At 4+, Zaria is still gullible enough to believe the lies I told things I said.

When I told her I was giong out with Aunty Dinah (Jazzmint‘s farewell), and kids were not allowed.
Zaria asked, “Why? They serve only beer in the restaurant? They serve only sambal?”
I lied answered and said Yes to those questions, and she said, “Oh, then I better don’t go too.”
Phew.

I bought 2 tickets to Jacky Cheung’s concert (Yippie), and I was planning to bring Zara with me (or maybe just go with Daddy).
Zaria cried when I told her I only bought tickets for Zara and myself.
I lied told her there was a height limit, and because she’s below 120cm, they wouldn’t sell me the ticket; also taking the opportunity to tell her she has to eat well to grow taller.
Zaria told me after she stopped crying, “I have an idea, you can buy me high heel shoes. And when I wear the high heel shoes to the concert, I’ll be tall enough.” o.O”
I told her that the tickets have been sold off (which is the truth), and no way I could get another ticket.

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My girls have better sense than some racist goons out there.
I asked Zaria one day, “Mei Mei, do you know what race you are?”
Zaria replied, “I’m human race.”
(Best ever reply!)
When Zara got back home, I asked her the same question.
Zara replied, “You mean my culture?”

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Zaria came back from school one day and told me, “Mummy, Aidan scratched my eye with his shoe. Can you report to the police?”
I told her ok, I’ll call the police later.
After 1 minute, she came back and told me, “I think better you don’t call the police, you tell his mummy, so that his mummy will beat his bumbum.”
(at least she has some compasion)

Zaria saw one of her stickers on Zara’s book.
Zaria : Maa, jiejie took my sticker without permission.
Me : So what should we do about that?
Zaria : Send (give) her to another family.
Me : Do you really want to do that?
Zaria : Actually I do not want to do that, but the only way to teach her is to punish her. o.O”

One day Zaria refused to do her Chinese reading, and I had to push and push her. She then declared, “I wish I have no mommy!”
The following day when I picked her and her carpool friend from school, she told her car pool friend “You know, if your mommy is fierce it’s actualy good. It’s to teach you good things you know.” o.O”

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Zaria saw the neighbour went topless watering his plant.
Zaria : “Eeeeyer Mum, why is Uncle P not wearing his clothes?”
Me : “He’s hot I think… If mommy is hot can mommy take off my clothes?”
Zaria : “Eeeyer.. no mum, because you are a big breasted lady.” o.O”

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On another day.
Zaria : Mom, you should put a Y in my name. Now it’s Za-ri-AH. If you put a Y, then only it becomes Za-ri-YAH.
Me : So how should your name be spelled?
Zaria : You should spell my name as Z-A-R-I-Y-A. o.O”

Over dinner.
Zaria: Jie, your boy friend is PhangSY, R, BeiYQ?
Zara : Ya
Zaria: Are you going to get married to all of them?
Zara : I’m not a bigamist ok!

So she’s not a bigamist, but what do the girls say about getting married?
Maybe it’s my fault, I showed them a video of me giving birth to Zaria, and told them getting married means having babies; since the video of me giving birth to Zaria was filled with gore and blood, they had this conversation one day.

Zara : I’m not going to get married
Zaria: Ya jie, me too.
Zara : I can spend time on my own.
We can go bow and shooting together Zaria. o.O
Zaria: We can go for treasure hunts o.O
Do painting, go shopping, go have dinner (together)
We can go Disneyland
Zara : Zaria, by then, you don’t want to go Disneyland, you want to go Ikano
Zaria: We can go to the cinema to watch Harry Potter
(sounds like a great plan to me, so much freedom, so much sparetime to do things enjoyable. I wish I had thought about this before I tied the knot)
Zara : Ya. We don’t want to get married and have children

Me : Then why do I have children?
Zara : Because you are married that’s why. You can’t change that!

(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).

Some of these I’d had put up on Facebook, but here is to put everything on 1 page.

Now although I’m a born Catholic, I rarely go to church, which means the girls too don’t go to church except the 2 times we went to attend my grandfather’s funeral service, and his memorial service.
One Sunday, I just felt like going to church, and I brought the girls along.
After a few minutes in the church, Zaria asked, “Nobody’s dead. So why are we here?” o.O”

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Most churches nowadays do have some sort of band, so the one that we went to is no exception. After attending that mass, we drove passed the mosque on a Friday and Zaria asked why there were so many cars parked along the road.
I explained to her that people are going to the mosque to play.
She asked, “Do they have a band in the mosque?” o.O”

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The was a particular week that she was extremely naughty.
I said to her, “these few days you very naughty huh?”
Zaria was quiet for a moment, then added, “Yeah yeah yeah, if you want to go to another country (remembering my Hong Kong trip), just go then. I still need you but if you don’t need me, you just go ahead and do it.” o.O”

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Over dinner, Zaria licked pieces of food fr the common dish, so I threatened to smack her if she did it again. She frowned and said You have a beautiful child and you want smack her?” o.O”

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Zaria kept asking for a chick as a pet after her visit to the Bird’s Park.
I told her, “Do you know chicks will grow up to be chickens? And what will you do when they are no longer cute and become chickens?”
She replied, “Then I fry it and eat it.” o.O” Talk about loyalty.

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We had a casual talk about growing old.
Zaria : “I don’t want you to grow old mom.”
Me : “But I’m going to grow old…. So what will you do when I grow old?”
Zaria : “I’ll push you into the river.” o.O”
Zara who over heard this chipped in : “You cannot push mommy into the river. You have to take care of her when she’s old.”
Zaria : “Ok then, I won’t push you into the river, I’ll bring you to jiejie’s house and she can take care of you.” o.O”
A couple of days later, I asked her if she really meant to put me in jiejie’s house, and she won’t look after me when I was old.
Zaria replied “I can always go and visit you, ok?” o.O”
Talk about filial peity.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you’d probably recalled posts about Zara and her very first boy friend; a boy who’s captured her heart for 2 years. Even though on her last year of kindergarten, the boy has already went to Standard 1 and attended another school and they never met again, Zara still thought of him as her boy friend. o.O”

After being in Standard 1 for 1 month +, she came home 1 day declaring she has found another ‘boy friend’. When I went to pick her up the following day, she excitedly pointed out the ‘boy’, R, to me. R sits several rows away from her, is really cute, looks like a goodie-two-shoes, with a radiant smile and deep dimples. Well, if I was her age, I’d probably like the same boy too.

A couple of times when I was there to pick Zara up, after the last bell rang, I saw them running out to the waiting area together Zara chasing after him to the waiting area. o.O”

In the car, she likes to share with me what happened to R and herself, here are some to share.

Zara : “Mom, today I kissed R.”
Me : *have to sound like it’s not a big deal* “You did?”
Zara : “Ya, I did.”
Me : “Where did you kiss him?”
Zara : “Well, I blew him kisses.” (and she showed me how she did it, 1st kissing her palm, then blowing the kiss out)
Me : (a bit shocked, but found it funny too) “And what did he do?”
Zara : “He dodged them, like this and like this.” (moving her body left and right) And she smiled, like it’s no big deal he dodged her kisses. o.O”

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Zara : “Mom, every day I walked out to the hall with R after school”
Me : “You walked side by side?”
Zara : “Oh, well, he ran really fast, and I just chased after him and keep up with him.”
o.O”

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Me : “Zara, you said R is your boy friend, does he treat you like his girl friend?”
Zara : “Ya, he does, he walks with me after school.” (more like she chased after him) o.O”
Me : “And you are his only girl friend?”
Zara : “No, he has 3 girl friends”
Me : “And you are fine with that?”
Zara : “Ya, I’m fine. Because he’s not married yet so it’s ok to have so many girl friends.” o.O”

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And the best one…. yesterday on our way home from school.
Zara : *happily*“Today R talked to me.”
Me : “Oh, what did you talk about.”
Zara : “I touched him, and then he told me 不要摸我 (Don’t touch me).” *laughed*
(Faint! This is ‘talk’?)
o.O” o.O” o.O”

But…….. I’m amazed at her confidence, and her perserverence, and the way she looks at things light heartedly. Way to go my girl!

If you are my Facebook friend, you have read about Zaria being our new English police.
In a carpool journey home from Zaria’s school, I overheard this conversation between Aidan, who’s my neighbour’s son, and Zaria.
Aidan : No lar. (forgot what prompted him to say that)
Zaria : There’s no la in English.
Aidan : What are you saying lar?
Zaria : Hello Aidan, speak Harry Potter English please. There’s no lar wor meh in English.
o.O”

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On a different occasion, Zaria was being naughty, and I was scolding her; the more I scolded her the more funny stunts she carried out, and the more I scolded her. Zara gave me the solution. ”Mum, just stop scolding her.”
I replied, “But she’s naughty.”
Zara told me, “But if you keep scolding her, she’ll be naughtier, and you’ll get more stressed. If you stop scolding, she will also stop being naughty.”
There, my new parenting guru.
o.O”

I recently read somewhere that all humans are born with 100 billions brain cell. And for learning to happen, brain cells need to connect. In other words, if I want your children to be smarter, they have to have more brain cells connections. Next time if you want to scold someone chi-sin (痴线), think twice, it might actually be a compliment. 😛

Children’s brains are like a sponge, they are hungry for information and knowledge, given the right exposure or stimulus, more brain cells will be connected, and they will be connected tots.

I’m happy to know that breast feeding has a part to play in assisting with this as well. Breast milk is found to have gangliosides, which help brain cells to connect for smarter learning. The girls being both breastfed for 18months, would have been taken lots of gangliosides.

I won’t say my two girls are smart, but I think they are very good in applying what they have learnt (consciously or unconsciously).This in fact indicates, their brain cells are connected, see how they can teach others what they have learnt from their daily lives?

One day, on our way home from school, Zara was exceptionally quiet while her car pool friends were shouting chatting away.
I asked her if everything was alright or if anything happened in school.
She sighed a big sigh, “I’m so bored in being me.”
I asked her why did she say that? Why is she feeling bored.
She replied, “Just because every day I have to repeat everything I do.”
o.O”
I have to explain to her life is full of routines, just like us, we have to wake up daily to work, pick the children up from school, etc.
She continued to keep quiet. Then after a few moments she told me, “But.. I’m best at being me. So, I’ll continue to be me.” And the smiles and chatter box returned. o.O”

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Zaria was dancing ballet in the house. I had to warn her that she cannot try to walk with her toe pointed (Zara used to do that when she ‘danced’ the ballet).
Zaria replied, “Ya, only in cartoon you can do that right? Because in cartoon you can do anything.”
o.O” Well said.

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Zara attended a friend’s birthday party, and she wanted to wear her nicest dress, with lace, ribbons and sewn on sequins.
When she was there, she was playing and doing all kinds of funny stunts. She didn’t ruin the dress, but she was drenched in sweat at the end of the party. I told her in the car she shouldn’t have worn the beautiful dress, because she was playing like a troll crazy in the party.
She replied, “In a party, you are supposed to have fun and play right? Not sit around and do nothing!”
o.O”

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I was writing this blog post, and reading aloud the content.
Zaria asked, “Are you telling your invisible friend about me?”
o.O”
Indeed, my blog readers are my invisible friends.

Gee, it’s the holidays, and the girls are spending the whole day with me on a work day. They watch lots of TVs and play lots of iPad games. I screamed at them a lot, and they screamed back at me or at each other a lot too. At times, the two of them will chi chat or they will play a quiet game together, and that’s when I said, “It’s so nice to have two girls.”

Here are some chatter that’s worth the mentioned.

They were taking their naps in the study, and I overheard their conversation which started about ghost.

Zaria : You are older than me… Mommy is older than you… Daddy is older than mommy… Giant is older than Daddy… The ghost is older than giant…. Then the transformer is bigger than the ghost, right jie?
Zara : The sun and the moon is bigger than transformer.
Zaria : Even the clouds is bigger right, jie?
Zara : The clouds is nothing, it’s just vapor.
Zaria : It’s paper?
Zara : No, vapor.
Zaria : What’s vapor jie.
Zara : You asked mommy, I don’t know. (Don’t know but know how to use the word. o.O”)
So I have explained to Zaria what vapor is.

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Daddy is not very happy the girls and I are spending too much time on the iPad, especially playing games. He told the girls while they play, they have to describe what they are doing, then they’ll learn; as the iPad was meant to be a learning tool and not a gaming tool, yada yada…

Zaria was taking her bath right after she had her turn of games on the iPad. I over heard her talking to Jelly.
Zaria : Auntie, you know iPad is for learning, not for playing games… You know how you learn? You must talk when you play. Talk talk talk, play play play. o.O”

I told Daddy about it, so he quized Zaria.
Daddy : What must you do when you use the iPad?
Zaria : You must talk when you play.
Daddy : You must describe what you are doing. But you are always playing, and not describing.
Zaria : Got wut.
Daddy : I see you playing, but you don’t tell me what you are doing.
Zaria : Who said, I got talk wut.
Daddy : If you only use it for playing games, and not learning, then I’m going to sell off the iPad
Zara : Dad, just because you bought the iPad doesn’t mean you can bully Zaria, ok?
o.O”

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We went out for lunch with our neighbour C in 2 cars as C would be heading for her facial afterwards. The girls went in C’s car. As C is a Taiwanese, I’d let her know before to speak to the girls in Mandarin, so that they have more exposure to the language.

After lunch, C left for her facial, and I had this conversation with the girls.

Zaria : I want to go in Auntie C’s car again.
Me : Auntie C is going for her facial, you can’t go in her car.
Zaria : What is facial? (they are not exposed to this word obviously because their mom had never ever gone for a facial since they were born)
Me : Facial is you go to the shop and let people wash your face.
Zaria looked aghast.
Zaria : You mean Auntie C doesn’t know how to wash her face at home so she has to ask people to wash her face in the shop? o.O”
I have to explain to her that some people like pampering in a facial etc etc but she still had that question mark on her facial expression. 😛
And then I turned to Zara : Did you talk to Auntie C just now?
Zara : Ya I did.
Me : What did you talk about?
Zara : Well, actually right, I don’t know what she was saying about because she was speaking in Chinese. o.O”
(I asked C later what they talked about, she told me Zara was answering her questions in short answers, sometimes answering something not related to the question. So I guess, when it comes to Chinese, she’ll pretend to know what is being said although she doesn’t really understand it.)

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I ran out of cash so I was complaining, “Oh no, I have no more money.”
Zara gave me the solution, “Well, you can always take a few more (biscuits and cupcakes) orders, and charge really really expensive.” o.O”

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”

Having sensible kids is like having something precious stacked some where, which will occasionally bring a smile to your face. Do you agree?

Zara is turning 6 next week, besides still being rough when playing (the shouting, the shoving when she doesn’t get her way) and doing occasional crazy stunts (riding her new bike down a slope in full speed), she’s growing up to be rather sensible.

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We asked her how she wanted to celebrate her 6th birthday.
She said she wanted to have it in Jungle Gym.
I told her Jungle Gym is very expensive, we cannot afford to hold a party for her there.
She asked how come Zaria can celebrate her birthdays there?
I told her, that’s because Zaria only invited one guest, Tasha (my niece).
She asked how many guest she’s allowed if she wanted a party in Jungle Gym?
I said the most is 3.
So, she said for her birthday, she will invite only Tasha, Chloe and Chiyi (kids from the neighbourhood), that’s all.
Then I asked her, what should we have for lunch before playing.
She said she wanted to go to Grand Imperial which is also in BSC.
I told her that’s a very expensive restaurant.
So she said, “Then, you just cook a big pot of nasi lemak and bring there, and we can have nasi lemak for lunch.” O.O”
Good idea!
I’m actually trying to check out if Jungle Gym allows outside food to be brought in, so I can order pizza (her favourite food) for her friends before the play. I’d been trying to call Jungle Gym but no one picked up the published phone number (can’t you beat that?). So if any of you know the answer, please let me know.

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I was just complaining before bed time, “So long I didn’t do my exercise. Aigh.. You girls never remind me also.”
Zara answered, “Well (this seems to be her favourite word before a start of answer nowadays)…. this is not daddy’s (body), this is not your daughters’ (body), this is yours, so you must remember yourself.”
O.o”

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Daddy spend 30 minutes to 1hr coaching Zara on her Bahasa Malaysia everynight. Zara doesn’t appreciate the language, and always trying to avoid Bahasa Revision time.
She negotiated with Daddy. Daddy will spend half the time with her on Bahasa, and she will spend half the time coaching Daddy with Chinese.
And Yes, she’s more comfortable with Chinese now, and can write a few words confidently, so in her ‘class’, she’ll ask Daddy to translate what she wrote into English, of give Daddy 听写 (Chinese spelling).
One particular day, we only had 30mins before bed time, and she told Daddy they should do Chinese instead of Bahasa.
Daddy told her, “It’s more imporant for you to learn Bahasa than for Daddy to learn Chinese.”
She replied, “It’s important for you to learn Chinese. If you don’t know Chinese, when you go to China (for work) what are you going to do?” o.O”

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And here is the Ms-Coming-To-6-Year-Old frying an egg. I just started letting the girls do some egg frying for their own lunches recently.