Weight : Unknown
Height : Err, 64cm? (Daddy measured with me pressing her down)
She took her first flight this month, and she enjoyed it.

Wee! I’m flying, and I can’t sit still!

She’s picking things up real fast these days:
1) She started crawling back and forth earlier this month and can go very fast now. A few times she lifted her body to attempt crawling on her knees but then after her while, she slumps back down, preferring the comando style (Zara never wanted to crawl on her knees too).

2) She’s able to sit herself up from a crawling position; pull herself up to a standing position, and then sit back down; and she has also started cruising. This means, the house is for her to explore!

Cruising… exploring

4) She raises her hands up when we say Hip Hip Hooray!

Hip Hip Hooray!

5) She recognises and remembers objects. When we asked her where the aeroplane is, she’ll look at the sky.
When we asked her where the fan is, she’ll look to the ceiling.
Other items she’s able to recognise or know its location and names are :
~Her Baby, Boo! book (“book”);
~the cat figurine that’s hung on our door (“cat”);
~the Santa Clause in our living room (“bell bell” as there’s a bell each on the Santa’s legs);
~banana;
~her bowl for eating (“mum-mum”);
~her cup (“cup”); etc.
She’ll look towards the item and utter “Ugh” as a confirmation she’d spotted it.

She also knows Daddy’s tea cup is not touchable as it’s hot. She’ll move her hands closer to herself when we bring it near her.

She response to the name Zaria and knows Zara is referring to her sister.

6) Just like Zara, she learnt how to give kisses through the Baby, Boo! book. She’ll lean forward to kiss objects or people she likes.

7) Signing No More (by turning her palms down than up); Scared (by patting her chest)…Ok ok, we didn’t really teach her the ASL or British standards, it’s really whatever that’s easy for her to do, and for us to differentiate.

8 ) She says Mum-mum when she sees food, her bowl, and sometimes me (or was she calling me mama?…. dream on).

9) When she hears singing or music, she ‘sings’ along, bounces and waves her hands in the air ‘dancing’.

10) She understands “NO” “CANNOT”, and will stop what she’s doing or where she’s going when we raise our voice and say these words.

Eating :
This girl really loves food, and she’s now having about a bowl (Chinese rice bowl) of cereal each for breakfast and dinner. Lunch is a little bit of fruits or biscuits. She doesn’t like sour things like cherry tomatos, berries, yogurt.
She’s still fully on breast milk, drinking when she demands, which is about 3 hourly.

Emotions :
1) Still an easy going child, forgives and forgets real fast.

2) She prefers me over others but can be easily ‘tham-ed’ (Cantonese : convinced) to accept others.

3) She cries always for a reason, e.g. in pain, frigthened, or hungry; sometimes, she cries when she sees Zara crying; and very easy to pacify. And when she’s happy, she squels, makes funny faces (e.g. strethes her lips to the side and bears her teeth or just winks).

4) She loves water, to swim in, to bath in or to drink. Nowadays, she’ll crawl to the toilet if she knows someone is taking a bath as though she wants to join in.

I love water.. and err… grass too

5) She likes to dig into containers, drawers, baskets, takes everything out and throw on the floor. Another hurricane in the making.

Hee Hee, I’m going to throw out e.thing from the basket once I get my hands on it!

Time really flies, and it’s just amazing to see her grow!

Zaria was playing, and lost her balance. She fell down and knocked her head. While comforting Zaria, I asked Zara : “Why didn’t you catch meimei when she fell?”
“Because.. because….”
Me : “Because what?”
Zara : “I’m not super man” o.O
Me : “You don’t have to be super man to catch meimei”
Zara : “Because.. because.. (probably working on a better excuse) I’m not a safe-ter.” 😐
Fair enough I guess.

She woke up at 7am.
Zara : “Mummy I want milk”
I wanted to sleep for another 10mins so I told her to wait for a little longer.
Zara : “But, Mummy I want milk!”
Reluctantly, I got up : “Ok, we go she-she (Chinese : pee) first.”
Zara : “Mummy, I’m tired, don’t want to she-she.”
Me : *About to lay back down on the bed* “Since you are tired, then you have your milk later then.”
Zara : “I’m tired, but not that tired, mummy. I want milk. o.O”

She has also started using, “anyway”, “Oh Well”, “It’s like”, e.g. :
When I don’t entertain her when she comes to the study “Anyway, I’m going down stairs now.”
When one of her toy doesn’t work “Oh well, never mind. I’ll do this then.”
When asked why she likes the potong ice cream “It’s like ermm.. very creamy, errm.. cold and sweet”

I don’t know how she picks up some of the words she uses and applies in her day to day speech. Maybe it’s from us who speak the Queen’s English Manglish at home, maybe it’s from TV (my limit is 3 shows a day, and no, we don’t have Astro or cable TV at home. She only watches my selections of DVDs or VCDs).

She uses “Me”, “I am”, “You are” pretty well these days. She doesn’t speak that well all the time. Nowadays, she is trying to use feminine and muscular form in her speech… so some of the phrases can come out like this :
She name is lamb
He name is Mr Blue

And then past tense for her means adding “ed’ at the end :
The car spoil-led
I stand-ded on the naughty corner
The milipede died-ded.

It’s fun to see her development in this area, and sometimes it’s amusing too. Daddy and I can never have enough of this.

Zaria has started to crawl since last week.
Initially we had to put her on her tummy before she could crawl slowly; after a few days, she started to be able to bring herself from a siting postion to a crawling position, and then goes about retrieving things or investigating an item. She’s still crawling comando style, but very much faster now.

When she’s not crawling, she’s placed on the walker, and she’ll be zooming here and there; banging on things, chipping the feet of our furniture (Daddy had to ‘bundle up’ the sofa feet to prevent further damage), knocking into people’s feet (which is very painful!)! She tries to open up drawers in the kitchen (which is child proof since Zara’s time, luckily), pulling down table cloths, or just grabbing anything that she can lay her hands on.

What a busy girl she is, zooming here and slithering there.

After a busy day, she likes to lean on me to play with a toy while I accompany Zara when Zara watches TV.

Last Friday, she was playing with the remote control, happily pressing this and that button, talking to herself, and then it was total silence… what happened?
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Hee hee.. she fell asleep just like that.

This month we saw great development in Zaria, in her ability as well as her emotions.

Put her in the pool of balls she’s happy, put her in the pool of water, she’s happier!

I don’t know what her weight is nor her height, but she’s definitely growing. Clothes are tighter, skirts are shorter.
Her 2 upper incisors started growing 3 weeks ago. With 4 teeth now, and with her very strong sucking motion (Zara never used to suck so hard from what I recalled) nursing her can be a bit of a pain, imagine piranhas nursing! (OUCH!)

Other things the little girl can do :
1) Sitting without support like a pro now, only loosing balance occasionally
2) Clap her hands and give us five
3) Signing more (but it’s Zara’s version by tapping 1 finger on the other palm)
4) Waves bye bye; pats her stomach when we asked if she’s ‘pao pao’ (Cantonese : Full); but I don’t know if she knows the meaning of these actions
5) Raises her hand when we asked if she wanted to be carried; turns her hands and head away from whoever she doesn’t want
6) Making new sounds like ke, pa, te (effect of my new purchase? I don’t know.)
7) Crawl commando style, but right now it’s going back wards.
8 ) Seems to understand words like No (following it is another thing), Carry, mummum (Chinese : food, eat), no more, go park
9) Cover and uncover her mouth which produces the wa-wa-wa sound
10) When she sees food, she smacks her lips and says mummum repeatedly, does this mean she’s uttering her first word already?

Eating :
She absolutely loves eating. When she sees us eating, she tries to reach out and grab.
She has breakfast and dinner at the dining table together with us, so she doesn’t have to stare at us eat. Sometimes she wants to try what is on our plates, so we’ll give her a suck on the fruit we’re eating, or give her 2-3 rice grains to munch.
Still on 2 solid meals (breakfast and dinner, ~2.5 tbs) and have her milk 3 hourly (I let her rest for an hour before giving her a milk feed after her solid meal). Snacks on babybites biscuit at noon time.
She only takes home made cereals, fruit or vege puree. No meat introduced yet (will wait till 1yr old).

Clock wise top left : absolutely love this pix taken by my neighbour in the park; showing off her clapping skill; On her Tripp Trapp, her new found favourite; Spending lots of time in the walker

Sleeping
She takes 2 naps in the day for about 1hr to 1.5hr per nap.
She sleeps at ~9:30pm. Wakes up 1 to 2 times in the night (depending on how soundly she sleeps), requests for the breast, and drifts off to sleep (most of the time I too drift of to sleep with her) midway nursing.

Emotions
She started having preference on who can touch or carry her. She never used to be that particular, but this month, it’s different!
She dislikes wrinkly people in particular. MIL, out! My sis’ elderly maid, out! She will look at the person, hold the stare for 2s, then she’ll cry, with big drops of tears!
She needs time to warm up to people whom she doesn’t meet that often. SIL once jumped out from no where to greet her, Zaria freaked out, cried like there was no tomorrow.
Every time when we enter someone’s home, she’ll be looking from ceiling to the floor and around, clinging on to the one carrying her tighter, sensing the unfamiliar ground. People started saying she’s ‘papai’ (Cantonese : fussy), but I think she’s just getting more aware of things.

She prefers me over most people. When my maid is carrying her and she sees me walking by, she’ll be calling out for me  and her eyes will follow where I go. If I didn’t stop to play with her or carry her, she would be fretting, making crying sounds. However, she prefers Daddy over me when she’s in a playful mood, because Daddy plays a lot with her.

She likes
1) to touch, shake, knock just about any objects she gets her hands on
2) to stand or to bounce herself up and down
3) anything that makes sound and music
4) go to the park (and she loves to lift her head to watch the swaying leaves on trees)
5) baths
6) grind her teeth playfully (the top with the bottom) which gets on my nerve (hate the sound).

I like it when she feels manja (Malay : TLC required) and lays her head on my shoulder when I carry her.

I just love this little chilli padi!

Here is the girl singing in one of her better mood (allowing me to capture her on Video shows she’s in better mood or she won’t cooperate with the camera).

Can you also spot Zaria entertaining herself at the background?

Weekend is coming, and she’s started the I-don’t-want-to-go-to-school conversation again.
This time she’s saying, “But I don’t want to go.”
“But It’s not fun.”
“But I cannot come out.”
She even said, “After say ‘You cannot go out!'” (stressing “You Cannot Go Out” in angry tone).
When I asked her who said that? Did the teacher say that?
She replied, “Kakak said” (as in our maid). *slap head*
Finding excuses again..
Haih….

On Friday, we told Zara we’ll get her a school bag for her to bring to school on Sunday.
Zara : “I’m going school tomorrow?”
Me : “No, on Sunday. Tomorrow is Saturday.”
Zara : “I go school tomorrow tomorrow?”
Me : “Yeah, it’s day after tomorrow.”
Zara : “I don’t want to go to school.”
Daddy : “Why? You can learn new things and be clever.”
Zara : “I don’t want to be clever.”
Daddy : “Why don’t you want to be clever?”
Zara : “Because I want to be a clown.” o.O”
Me : “Never mind, you just go and play and have fun then.”
End of conversation 1.

Zara : “I want to go see monkeys. I don’t want to go to school.”
Me : “We can go to school then we go and see the monkeys.”
Zara : “I want to see the monkeys first!”
Me : “The monkeys are going to school in the morning, because they need to learn how to climb trees, how to shell a peanut. So they won’t be around in the mornings. We can go and see them after your class.”
Zara : *thoughtful for a moment* “The monkeys go to school and frighten the teachers then.” o.O”
End of conversation 2.

Zara : “I don’t want to go to school.”
Me : “You just go and have fun Zara. Do your painting, play with the slides in the school. Just have fun.”
Zara : “I don’t like the park in the school. I like the park on grass one. That one no grass, not nice one.” (The school has an in-door play ground)
Me : “But you like Gymboree, there’s also no grass in Gymboree too.”
Zara : “I don’t like Gymboree. Our park in XXXX YYYYY got grass, is even more better.” (XXXX YYYYY == the name of our residential area) o.O”
End of conversation 3.

Zara : “I don’t want to go to school.”
Me : *for the xth time* “School is fun Zara, just go and have fun.”
Zara : “But I scared.”
Me : “Mummy and daddy will wait for you outside right?”
Daddy : “If you have any problem, you just come out and we’ll be there.”
Zara : “I open the door and come out?”
Daddy : “Yes, we’ll be waiting for you outside.”
Zara : “If I have any problem, mummy and daddy will be there?”
Me : “Yes. We’ll be outside. But I don’t think you’ll have any problem, so after class, you can come out and we’ll be waiting for you, ok?”
End of conversation 4.

Zara : “The dinosaur will go to the school and attack the teachers.”
Me : “Then what will happen to the children?”
Zara : “The brachiosaurus will play with the children. The T-Rex will attack and kill the teachers.”
Me : “Zara, there are no more dinosaurs. They are all dead.”
Zara : “All die already?”
Me : “Yes. All dead.”
End of conversation 5.

So how was she in class? When I said my good bye, I told her we’ll wait for her outside; before I left, I put my thumb up and mouthed the word “You’ll be ok?” Her eyes were a bit wet, but she nodded her head.
I went in and checked on her again when they were playing in the indoor play ground. “Mummy waiting for me outside?” She came forward and asked. I said yes, and told her to have fun.

Basically, she was ok in class, according to the teacher. This time, she didn’t even tell the teacher she needed to leave to go to Lake Gardens like she did every now and then last week.

I wonder if there’ll be more of such conversations every weekend when it’s time for school again.

Early last week, she started clapping her hands when we asked her to ‘clap your hands’. She will also try to join her feet together when we asked her to ‘clap your feet’.

Here is a video of her clapping hands and giving high-5.

On a different note, just brought her to see Paed because she has thick discharge on her left eye. We are wondering if she’s allergic to something in the park because the eye gets teary and then starts to have thick discharge only after we’d gone to the park.

Her weight is 7.35kg. Just 0.25Kg extra compared to last month. Looks like her weight gain is slowing down, but then again, she’s more active now.

We’d started sending Zara to play school once a week since 2 weeks ago. It’s a 1.5hr per week pre-kindergarten program which includes lots of play time (sand/water play and gym), with a bit of singing, reading, and phonics teaching.

Unlike Julia Gabriel Edu Drama class (which we eventually didn’t sign her up), I cannot be with her during lesson.

She cried the 1st lesson when I had to leave her (adviced by school to let them handle her even if she cried); separated by 2 doors, we could still hear her loud wailing. She stopped 20mins later, when they started doing sand and water play as well as painting.

Yesterday, she shed a drop or two of tears when I left her. Telling me with trembling lips, “Mummy I want to go home.” I just said my goodbyes and told her I would wait for her outside. She was ok throughout, but kept coming out when she had a chance to tell me, “”Mummy, I finish already. Can go home now?” The teacher told me she was ok in class, but every now and then, she would ask the teacher if she could leave to go to Lake Gardens to see the brachiosaurus (the teacher actually asked how Zara knows such words). o.O”

After lesson, we heard her saying to herself, “House is for mouse. Mouse lives in a house.” (they were probably doing the ‘ouse’ sound in class) and also singing some unknown songs. Looks like she’s already picking things up.

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On Saturday, we went to Lake Gardens. After which, we thought of having dinner in Hakka Restaurant.
Daddy : “Zara, we go to Hakka Restaurant for dinner ok?”
Zara : “No No. I want to go Dragon I. I want to eat the noodles there. Because the noodles there is so nice.”
Daddy : “But Hakka Restaurant is also nice.”
Zara : “No. The restaurant is too loud (even though she may not know where Hakka is, she always use this excuse to get us out of a restaurant). I want to go Dragon I. I want to eat the juicy pow. The juicy pow and the noodle very yummy one.”
Daddy to me : “Er, where is the nearest Dragon I?”
Me : “Mid Valley.”
Daddy to Zara : “Ok. Daddy bring you to Dragon I.”
(See, if I asked Daddy to bring me to Midvalley on a weekend, he’ll say I’m crazy. Whatever the daugther wants, he’ll just oblidge.)

Zara ate 1/3 bowl of plain la-mien (Chinese : Noodle) with a serving of 4 juicy pow xiao long bao (Chinese : pork dumplings). At least she ate what she said she wanted, and that made Daddy happy.

Zaria recently has shown some of her ‘spunky’ side, I’m not sure if it’s her constant exposure to a screaming, shouting, demanding toddler, or she’s now just slowly ‘blooming’.

1. She now knows how to tell us what she wants.
E.g. When she sees me and wants me to carry her, she’ll look at me while kicking her legs and flapping her arms towards me and babble happily, “Ugh! Ugh!”.
She does the same when she sees a toy she wants, and her arms will be trying to reach for the item (or her stare will follow the object of desire) while doing so.

2. She knows how to fake a cry if what she wanted was denied.
E.g. When I walk on without carrying her, she’ll fake a cry, “Eh-Heh.. Eh-Heh.. Eh-Heh” with eyes fixed on me.

3. She now knows how to insist on her demand.
E.g. If I don’t give in to her fake cry, wave bye bye at her, and disapear, her tears will start flowing, and she’ll start arching her back, straightening legs, and bawl.

If I picked her up, she’ll stop crying immediately. It’s the same when the toy she wants is given to her, she’ll stop her crying, and immediately play with the toy happily. That’s one thing good about her, she gets pacified easily.

Last Sunday, Zara got a baloon twisted to the shape of a bear from 1U.
I took it out for Zaria to play at night. We were all seated on the bed, Zaria on my lap happily took the baloon from me. Zara who was reading with daddy a foot away in front of us, immediately snatched the baloon from Zaria, and said, “It’s mine! Not meimei(‘s)!”
Zaria reached her hands out, and did her fake crying (2) but Zara ignored her.

The next moment, Zaria just lunged forward; by straightening her legs and kicking very hard with her arms reaching out towards Zara, she propelled herself into Zara’s arms; but Zara was quicker, and held the baloon high up above her head. Since Zaria miss her airm, she bawled!

Both Daddy and myself just stared at each other, and said, “Wow”. I said out loud what we both were thinking, “Looks like she’s going to be chili padi. “

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Other things the little girl can do :
1) Sitting without support : she can balance herself when she leans forward, but still not very good in regaining her sitting position if she tilted to the side.
2) Twist her wrist (as though saying No more)
3) Babbling wider range of sounds, e.g. Ba Ba Ba Ba, Ma Ma Ma Ma, Mum Mum Mum
4) Signing MILK when she wants me to give her milk

She likes to :
1) Blow raspberry
2) Straighten her legs to stand (of course very much supported), sometimes preferring this over sitting
3) Burry her face on my shoulder, suck on any of my expose skin (shoulder, arm).
4) Eat – she loves her solid and milk. She’s taking 2 x 2 tablespoon of cereal/fruit or vege puree daily, and then taking 6~7 times 3.5~4 oz milk feed.

She has 2 lower central incisors now, the right one appeared early this month, while the left one sprouted last week. Her latest mischief : biting on me when she’s nursing. Unlike Zara, where I only have to tell her NO twice and she stopped biting me totally for the 1.5yrs she was nursing, little chili padi is still doing it after many times of saying NO to her. She even gives me the cheeky smile after biting, showing me her 2 cute teeth, declaring her innocence!

Height = 68cm
Weight = 7.1Kg

She’s able to :
~ sit very well when supported; momentarily balance herself when not supported.
~ grab an object held out for her
~ pass object from one hand to another
~ babble and scream, doing vowel sounds most of the time, like aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiii, ooooooooooo, aaaaaeeeeeee, eehh-ooooh
~ respond to her nick name, meimei, and at times, Zaria
~ rolls back to front, front to back like a pro now
~ check out a new object by looking at it, shaking it, puting in her mouth, or touching it
~ demand for something while staring at it, and crying

Eating :
Eating her solids well, so far have been giving her home made cereal (brown rice, millet, quinoa) with either potato, pumpkin, apple or carrot, and she takes them all.
Typical feeding schedule : 7am milk, 9am 2 tbs cereal, 11am milk, 1pm milk, 4pm milk, 6pm 2 tbs cereal, 8pm milk, 10pm milk. Midnight, feed on demand.
Not sure how much milk she’s taking, but I think it’s about 3.5oz per feed (that’s the amount she’ll take from the bottle). She nurses directly from the breast most of the time.
She started sleeping through at about 8th week; somehow when I went to Singapore for work last month, she started waking up for milk again. However, it’s more of comfort feed then real feed, as she just have a few suck before dozing off again.
Starting to have a habit of shaking kicking her right leg while nursing.

Temperament / Emotions :
Doesn’t cry much (definitely less than Zara at this age and even at 31months), and when she does, she’s either sleepy, angry or got a fright; and is easily calmed or pacified.
She doesn’t mind anybody carrying or playing with her, but she knows Jelly (my Filipino maid) and myself are her main care givers, so she’ll look out for us when she wants to be comforted.
When she wants me (to play with her or feed her), she’ll squael with delight when she sees me, and will cry when she sees me walking out without giving her the attention.
Archs her stomach when she is displease.
Very patient and good temperament.

She’s taking 2 long naps in the morning and afternoon, and then a short 30mins nap in the night; her bed time is 11pm just like Zara now.
She loves to watch Zara dance, and Zara always have a way to make her squeal with excitement and laugh.
She seems to like books, staring at the pictures, or trying to grab it to put in her mouth.
She loves to watch TV too; when Zara is watching Baby Einstein, I’ll let her watch together.