Nothing beats another dose of Zara’s witty comments.

One day, on our way back from school, Zara told me, “I’ve already started with Mickel. He is my boy friend now.”
I asked, “Oh, how come he’s your boy friend now?”
Zara replied, “Because now, he listens to my instruction. If I asked him to do something, he’ll do it.”
Oh, that’s her boy friend selection criteria.. good. 😛
I asked, “What about Ling Jing? He’s not your boy friend any more?”
(Ling Jing has started Standard 1, and Zara has not seen him since school terms ended last year)
Zara replied, “Even though I cannot see Ling Jing any more, he’ll always stay in my heart. Just like you’ll forever stay in my heart too.”
Sweeeeet.

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Zara was using an expensive celephane tape to do her arts and crafts, so I told her, “Why are you using this celephane tape? I told you before right? It’s expensive. And I told you to use the cheap one for your arts and crafts.”
Zara replied, “Oh. I forgot. If I use (all of) this celephane tape does it mean you will need to sell the house (to buy another)?”
(Like Shopping Amah Laundry Amah, she loves to buy things, and she’s always asking us to buy her this and that. I have to threaten her that if she kept buying things even if she didn’t need it, we’ll have to sell our house to sustain her shopping habit.)

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We were at a neighbour’s house, and my neighbour’s 7 year old said he didn’t like school, and didn’t want to go to school.
Zara, like an old wise lady said, “But you must go to school. If you don’t go to school, next time when you get married then you’ll have problem.”
Both my neighbour and I looked at each other, what did getting married have to do with going to school?
Like a sage, she continued, “If you don’t go to school, you won’t learn how to control your stregth. If You don’t know how to control your strength, after you get married already, you’ll hurt your girl friend.”
o.O”

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Zara told me one day, “You know, WY told me her grandmother is 100 years old.”
WY, who’s Zara’s classmate, is picked up by her grandmother daily, so I’d seen her grandmother before, and she looked like she’s in her late fifties/early sixties, definitely not 100 years old.
So I told Zara, “No la.. how can she be 100 years old.”
Zara replied, “Yesss.. It’s real. Her grandmother is 100 years old.”
I said, “No la.. if she’s 100 years old, how can she look so young.”
Zara replied, “It’s the make up that she puts on.”

o.O”

We were talking about smacking and about why I sometimes smack them although I don’t like it.

Zara told me she doesn’t like to be smacked as well, and added, “When you smack me, the pain in my hand will go away very fast. But the pain in my heart will stay, it’ll take a long time before it goes away.”

o.O”

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Girls were going through my wedding album, which showed a very very slim me.

Zara : “How do you say get big with air?”
Me : “Don’t understand what you are asking.”
Zara : “How do you say get big with air? If no air, it’s deflated, if get big with air..?”
Me : “Inflated you mean?.”
Zara : “Yaya.. (pause) Last time you were deflated. Now you are inflated.”

o.O”

Then she pointed to Daddy’s photo.
Zara : “Last time you got nobody to love. That’s why you love Daddy. Now you got us to love, so you don’t love him any more.”

o.O” We have to remind ourselves not to quarrel in front of the girls any more.

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Not sure why she suddenly got annoyed with Daddy, and then she told me, “I think you should go and get a new boy friend. Then you can get married to your boy friend. Then I’ll have new Daddy also.”

o.O” I have to remind her, her Daddy, although with his flaws, loves them very much, and the fun things he does with them. Then only she remembered, “Yeah.. Daddy is a good Daddy.”

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I asked the girls what they wanted to do be when they grew up.
Zaria said, “I want to be a dentist.”
Zara said, “I think I want to be a doctor. But what does doctor do mummy?”
Told her about the many types of doctors, surgeons do operations, obs and gynaes do delivery, GPs give injection, medicine for people who are sick.
Zara said, “I think I don’t want to be doctor already. I think I want to be a teacher (actually, she’s been saying she wanted to be a teacher for a long time already). I like to talk, so I think it’s better I be a teacher. Then I can talk and talk and talk.”

o.O”

Not me, the girls, they are making plans for their wedding already. Our conversation in the car one day.

Zaria (to me) : When I get married, I’ll invite you to my wedding dinner.
Zara : What are you going to wear for your wedding?
Zaria : The princess baju (Malay : clothes) mummy bought from Bali.
.
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Zara : You know, Mickel is not my real real boy friend, Ling Jing is still my real boy friend.
Me : But Ling Jing is not in your school now and you haven’t seen him or talk to him for so long.
Zara : Never mind la. I’ll just get married to Mickel. o.O”
Me : Then you’ll be staying with him and not with mummy any more. (pretended to be sad)
Zara : I know what, you can stay with us in our house.
Me : What if Mickel’s mummy also want to stay with you? Your house can fit all of us or not?
Zara : I’ll ask Mickel to buy a house with 2 extra rooms. One computer (study) room, one guest room. His mother can sleep in the guest room. And in our room, we’ll have 2 beds, 1 for me and Mickel, 1 for you. (Ok la, at least I’m more important than her MIL, for now. :P)
.
.
And then, back home, Zaria bathed and changed in to this dress, and she told us all, “I’ll wear this for my wedding!” (Thanks Aunty Jesslyn, for making her her ‘wedding dress’.)

.
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On another occasion, we were driving passed some bridal shop, Zara said, “You know, I must tell koo-ma (Cantonese : aunt i.e. father’s sister), when she gets married, she has to ask me to be the flower girls. All my other aunties got married without asking me to be their flower girls. Hmph!” (actually all her other aunties got married before she was born! and also not sure if her koo-ma will get marry since she’s older than Daddy, but then, we never know, the thing with fate).

Photo credit : School of Evangalisation Australia

The girls have been asking us to read them their children’s bibles, and finding some of the stories very interesting.

One day on the way home from school, Zara asked “You know right, Jesus died and went to heaven, but how come we cannot see Jesus in space?”
Me : “What do you mean?”
Zara : “If he’s in heaven how come we cannot see him in space?
Is he invisible?”
Me : (Err.. I actually don’t know how to answer her, so this is what I said) “He is everywhere, so it’s not easy to see Him.”
(Luckily Zara figured it all out)
Zara : “Oh.. he has to go to every children’s house to hear them pray. That’s why.” (so He’s not staying in space at one spot to be easily seen).

She’s no piano prodigy George Li, but I’m still proud of her.

A couple of days into her writing project, she started complaining when I asked her to do writing after dinner.
“Why every day I have to do writing writing writing only and not have fun like playing.”
I told her she had her play time from 1pm (after school) to 8pm (after dinner), isn’t that enough. She just sighed and went on to write.

Yesterday, I asked her, “Do you know why I’m asking you to do writing every day?”
Zara replied “So that my brain will be refreshed and when I grow up, I’ll never forget to write.”. *Her exact words. I think what she really meant was, she will remember events and won’t forget how to write.

On another non-related item, Zara is becoming a rather strong character. She rarely cries when I’m stern with her during homework or piano practice time, although sometimes I can see her in the verge of crying. However, she’ll cry if Zaria bullied her (the slightest punch or a tug of hair) or when she has a fall. More like cry for attention and TLC.

2 days ago, I spotted a cavity in her molar (her very first cavity), and when I pointed out to her, she started crying, and crying, like loosing something precious. Being the vain pot that she is, she doesn’t want to have rotten teeth, as she’s very proud of her nice pearly whites. I told her she’s getting cavity because she’s been having too many sweets since Christmas. So she made a vow, “I’ll eat sweet and I’ll jump day. Yesterday if I eat (ate) already, then today I don’t eat, and then tomorrow I’ll eat again.” Good girl.

*If you asked me how I remember what the girls said, I actually write them down in pieces of paper.

I just started a writing project with Zara this week.

I was worried about how she still mixes up d and b, writing j and s the other way round, and mixing capital letters and small letters in the same word (i.e. boG instead of dog, or dEb instead of bed), so I thought I should spend an hour each day with her, to get her to do some writing, what better way than to start something like a diary.

I’ll ask her to think about what she wants to write, then help her by
1) making sure she doesn’t mix capital and small letters in the same word,
2) spelling with phonics, or guide her on the spelling of sight words

After she’s finished writing, I’ll tell her the correct way of spelling some of the words that she’s spelled phonatically.

Here are her writing the last 2 days. Since she likes drawing, I ask her to attach a small picture about what she wrote.

25/1 – Both girls played with party poppers (they got from friend) without any adult’s supervision (although I’d told them before hand they can’t play with them on their own and told them what could happen if they did play on their own). I punished both by getting them to stand at the naughty corner, and when they started fighting at the naughty corner, I smacked both. She drew a sorry card for me (and drew herself on the naughty ‘chair). She crossed out the tear, and checked smile, and she said, “Having tears is not good, but smiling is good.”

26/1 – When I went to pick up the girls from school, we saw a mother’s car window being smashed by a thief who wanted to get to the handbag the mother left in the car. I like the smashed window she drew.

I hope by doing this, it’ll help with her writing.

I’d bought 3 packets of jellies for the girls the last week, when Daddy (who doesn’t like the girls to eat junkfood) saw the girls eating the jellies, he complained and said I was indulging the girls with too much junk food.
Zara defended me, “This is not junk food, this is good quality jellies.”
Daddy said, “How do you know this is good quality?”
Zara replied, “Mummy bought from the organic shop (girls went with me to get them actually), of course it’s good quality.”
(I just hope she’s right, that organic shops don’t sell bad quality stuff).

Daddy went out with Zaria, and the radio was playing a song about ‘who can stop the rain’.
Daddy asked Zaria, “Zaria, who can stop the rain? Can you stop it? Can I stop it?”
Zaria thought for a while, then said, “The thunder and the lightning can stop the rain. Because, after the thunder and the lightning, then the rain stop(s).”

🙂

We asked Zaria who she wanted to invite for her birthday celebration, she told us slowly and counted, “Auntie… Mummie… Daddy… Jiejie. Only 4 people.”
“You don’t want to invite your friends?”
“Nope.. after they sing happy birthday too loud.”
When I asked her if she wanted any cake. She said no as well, because of the above same reason. The strange thing is, she has been drawing pictures of birthday cake after birthday cake decorated with sweets (oh well, at this age, sometimes I don’t know what she’s drawing, but that’s what she told us her drawing was about).

So, how do you celebrate a 3 year old birthday if she didn’t want a party and a cake?… I decide for her.

My brother’s birthday falls on Christmas, and 3 days after, it’s Zaria’s. I offered to bake a cake for us to celebrate their birthdays. Zaria, not really a fan of my brother, really didn’t want to share her cake (maybe that was one of the reason she didn’t want a cake! :P)

Here is the cake I baked, hazelnut torte with chocolate ganache.

And because she didn’t want to share her cake with Ah Ku, and didn’t want us to sing too loud. We have to sing once for my brother, then the 2nd time softly to her (and no clapping! That’s her command). She then refused to blow her candle but when Zara did it for her, she cried.. 🙁

You can see how sulky she was with her cake.

Ok, that was Christmas eve.

I wasn’t planning to bake any more for her because since she said she didn’t want any cake. On the actual day, when she woke up and we greeted her with hugs and Birthday wishes, she said, “Yeh! Today is my birthday!” then added, “Can you make me a mermaid cake?” *faint*

I can’t whip out a mermaid cake just like that, but the next 1hr + I was in the kitchen and made her these, orange butter cupcake with chocolate frosting.

As a celebration, we just invited Tasha and my sister out for lunch and then to Jungle Gym, so the 3 cousins could play.

She didn’t get as many presents as Zara, but I think she did have a good time.

Zara since a toddler has been amusing us with the way she speaks, now barely 5, we’re still at aw at the things she said and her astounding vocabulary. Now I don’t really speak that well, so the credit is not mine. I think she picks up a lot from TV and books and also Daddy who tries to introduce new words to her frequently. What amazed us is she knows when to apply those words, and uses them so effortlessly.

♥Safety♥
We were talking about safety. Like when we cross a road, the girls have to hold on to our hands and not just dash across, or they cannot play with sharp things or fire at home etc.
Zara said, “If you do any of these, then it’s safety violation right?
o.O” I don’t use such big words at home.

♥Why I got married to Daddy♥
Daddy was away, and we were chatting in bed. Zara was telling me some of the ‘safety violation’ things the Daddy did.
“You know, one time when he picked us up from school, he left us in the car and went to buy char-siew-rice. And the car was parked near some shops not opened yet (it was actually a row of new shops), I can see a lot of construction workers walking around.” (OMG! I gave Daddy a good one after that, but he kept saying it’s safer to leave them in the car than to bring them down to the busy restaurant. Grrr!)
Fired by what Zara just told me, I added, “Your dad ah, when it comes to safety he’s really bad. You see, when meimei didn’t want to be belt up in the car, he just left her alone and didn’t insist she should belt up. When the car breaks suddenly what will happen?”
“Mei mei will fly to the front of the car.”
“Exactly.”
After a moment of silent, Zara sat up on the bed, looked at me angrily, turned her palms up and said, “Then why did you get married to him? You shouldn’t have married him in the first place!” (she thought I should marry someone who observes safety rules and then she’ll have a dad who doesn’t leave her in the car).

♥That’s not talking♥
We went to a friend’s house and the girls got to play with my friend’s almost 3yrs old son who speaks ok for his age but probably not as well as Zaria. On our way home, I asked Zara, “Did you enjoy playing with J?”
Zaria said no, because J was very rough (It’s a boy thing, I know). Zara said no, because he doesn’t talk.
I added, “Who said he doesn’t talk. He was talking.”
Zara said, “No. That’s not talking, that’s muttering.”
o.O”

♥Renovation♥
The girls went back to school, and during dinner, we asked them how things were at school. They were telling us their teachers’ names, and which classroom they were at etc.
Zara added, “You know now the library is not upstairs anymore? They dynamite the walls at the library and made it into a classroom. Now the library is downstairs.”
o.O” (Dynamite!)

♥Daddy stay home♥
Daddy was talking about a trip he was making to Germany. The girls were strongly against that. Zaria said, “I don’t want you to go to Germany.”
Zara said, “If you go to Germany, mummy had to send us to school and pick us up. Mummy will be exhausted!”
o.O” I didn’t think she would use such an excuse, and I would have used the word ‘tired’ in my conversation.

♥Am I a Mum?♥
Upon reaching the mall, I got the girls to do their pee-wee, then I brought them to MPH while Daddy went for his haircut. Barely 20mins later, Zara wanted to go to the toilet again.
I was annoyed, so while walking to the toilet with the two of them, I said, Why 1st time you didn’t she-she properly, now want to go again?, and then I added, “After this you want to she-she again I won’t bring you any more.. you can sheshe in your pants.” (I know i’m bad)
Zara just said, “Mum.. you know.. if you are a mother right.. you won’t say such things. Why are you saying such things?”
o.O” Piak, it hit me right in the face.

I don’t just have 1 entertainer, I have 2. Don’t you envy me?