien)] o.O”

I asked James if he likes Chocolate cake.
James : 我不喜欢, 因为那个蛋糕很….我不会讲那个字, 我可以讲英文吗? [I don’t like, because the cake is very …. I don’t know how to say the word, can I speak English?]
Me : OK
James : Very strong (concentrated)
Zara : 哦我知道那个字, “很有力”. [oh, I know the word, it’s very strong (in strength).] o.O” She doesn’t know how to say the word 浓 (the Chinese word for concentrated).