I’m going to pop soon, and here is what we’d been doing, to spend time with Zara as the only child before the arrival of no. 2.

Eve of Christmas Eve : We had dinner at Eat Work Shop, and I had my roast turkey! It was good! The owner, Marcia, even threw in the turkey wing for free! After that, we took Zara to hotels (The Saujana and The Holiday Inn Glenmarie) to check out the Christmas decorations, and she really had a good time, since these 2 hotels were very spacious and quiet, and she can run around freely.

Christmas Eve : The big family dinner was supposed to be 3 tables at a Chinese restaurant. My eldest sis decided not to join us and my youngest sis got admitted for dengue fever the day before. So the dinner ended up being a small one, with only King’s Wife’s family and ours with my dad. Dinner was err.. cut throat price in Overseas Restaurant and not nice at all!

After dinner, we adjorned to the hospital to visit my sister and open up our presents together with my sister’s family.

On Christmas Day : Zara was kept busy playing with her Christmas presents in the morning. We then went to have lunch with my dad, and later dinner with Daddy’s friends. Whole day of eating and outing!

She and her favourite present, the singing pink car, from Chloe, our neighbour

On Boxing Day : Daddy went back to work. I brought Zara to Kidzsports with Tuyam and then to the Pet Shop, per the requests of the little girl. Bought myself the Allerhand bag (Christmas present from Daddy), and end my hunt for the perfect bag for carrying Zara and baby’s things.

Best of all! Zara and I are both very happy to receive these from Domestic Rat and May. Thanks Ladies!

Zara loves the doggie; I believe the Chocolate lolly was supposed to be a raindeer, but it has melted. 🙁 Zara was however, very keen in tasting her first lolly pop.

I’ll be going in to the hospital on Thursday to get induced. Today (Wednesday) will be my very last day spending with Zara before the arrival of baby. Some how, I feel a bit melancholy. After this, she will no longer be my only child, where all my energy and attention has been channeled to the last 2 years.

Wish me a safe and quick delivery, will you?

Tasha (my eldest sis’ daughter) celebrated her 1st birthday on Saturday in Cocca Restaurant.

The thing is, Zara never wanted to admit it’s Tasha’s birthday. When we told her we’re going for Tasha’s birthday party, she said, “No, it’s Zara’s birthday!”. When we asked her to pass the present to Tasha, she said, “No, it’s Zara’s one!”. She didn’t want to give Tasha a hug, or wish her Happy Birthday. She didn’t even want to join in the other children for a group photo.

Hmm.. at this age, she is really not showing much interest to kids her age or younger than her. Maybe it’s the competition (for attention) she finds unsettling. She stuck to her older cousins all the time, joining in their games.

Playing with her cousins; Tasha with BIL and sis; Tasha and her Tinkerbell Cake; Zara attacking the sugar flower on the cake.

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On Sunday, we were invited to my neighbor’s daughter, Cayley’s full moon party. My neighbor’s older daughter Chloe (the same age as Zara), is Zara’s play mate. They seem to have this love hate relationship. They want to play with each other, and yet, they can’t share toys, and sometimes even have the occasional shouting bout. E.g. “It’s mine!” “I take (took) first!” etc.

Before we left for Chloe’s house, Zara herself was telling me, “Go Chloe’s house, no fighting yeah? No snatching toys yeah? Must share share, yeah?”

Daddy and I were busy stuffing ourselves silly with all the lovely home cooked food, while Zara made herself at home playing with Chloe’s toys (she’s been to Chloe’s house a few times, and knew where Chloe’s toys were kept). And true enough, to my relieve, she didn’t do any snatching or fighting with Chloe.

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I’m trying to get all my cravings fulfilled before I give birth and start the herbs, wine and ginger confinement diet (blech). The next item on my list, Turkey!

I’ll be starting my leave next week, back at work on April 1st. Lots to clear up before the long leave!

Daddy installed the Ikea chest of drawers we bought for the girls’ clothes in our room, and a new toy storage bench for Zara’s toys, with lots of interruptions help from Zara. Now the girls will have proper place to store their clothes (I used to store Zara’s clothes in Ikea bought boxes), and later, a proper play room (we planned to convert one of the rooms to a play room so that Zara can stop messing up playing in the living room).

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We have a big family dinner at Eat Work Shop on Saturday, in honour of my nephew, Nick, and niece, Ally, who got 5As each for their UPSR (Primary 5) exams.

Zara was happily occupied by her favourite Sam jie-jie and Norman kor-kor (her 2 younger cousins), and I have Tuyam (who rarely goes out with us) to run after her. It means I could stuff my self silly with all the sumptuous food (And Eat Work Shop does serve very good western cuisine).

She kept sticking to Sam jiejie

Zara with her favourite 2 younger cousin, Sam and Norman; Sam with Tasha; The dinner table; The 2 As scorers with the dinner sponsor, my dad.

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Daddy insisted that we go visit an Ostrich Farm (he thinks I’m still super mobile in my 9th month pregnancy) on Sunday and decided to go to the one in Klang.

For RM15/adult, it was more of a ‘mini zoo’ than an Ostrich Farm. We saw some sickly ponies, bald ostriches, skinny horses, ugly pythons and other small unhealthy looking animals in a smelly and muddy environment. Zara wanted to leave the minute we stepped into the ‘farm’, claiming it was “So smelly!”, and she refused to walk about, saying the ground is “So dirty.”, and complaining the ostriches are “So ugly.” In and out, it took us less than 30mins.

Daddy said, “Give me another hour, and I’ll bring you to the one in Semenyih, which is supposed to be bigger and better.” But I said that’s enough of Ostriches and smelly animal dung for a day. So we went home instead.

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For dinner, we went to Benkay Japanese Restaurant in Nikko Hotel, since I got a RM50/- off voucher.

Dinner was absolutely lovely. Zara ate some softshell crab maki, a whole prawn tempura, and a bowl of chawan-mushi. It always gives us a good feeling to see her enjoying her food (which is rather rare).

After dinner, we spent sometime enjoying the Christmas Deco (We forgot to bring the camera, what a waste). Daddy purposely drove passed the busy Jalan Bukit Bintang to look at the Deco put up by the malls and the hotels. However, the decorations were pretty lame.

We have been planning for Zara’s birthday party for a while, and when we asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, she recalled my friend’s daughter’s 1yr old birthday party in the hotel and she said, “Like mummy’s friend, party in hotel. Got clown one. Got many balloons one.”
We were kiam siap (Chinese: Stingy). We did the finances, and thought it would have been better to keep the money saved (from having the party in a hotel or restaurant) in the bank for her. Instead, we have a small party at home, invited just our immediate family members. None the less, it was fun, and the food was good.

The guests : My friend’s kids’ Jensen and Yen Mae, who dropped by in the afternoon to drop off their presents for Zara. Eldest sis’ daughter, Tasha. Youngest sis’ son, the shy Norman.

We had Nasi Lemak for dinner, prepared by Tuyam and my sis’ maid KC. Daddy said this can beat any best nasi lemak in town, I would have to agree with him. It’s absolutely delicious. Zara loved it as well, although all she took was nasi lemak with ikan bilis (Malay : little fish or anchovies) and fried chicken.

I ordered a cake from A Piece of Cake, with Zara specifying the design, “Want got cow girl one. Got pony one. Want dog dog” This is the cake that comes with a cow girl riding on her pony with her pet dog.

The beautiful and yummy-licious cake; The kids were all waiting to attack the cow girl and the pony while Zara munched away the candies on the cake; Zara busy stuffing herself with the sugar beads and stars on the cake; The cow girl and the pony after the kids’ attack.

For the album : Our family; My dad with all his grand children; With my in-laws; Zara with her cousins

A very happy birthday girl: She loved the part where every body sang Happy Birthday to her; she was scared of the fire from the candle so she stood far away from them while trying to blow them out, and eventually just shouted for help.

She had a good time and slept only at 12am, 2hrs passed her bed time.

Zara is really turning into a fussy little girl. She demands and specifies what she wants and if we don’t give in, she would make a big fuss or nag us.

E.g.
If she ordered macaroni and cheese but you give her oat for lunch, she just refused to eat, kept saying, “Zara want maca-no-ni and cheese only!” “Don’t want anything else”
If she wanted grape flavoured Vitagen and we gave her apple flavoured, she would be repeating, “Zara want purple (grape) Vitagen only! Don’t want green (apple) one!”

Sometimes we’ll have to tell her some white lies to make her accept what we offered or just ignore her cries, other times, we’ll just have to give in to her demands.

On Tuesday, we brought out the lantern for her to play. I lighted it with a blue candle. She was making such a big fuss, chanting, “Don’t want this candle, want pink one!”, “Want pink one!”, “This candle not nice.” “I don’t yike (like) this candle! I yike pink one!”

I refused to budge, for the whole time the blue candle was burning, she complained.

Then when Daddy wanted to shoot some photos with her and the lantern, and the flash went off a few times, she started complaining. Cringing her eyes, and saying, “So bright the yight (light). Mummy, take sunglasses for you (me).” “So bright!” “Don’t yike (like) so bright.”

These are the best shot we could take.

She enjoyed the ‘blowing the PINK candle’ in the lantern after Happy Birthday had been sung.

On Saturday, we collected a nice cake ordered by Eve (someone I got to know through blogsphere), before we went to have dinner at Mizu, Bangsar Village (the set dinner there is just oh so wonderful, but the price is a bit high, so we only go on ‘special occasion’).

Since it’s my day (not to mention Daddy upset me earlier in the car), Daddy looked after and ran after Zara at the restaurant, while I slowly savoured my chicken tepanyaki (which I normally don’t fancy, but Mizu does it so well).

After dinner, we proceeded to TGIF to meet with Daddy’s friends. Zara was acting up, the minute she spotted one of Daddy’s friends, she started crying, and pointed to the exit “Want go home! Want go home!” “Go there! Mummy, go there! Want go home!”. We tried very hard to distract her with the things hung on the wall, but she just didn’t calm down.

After about 10mins, we gave up. We thought it might be due to the lighting in TGIF, so we adjourned to Secret Recipe and told our friends to meet there. The moment she heard we were leaving, she waved bye bye to everybody at the table, “Bye, See you later”.

Zara was her happy self again in the brightly lighted Secret Recipe. While playing with some sugar packs, Daddy’s friends walked in. There she went again, started crying, and kept saying, “Go home! Want go home”. Daddy’s friends thought they better leave as her crying was getting louder. Zara immediately calmed down after they left. That is so strange, she has never shown such fear or dislike for any person, not with so much tears and emotion.

So it was just the 3 of us, in Secret Recipe, cutting up the huge cake collected from another Secret Recipe. (Thanks Eve again, for the cake..)

Zara ate the crispy flower and leaves on the cake

On Sunday, we drove all the way to Lake Gardens for Zara to feed the monkeys. A car stopped next to us, and a lady carrying a baby watched us fed the monkeys from the car. She then asked me if I was Zara’s Mama. I almost went pale (what a reaction). She said she’s Vanitha, who also has a blog. Daddy gave me that “see!-post-more-photos-la” look after they left.

After the monkeys, we brought Zara to the big play ground in the gardens. She absolutely loved it!
She wouldn’t go near those wired dinosaur frames (meant for plants to creep on and grow) around the play ground, she said they are “big, black and uh-gree (ugly)” but loved the colourful dinosaur, saying they are so “nice and friendly”

(Anybody knows Vanitha and her blog URL?)

The weekend was all fun for Zara.

Saturday, my sis came over with her daughter Tasha for a while to collect Zara’s walker. Zara was so protective over her toys, worried we’ll be giving away her toys to Tasha.

See how much Tasha has grown.

Later that evening, we went to Elisa’s 1st birthday party in Temptations, New World Hotel. It was a good buffet spread. Zara had lots of cheese and some bread sticks for dinner, had some fun running around the place, collected some balloons from the clown. Mummy ate from 7pm to 9pm non-stop. Oh boy, I was stuffed!

When one of the guests breast fed her little baby in a corner, Zara was just staring at the two of them, probably reminding herself how it used to be. I had to drag her out of the corner and left the mother with some privacy.

Zara playing with a balloon the clown made her; the birthday girl and her family; the beautiful cake (but I didn’t dare to eat any of the icing); Zara and daddy in the crowd.

Thanks to Allyfeel, we had a free trial session in Gymboree. I dragged daddy out of bed early morning to send us there.

Zara enjoyed the session, although she wasn’t participating as a group (I guess it’s common for kids this age), she drifted out of the group, and played with the other things, and I kept having to drag her back. I was really exhausted at the end of it.

After breakfast, Daddy suggested to bring Zara to Lake Gardens to feed the ducks and monkeys. So we bought some peanuts and bread and headed to Lake Garden. It was 35degree at that time, and it was 12noon. I don’t know why I let Daddy talk me into going.

We were lucky we spotted some monkeys on the way. Zara threw peanuts to the group of monkeys to feed them.

After the monkey feeding, we walked about in Lake Gardens, trying to spot the ducks to feed. Imagine before Zara, I could run the whole garden (about 4Km) together with Daddy. That day, to walk just from the car park to the lakes, I was panting and had to stop a few times to rest.

We didn’t see any ducks, but Zara still have a great time.

See how similar the 2 of them look like in the 1st two photos. Zara was exhausted after spending an hour in the park. I wish I could take her place in the pram too. What a workout for all of us

Here’s Zara getting ready for her birthday..

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Gukdc8B80]

We celebrated my father’s birthday on Saturday in Swiss Chalet, Ampang.

It was a long drive for us. There were at least 10 Korean restaurants, 2 Korean supermarkets and 1 Korean hair dresser on the row of shops where Swiss Chalet was. There were many Korean kids and adults walking about and talking in Korean on the street. It was as though we were in Seol.

We chose this place because the whole top floor of the restaurant were allocated to our dinner group which consist of 19 people.

My eldest sis arrived last with Tasha. Tasha is about 5months now, and so chubby and cute. Every body gathered around her to hear her coo and babble.

While waiting for our main course, Daddy stuffed himself silly with home made bread (his all time favourite), and so did Zara (also her favourite).

I have to say the soup and the salad were wonderful. I had crab bisque soup and shared a salad nicoise with Daddy. For main course I had fried trout. It was horrible. It’s just my taste buds I believe. Can’t stand fish with very strong metal taste. Blech! Every body who had steak said the beef was divine.

While we were having dinner, Zara was so happy to have her cousins playing with her, she was running around, dancing, doing all kinds of silly stunts. She even wanted to walk on the wall because my youngest nephew suggested she can do it like spider man.

My father grinning upon seeing his cake. The restaurant even lighted some sparkles on the cake. Zara said “Ah Kong’s cake brink brink (blink blink)”.
Dad then distributed ang pows (Chinese : Red packets which contain money) to all his grandchildren. Zara was very happy to collect them although she has no idea what they contained.

Zara really had a good time but when it was back at home, oh my, she was crying and fussing, and it took her 1hr to settle down and sleep.

I don’t get to use mummy’s computer that often, that’s why I cannot write this earlier.

Last Thursday, while Daddy took airplane to go work work, mummy brought me kaikai (Chinese: go out) together with Ah Kim and Alicia jiejie. We went to this place called Delicious. Mummy said it was Aunty May’s birthday.

When we arrived, a few yai-yai (Chinese: naughty) uncles were smoking outside. Mummy just waved Hi from inside. Uncle Ah Seng was siting alone, not joining the smoking gang. Mummy chose a seat for us, then brought me for a walk.

When we came back to the restaurant, all the uncles and aunties have arrived. Every body has seated and talking. I could not make out what they were saying, but they were loud, it made me got scared with all the noises, so I just sat down quietly.

I was happy when my mummy gave me some prawn crackers from Ah Kim’s plate. I just munched on my prawn cracker and kept to myself until this naughty uncle took Mr Blue away from me. I had to shout and cry in protest. I was being good, why must this uncle disturb me?

I was so glad when Samantha jiejie came and they brought me out to play near the fountain. It was better than siting inside with all the noisy uncles.

Later, some uncles mentioned they wanted to fork the aunty in the restaurant because she wanted to charge them RM100 to cut and eat Aunty May’s cake in the restaurant (no wonder the aunty quicky kept the forks so that the uncles cannot fork her). So we left and went to sit outside to cut Aunty May’s cake.

Jomel jiejie (she said she’s jiejie woh) said she wanted to bring me see baloon, but she bluffed me. There was no baloons, only flowers. Anyway, it was better than hanging around the noisy uncles.

Zara no eyes see. Mummy and the funny, noisy gang

Aunty May wanted me to help her blow the candle on her cake, but my mummy always told me candle will burn burn me, so I dare not go near the candle.

After that, uncle Ah Seng showed me his dirty teeth. My mummy warned me, if I don’t brush my teeth, my teeth will be like uncle Ah Seng. Now, I always brush my teeth every night, I don’t want to be like uncle Ah Seng, nice face, but horrible teeth.

I was very glad when mummy brought me, Alicia and Samantha jiejie home soon after the cake was cut and eaten.

Mummy later told me these are the other people who went to Aunty May’s dinner who didn’t disturb me : Uncle Chicken, Uncle JKN, Uncle GBYeow and Uncle 9393