Sometimes I wonder where this little chilli padi (Malay : Bird eye chilli) learns how to speak like this.

Her teacher told us in her latest progress report that she remembers things the teacher said even long time ago, and applies them when she sees fit. So I guess, the surprise phrases she throws to us occasionally must have been picked up either from me or Zara or maybe even from TV or school.

We went cycling one evening, I walked, and the girls cycled on their respective bicycles. I had to keep up with Zara who’s on a bigger bicycle, so I left Zaria a few paces behind.
Zaria called out to me, “Maaa!!! You want to let your child get banged by a car is it?”
o.O”

We went out for ice cream, and she messed up the table, so I scolded her. She rolled her eyes and told me, “(If) You want to scold your daughter, just go ahead.”
o.O”

I have been taking a couple of baking orders recently, so I’d been doing a lot of baking at home. Most of the time, the girls will ask if they could try something just out of the oven, but I always told them they can’t because it’s for Auntie or Uncle.
Zaria frowned and told me on one of these occaions, “Why you never bake anything if it’s not (an) order anymore?” o.O”

She came upstairs to ask to play some games one evening while I was about to start a teleconference with my boss. So I told her, “Mummy cannot talk to you now, Mummy is going to have a meeting with mummy’s boss.”
She frowned and said, “Ya. Blah Blah Blah.” and walked off. o.O”

I wish I was like HN and HN’s husband Lybil, who are so soft spoken, especially with their children Sophie and Sethy.

We do raise our voices with the children, and although they may not like it, sometimes we just had to do it to get our message across. What do the children do when we raise our voices at them?……….

Not sure what happen, but I think Zaria was scolded by Daddy who was coaching Zara with Bahasa Malaysia (she was probably disturbing them). So she came upstairs extremely upset, and complained to me, “I don’t like my Daddy any more. I think I’m going to throw him in the dustbin. But if he says sorry, I’ll pick him back up from the dustbin.”

And later the same day, Zaria wanted take some photos with the point and shoot, so I let her. I strapped it around her neck (in case it dropped, it won’t crash on the floor). She happily went down to look for Daddy, planning to take some shots of Zara and Daddy.

Daddy, of course freaked out. His cameras are his second (and third) wife ok. He told me off claiming I’m crazy to let Zaria play with the camera, and snatched the camera away from Zaria and told her loudly she cannot play with the camera. So again, Zaria came up stairs, this time crying. I told her that’s because the camera is so precious to Daddy. She replied through her sobs, “If I die already.. then you no more meimei right. If the camera spoilt, daddy can still buy another one. Who’s more precious.” o.O”

Zara on the other hand tries not to say anything mean when she’s angry (one part of her nightly prayer is “Jesus please help me not to say anything bad.”). So what does she do? She draws.

Today, she got scolding from me because she was fooling around when she was doing her keyboard practice. So she stopped playing, turned off the keyboard, went down stairs, and 15 minutes later came upstairs with this drawing.

(I locked her in a chamber, and shot her with a gun, the speech bubble is saying, “I don’t love you.” See how wicked I looked! o.O”)

I laughed when I saw that (couldn’t help it, really). I asked her if I looked so evil? And if I would ever shoot her? She broke down and cry, only after some hugging and reassurance, she stopped crying and felt better.

Some of the things the little one said recently.

One day we went to visit a friend who lives in Valencia. I told the girls, “Uncle Chang’s house is so nice right? It’s surrounded by trees.”
Zara replied, “Ya, it’s like a forest.”
Zaria asked, “Does he like to hunt?” o.O”

We were walking around Solaris, when we passed a restaurant which had some Paris Cafe kind of music playing, Zaria asked, “Is this a Ratatouile’s restaurant?” (if you’d watched Ratatouile, the music played in the movie is all Paris Cafe kind).
And when we walked passed another restaurant which was blasting pop song, “This one is not Ratatouile’s restaurant.. the music is different.”
Good that she’s observant.

When she’s angry with us, she sometimes will says things like,
“I’m not talking to you any more.”
“I don’t like you any more.”
So one day, she was angry with me, and I asked her, “Are you talking to me?”
She said, “I’m still angry with you. But I’m talking to you. Oh Kay!!” o.O”

Another day, she was angry for no reason and threw a tantrum, so I asked her during dinner, “I think you forget to say something to mummy for your behaviour.”
“Let me calm down first… Oh Kay??!!” o.O”

She spilled some barley drink so Jelly scolded her. She came upstairs asked if she could drink mine. I told her, “Go and ask Aunty to give you a glass.”
She drank mine, and said, “She’s angry with me, so what can I do?” o.O”

One day in the car, Daddy and I were having a heated discussion.
Zaria said, “If the two of you cannot get along, I’ll have to saperate you. One go to ma-ma’s house, another one stay at home!” o.O”
Zara explained, “They are not fighting ok, they are just talking.”

When the ice cream man arrived at the play ground, a few children rushed towards him to get their ice cream. Zaria asked if she could have one as well and I said no. Zaria said sulking, “All the children are so happy except me!” o.O”

She was walking and then she adjusted her panties, we asked her, “What are you doing.”
She replied, “My bum bum always eat my panties!” o.O”

So entertaining.. this one.

Woh… more than a week I’d not posted anything. If you wanted to know why, go here. I’ll be posting more photos of the holiday here once I sorted out all the photos.

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Recently in blogsphere, we’d lost a dear friend, Lisa. She has been battling cancer with so much spunk, but eventually, cancer won. We’d lost her, but heaven has gained an angel.

We’ll always remember her fighting spirit, her generosity, her humour despite the situation, her positive vibes.

We’ll always miss her.

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

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to expose my children to death at such an early age.

This year, Zaria has attended my grandfather’s funeral, and I also brought her along when I went to pay Lisa my last respect.

She used to tell me “Ma, I don’t want you to be fat.” occasionally. Because she knows fat = unhealthy or maybe it was the Harry Potter’s Prisoner of Azkaban that she saw where Harry inflated his aunt.

She would tell me I need to exercise, and if I missed my sit ups in the night, she would ask me, “Why you didn’t do your exercise, ma? I don’t want you to be fat. You must do your exercise.”

Now this week, her tone has changed. She’ll tell me “Ma, I don’t want you to be old.”
She says that to me, Daddy, and even Jelly.
And she’ll work herself to tears after a while, sobbing quietly away, and said, “But I don’t want you to be old.” after we’d explained to her (upteenth time) growing old is natural, and we’ll all go through that.

Yesterday, she brought this up again. Before she shed her first drop of tear, I told her, “All of us will grow old. Even you, you’ll grow bigger, you’ll be 4, then 5, then 6 and then one day you’ll be sixteen.”
She replied, “But I don’t want to grow bigger or older. I want to be small forever.” o.O”

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On our way back to school, we had a chat about the day. Zara as usual likes talking about her best friend WY, telling me about WY’s dad etc. I asked her, “Do you know what WY’s daddy do?” (I was asking more of occupation).
She replied, “I don’t know.”
I asked again, “If people asked you what your Daddy does, do you know (what to say)?”
She replied, “Ya, I know. My Daddy always sleeps, sometimes he snores. My Daddy wear glasses. My Daddy always drinks tea. Sometimes my Daddy goes out with his friends to drink beer.” o.O”
(Wow Daddy, you sounds like someone who’s retired and having a good life.)
I asked another question, “What does Mummy do then?”
She replied, “You bake and you read a lot of books.”

I’ll have to give her more details about our occupations soon.

Kids get influenced so easily.

I had taken a few cake orders, and I like to ask the girls when I make something new, “Is this nice? Can mummy sell this?”

(She can finally write her own Chinese name)

One day, Zara did a painting, and she asked me, “Is this nice?”
When I told her it was, she passed it to Daddy, “Can you go to the market and sell this?”
She thought for a while, then added, “Maybe next time you get orders, you can give this as a free gift with your cake” o.O”

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We watched an MTV of a hit song on youtube yesterday, and after watching it, Zaria started drawing this.

Can you guess who this famous artist is?
.
.
.
.
.
Lady Gaga!

She can’t draw that well yet, but the glasses is very Lady Gaga. And she said the O–O she drew on the chest is Lady Gaga’s bra top! o.O”

And she even started doing the Bad Romance Dance.

Zaria was very good the whole of last week. No horrible temper, or fierce tantrum. I think my lecturing (and also the smacking) did put some sense into her. The whole of the week, I never had to raise my voice at her. She’ll listen if I speak nicely to her, and if not, just a little more stern, and she’ll budge. At least I know how to handle this one.

Everytime when we wanted to take a photo of her (if she didn’t volunteer), she’ll be twisting and turning to avoid the camera

Some of the things she said lately :

At dinner, she’s always chewing her food real slowly; one day, Jelly asked her to hurry up, she replied, “I still got food in my mouth.”
Jelly said, “Where got?”
She replied, “I’m chewing unvisible (invisible) food.” o.O”

Hiding behind the curtains

One day, she did a beautiful drawing and she showed it to me. After that, she took a pen and started scribbling on her drawing.
I told her, “What are you doing? Your drawing is so nice, why are you scribbling on your beautiful drawing?”
She told me irritably, “It’s my drawing right? I can do anything I want with it right?” o.O”

Finally, managed to get a shot of her.

The girls were demanding that we have dinner at their favourite restaurant, Dragon I, but I wanted Japanese. So I told them, “Why not the 2 of you stay at home, and I go and pak toh (Cantonese: dating) with Daddy, since both of you don’t like Japanese?”
Zaria replied, “You cannot go pak toh. After you come back with another baby then how?” o.O” (get married = have baby, now pak toh also can have baby)

The girls were fighting over who gets to control the fate of the arm rest in the car, Zara wanted to rest her harm on the arm rest, Zaria wanted it to push it back in. So we told Zaria, “It’s an arm rest right? So let jiejie rest her arms.”
She got upset with us not supporting her, “You say some more I’m going to write something bad about you Dad. I’m also going to write something bad about you Mum.” o.O”
(writing something good to her is “I ♥ Mum” and “I ♥ Dad”, I guess, writing bad is “I don’t ♥ Mum” and “I don’t ♥ Dad”? But wait till she has her blog or facebook.

Daddy likes to say we always end up in the shopping mall during the weekends, but guess what? He was away this weekend, and we didn’t step into the mall at all, and the girls still had a swell time.

We did something we would never have done if he was around, we had a sleep over at my sister’s place, and spent the whole of Sunday there. With Tasha, their cousin, also sleeping over, the girls absolutely enjoyed themselves.

On Saturday, I did some cookie decoration just for fun, and kept some icing for girls to have a go with decorating their own cookies.

To stop myself having to scream the
“Be careful!!”
“Don’t spill it!!”
“Watch out!!”
I set up the table at the porch, and let the girls make whatever mess they wanted, and I could focus on trying to take some shots of them hard at work.

Zaria did hers real quickly, she topped them with lots of icing and lots of sprinkles, all for her beloved Auntie Jelly.

And she proudly showed off her decoration.

Zara took her time, but she was frustrated they didn’t come out they way she wanted.

I think I’ll have to invest in the edible marker set for her to do drawing on cookies, but I kind of like her abstract ‘art’ pieces here.

We then drove to my sister’s, had dinner there, and the girls (Zara, Zaria and Tasha) played together. When it was bed time, I think I knocked out first, the last phrase I heard was from Tasha, “Agnes yi-yi, who talks must go outside one.” (she was repeating this the whole time, when I said whoever spoke next would have to go outside). I was too lazy to reply the 100th time, “Yah, now go to sleep.”

On Sunday, we went to the market together. Jelly deliberately not get ready in the morning although I told her she had to follow me to the market a day before (normally it’s Daddy and I who did marketting together, and she never had to follow). I was handling the 3 girls alone until later my sis and her family came and joined us (they woke up slightly later than us).

In the evening, it was to the most ‘fancy’ (borrowing this word from Zaria) birthday party I’d ever attended. My cousin threw a grand birthday party for her daugther, Monique’s 2nd birthday. I have to write a post about all the fancy stuff, but here is one photo of Tasha, full of courage, singing I Love You from Barney.

(Look at Zaria covering her mouth, she was so afraid she had to sing too.)

Zaria is a cheeky girl, but a little morbid at times..

Daddy was talking to me in the car, and Zaria wanted to say something to Zara, and so she told Daddy, “Daddy you stop talking!!! STOPPPPPPPPPP…”
Daddy told her, “I talk to mummy, you talk to jiejie, why must I stop?” and he continued talking to me.
Zaria shouted from the back, “I said stop!!!!! I cannot concentrate if you are talking. If you talk some more, I’ll buy some firecrackers and put in your mouth!”
o.O”
(Later, we asked her where did she learnt how to put ‘firecrackers’ in the mouth, she said it was in her Donald Duck show, where don’t know who put dynamite into Donald’s mouth.. See.. Disney cartoons do teach you violence too!)

We were talking about being a doctor, and Zaria said, “If someone cough cough cough until cannot stop. Then I’ll cut her neck and take out the cough!”
o.O”

I was showing Zaria a bracelet from Mom’s Little Treasure Box that I’d ordered for the girls.
Zaria asked, “Where is the bracelet now?”
I told her it’s still with Dinah.
Zaria asked, “In Auntie Dinah’s house?”
I replied, “Ya….”
Zaria said, “If Auntie Dinah don’t give us, then I’ll…. *she put her hand on her neck and did the slicing motion across her neck, then stuck out her tongue*”
o.O”

I was helping her at the toilet, she said, “Maaa… my she-she is so yellow.”
I said, “Aaah.. told you to drink lots of water right? See.. don’t drink water so your she-she is yellow.
Zaria replied, “Nooo.. My she-she yellow because I drink a lot of chrysanthemum.”
o.O”

She has a very fierce temper, when she’s unhappy, she’ll beat Daddy (it’s always him who became her victim), mess up the furniture and once, she even threw food from the dining table. When she behaved in such a manner, I’ll use the cane (actually it’s a big chopstick) and give her a stroke. Nowadays, she’ll cry after I smack her and say, “You want to leave me another cane mark, is it!!!???”
o.O”

The girls are growing up so fast, and loosing their Kiddish English or Thoughts.

Although we conciously try to correct them (especially Zaria) when they mispronounced words or made gramatical mistakes, so that they get a good start in the language, none-the-less, I like to reminisce the little mistakes or the innocent thoughts they have.

Here is to capture a few of them.

Over dinner, Zaria was holding a princess book of stickers (Thanks to Rachel), then she asked me, “Maa, which one you think is mosest pretty?”
(mosest = most)
😀

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In the car, the girls wanted to see who can count the fastest.
Zaria gave the command to start the race, “Alamak… get set, go!!”
(alamak = on your mark)
😀

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Zaria always pronounce Maggie Mee as Mega Mee, so I asked her, “Why you always call maggie mee as mega me?”
She replied, “No, I never say mega mee wut, I say meh-ger mee.”
😀

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One day, Zara was standing behind me watching my computer display.
She asked, “Maaa, what are you doing?”
I told her, “You know how to read right? So you read this (pointing to the top left of the display), and tell me what I’m doing.”
She slowly read (phonetically), “Feh-Keh-dook.”
o.O”

If you don’t get it,
Fa == Feh
ce == Keh
book == dook (she always mixed up d and b)

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We were seated right at the back in the church attending my grand father’s 100th day mass, making it difficult for the kids to see what’s happening at the alter (and although I’m Catholic, the girls don’t go to church. o.O”).
During the eucharistic prayer, when the server rang the bell, Zaria tip toed, tried to see what’s happening in front and asked, “Is that Santa Clause??”
😀

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Daddy brought the girls out to do grocery shopping, and normally after shopping, he always gives the girls an ice cream treat. However, on this particular day, as both the girls had the flu, Daddy said no ice cream for the day.
Zaria begged Daddy, “Give me a chance dad…”
😀
Daddy gave her a chance by buying her smarties instead.

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Girls were fighting just before I finished work.
So when I got downstairs, I took the cane and asked them who started the fight first, and what they each did.
Zara kicked Zaria down from the sofa; her punishment, 1 cane stroke.
Zaria kicked Zara numorous times because she wanted space on the sofa; her punishment, 1 cane stroke too.
While caning Zaria, her skirt actually prevented the cane from touching the buttocks, so I lifted her skirt and smack again.
She cried and looked at me with pitiful eyes, and through her sobs, she asked, “Maa, *sob sob*, you *sob sob* want to give me *sob sob* a cane mark?? *sob sob*”
o.O

Zara could read, phonatically. However, she takes time to read simple sight words like their, my, we etc. I do not know what reading level children her age should be at, but I’d seen her friends in the same age group (from school, from her music calss) reading phrases with difficult words effortlessly. If I used that as a bench mark, then we’re in trouble.

I thought I’ll do something about it.

Normally in the evening, I try to spend about 30minutes with Zara, helping her with her keyboard pieces, her Chinese, her maths, and English writing or reading. Most of the time she’ll protest having to do more work (on top of her school homework).

So since last week, I thought I’ll start a reward system. Every day, if she’s done well with her extra homework from me, she gets a star. And each star is RM1. She can cash out the money at any time to buy anything she wanted. When this was first introduced, she already had things in mind that she wanted to buy. A pair of sun glasses (30 stars) and a helium balloon (30 stars).

Since the introduction of the reward system, daily, before we read her her bed time story, she’ll proactively ask me to choose the book for her to read; she’ll try to read phonetically, and I’ll help her with the difficult words. For passages which she struggled to read, I will ask her to re-read them the following day to familiarise herself with the words she found difficult.

After slightly more than a week of doing this, I could see her reading has improved a lot! She’s more familiar with the sight words, and getting better with her phonics.

These are the books I used for her reading.

Zaria seeing her sister getting stickers and all, wanted to participate too. She’ll ask me to pick a book for her to read too. Being younger, I’ll do most of the reading, but I’ll ask her to read words that are 3 or 4 letters which are spelled phonetically.

Some days, I got her to spell out the words she has read too, and she could. This was one of her ‘spelling’. She got the D written wrongly in AND, so she wrote again; and she tried a few times before she got the tricky S in STOP right.

I gave them each a ‘sticker passport’ (just A4 paper folded into 4), and their rewards are pasted on the ‘passport’. Rewards come from reading mainly, but I also give them a star if they are able to spell, do some sums, or behave extremely well.

Each day, after getting their stickers, they will count the total, and Zara woud do a count down, “20 more stickers and I can get my sunglasses.”

And Zaria told me yesterday after getting her 11th stickers, “I’m going to the shop to find something with 11 (dollars) on the label.” 🙂