2 months came and went and Zaria is growing well, feeding well.

At 2 months +, these are things she can do :
~ supporting her head for a few minutes
~ putting her fist into her mouth and licking it (I think she’s planning to suck her thumb, but her aim is not so accurate yet)
~ rubbing her eyes with her hands
~ moving her head and eyes to follow person’s voice or face
~ raising her legs high up
~ hitting and kicking the items on her baby gym (not sure if she did this intentionally or unintentionally)
~ sleeping through the night (YIPPIE for ME!)

She is still purely on breast milk, drinking 3 hourly during the day. I try to fix her feeding time to be around 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and then 10pm, and she seems to be adjusting to this timing too. She’s taking about 3.5oz.

She hates the heat and fusses frequently in the house (since our house is not fully air-conditioned), but once we’re in the mall, she is very happy and cheerful and able to takes longer naps. The good thing is, no matter how fussy she is in the day, once she has her last feed, she settles down and falls asleep on her own (with Zara, I used to carry and rock her until she’s asleep; and even now, she needs me to be by her side or she won’t be able to fall asleep) pretty easily (the air-condition turned on probably helps).

Babies they grow up so fast, and mummies, their maternity leave just zooms by so quickly too.

First few days after she was born

These are her more recent photos, see how much she’s grown compared to the1st set of photos?

Tricks she knows : Raising her hands and legs; Cooing to her mobile, sucking her fist, supporting her neck

I still have about 20 odd days to go before I go back to work! *big big sigh* And boy, I must say, the feeling of not working but still getting an income is oh so great! I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

Every time someone I know meets Zaria, they’ll say something like this, “Err, your girl, err.. big hor?”
Hmm, yesterday, we took her for her 6th week jab and got her measured. She’s almost put on 2Kg in 6 weeks (birth weight 2.91kg, now 4.85kg), and taller by 5.5cm (birth height 51.5cm, now 57cm).
She is indeed getting bigger, longer, and the cheeks chubbier.

At 6th week, she’s sleeping less.
She kicks her legs and punches her fists.
She likes us to talk to her and she’ll look at us intently and cooes back, if she’s in the mood.
She’s very serious looking and rarely smiles, but when she does, I can spot the little dimple on her left cheek.
She likes to lift her head up and look around when we carry her tummy (hers) on chest (ours), but dislikes being put on the tummy lying down.
When she’s really upset and cries (she never wails, just cries), tears will form and she really looks so so sad.
She still drinks three hourly, but luckily at night, she wakes up 5hourly. E.g. last feed at about 10pm, she’ll wake up at about 3am and then the next round at 8am.

Chubby Cheeks at 6th week (the head band was Tuyam’s idea)

This is a phrase Zara likes to use these days. She tells me what she wants to do/be when she becomes a big girl.

Zara : *going through my lipsticks*When I big girl, then I can put lipstick. Then I can wear nice baju (Malay: Clothes).
Me : Where do you want to go?
Zara : Go office to work loh. (she’s using lots of loh, lah in her conversation these days, and Daddy said it’s my bad influence)
Me : What work do you want to do?
Zara : Play with uncle guard (she followed me to office once on a Sunday, and there was only this guard working, she probably thinks there’s only the guard in the office working with me)

Sometimes she can talk on her own with no audience or response from us.
Zara : When I big girl I (will) be like Dr Jason (my gynae). Help to take baby out from the stomach.
Zara : Yes, after check check stomach must wash hands like this *pretend to wash hands*
Zara : Then after check stomach, I go home and have dinner with my children (wow, already know about work-life-balance)

Other things she wants to be when she is a big girl :
Zara : When I big girl, then I can carry meimei
Zara : When I big girl then I can ride the big bicycle
Zara : When I big girl then I can pump petrol
Zara : When I big girl then I can play with knife, to cut cut xxxxx
Zara : When I big girl, then I can eat sambal (Malay : chilli paste)

Once I asked her :“When you are a big girl, will you still love mummy or not?
Her response: “No.”
Ouch!

My big girl

Apology: I’m reading my comments for each post, by have no time to respond to each of them.

Zaria 
At  6 week old, she has established a routine which is very close to the family’s. I thank God for this.
She wakes up in the morning, and entertains herself (I’d seen her kicking her legs quietly in the mornings). When she hears us waking up, i.e. the talking, the foodsteps in the house, she’ll call/cry out to us, to be acknowledged/carried or nursed.
She spends the day in between sleeping and waking. When she’s hungry, she will call out instead of crying. Normally when Zara and myself nap, she’ll also be napping with us or quietly kicking her legs or punching her fists keeping herself occupied.
From 6pm to 10pm, she becomes more demanding and wants body contact; she wants to be carried, or to be on the breast. This is when she cries the most, especially when we put her down. Dinner time is a bit challenging for us with Zara and Zaria both requiring attention at the same time. 
When it’s bed time, she takes light out as a que. After nursing her, and given Zara her milk, lights will be turned off. She’ll quietly lie on the bed, dozing off to sleep.
She gets up once in the night, and another early in the morning to feed. Actually, she doesn’t cry out to be nursed, she just shuffles on the bed; being a light sleeper, I’ll wake up and feed her. (I’m thinking of ignoring the shuffling once she goes pass this week, since Zara stopped waking up to be nursed at 6th week).

Zara
It has been rather challenging caring for Zara since Zaria’s arrival.
She will have stomach aches when I’m nursing Zaria. She gets into accidents a lot like knocking her head on the dining table while walking, falling down from the sofa, tripping on things etc.
She says things like, “I smack meimei yeah because she’s so naughty.” (when Zaria cries).
“I want to fry kakak until kakak becomes krok-krok (crunchy), and then I (will) eat kakak”
“Kakak you go home to Indonesia loh.”
“Daddy, that’s my bed, go away.”
(she doesn’t use such words with me though)
She cries a lot and the trigger can be something very minute (e.g. Can’t pull out a book from the shelf; I need to be in the study blogging working; she wakes up and I’m not next to her).
In the night, she will stay up until I’d finished nursing Zaria, and wants me to cuddle her to sleep.

We started toilet training her (should have done this before Zaria came). Since last week, she’d only poo-ed in the toilet bowl, and sometimes if she remembers to tell us, she pees in the toilet bowl too. She wants me to be the one who help her with using the toilet and normally have urges to pee and to poo when I’m cuddling Zaria.

Start young with good toilet habit

She wants to be carried a lot, especially by me. She wants me to be the one bathing her, napping with her, brushing her teeth, helping her with the toilet.

Child Care Options
I don’t know how some SAHM does it, handling 2 kids without a maid. I salute them! I’m finding it tough even with a maid. I get so stressed when Zaria needs her feed and Zara gets all worked up and wants my attention too.

I’m cracking my head with child care options after my maternity.
1) Hire another maid
2) Put one of the girls in child care center
3) Send Zara to half day nursery

Tuyam confirms she’ll stop working for us in early 2008. Hiring a maid seems to be a good option since the kids now need most attention. By 2008, Zaria will be 1 and Zara 3, and hopefully things will get better, and we will just need 1 maid (the new one) to handle the kids during working hours and to do the house work.

Parents out there, do you have any suggestions for child care? I’m not as lucky as others, as my MIL is not keen too old to help.

It’s nice to see that Zaria is getting a bit chubby, and I feel proud knowing that all this was the result of her drinking the milk I produced.

She latched on well since day one which makes breastfeeding her easy. She now drinks 3 to 4 hourly, and I think she should be drinking about 3oz. In the day, when she wants milk, she’ll just give us a shout (yeah, a shout, like “Ehhhh”); and in the night (she probably knows this since the room is dark), she only makes the “Eh Ugh” sound or shuffles in her sleep when it’s time for her feed. Once she ‘informs’ us she wants her milk, she patiently awaits for us to feed her. What a nice baby she is.

She’s now nick named Chubby Cheeks at home.

Chubby Cheeks asleep

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Since Zara only weaned off from the breast at 18 months, she remembers those breast feeding days. I initially thought I will probably need to do tandem feeding when Zaria was born, but she was proud to have been ‘promoted’ to jiejie, and she thinks only babies drink from breast.

On the first night after we were back from the hospital, I was feeding Zaria, and realised that it’s also milk time for Zara. I asked “Zara, you want milk?” (actually asking if she wanted me to make her milk for her). She looked at me with this funny expression, and pointed to her teeth, “Zara got teeth already, cannot drink milk from the breast.” :-I

There are other times when she proudly says, “Mei mei baby, drink milk from mummy’s breast. Zara jiejie already, drink bottle milk only.” or “Last time Zara baby, Zara drink breast milk, now Zara big girl already, drink milk from bottle only”

She’s so proud to be all big and grown up now. 😛

Zaria has entered into week 2, and as a new born we can see that she’s very much different from Zara.
Zara wailed for her milk when she was younger. And if we were a bit slow, she wailed until she turned all black.
Zaria just shuffles about, making ‘ek, ek, ek’ sound, when she wants milk. And patiently waits for us to feed her.

Zara dislikes wet or soil diaper even when she was an infant. When she cried, we have to go through a check list : 1) fed? 2) burped? 3) diaper wet/soiled?
Zaria is just not bothered with her diaper, if it’s on, if it’s wet or if it’s soiled.

We think she’ll have more patient than Zara, and probably better temprament. Maybe it’s just the ‘any thing also ok’ attitute of a Capricorn. We shall see.

Zara over night has grown quite a fair bit. Suddenly, we noticed she speaks better, using the accent she acquires from her TV program. She will shout for me from the stair case in the night, “Come on mum. It’s bed time. Let’s go upstairs.” And when Daddy leaves the room without saying goodnight to her, she’ll say, “I want daddy, daddy didn’t say good night to you (me).”

She’s also very direct nowdays. If we talked too loud when she’s watching her TV program, she’ll say “Shh.. Don’t talk so loud.” If she saw the CL siting there watching her TV program with her, she’ll say, “Aunty, close your eyes, don’t watch. This is Zara’s show.” Since she’s not very fond of the CL.

She’s very good with Zaria though. She is very gentle around her. “Mei mei very fragile, Zara must be careful, yeah.” she reminds herself every time she’s near Zaria. She likes to stroke and sniff Zaria’s hair, her way of showing her affection to Zaria. 

Who does she look like? She has Daddy’s eye lids, but my big pupils. Daddy’s nose, and sharper face

Looking pretty serious here.

Zara’s pretty loving towards meimei the minute they met. She wants to ‘sayang’ meimei every time when meimei cries or frets by stroking and singing to meimei. She likes to hug meimei for no reason. Drinking milk together in the night.

Meimei’s small hands compared to mine.

Update on Zara
When we asked Zara what we should call meimei since we have already shortlisted to 2 names, and we wanted her to choose one, she just said “mei mei’s name is mei mei.”

Zara has also started to ask the Why question. E.g. “Why the korkor (Chinese : big brother) nose like that one” when she saw a picture of a boy with big longish nose.

Zara’s is getting better in reasoning.
Daddy asked her to walk when all she wanted was to be carried when they go for their park trip. She told daddy, “Daddy carry Zara. Daddy need(s) excercise.”
I told her to stay away from meimei since she is not fully recovered from chicken pox and she told me, “I’m feeling better already. I eat (ate) my chicken pox medicine already.”

And she started calling Daddy “Dad” and me “Mum”. I have no idea where she learn that (TV maybe?).

Zara has been calling Daddy other names other than just Daddy.
When we are going home from my sis’ place, she would announce, “I’m going home already, to see my Old Man, Bob The Builder.”
When she has shouted for Daddy many times and got no response from him, she’ll start using his name (first and last name together), “XXXXX LOW! XXXXX LOW!” Just like I would address him when I don’t get any response from him.

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She started to have some sense of time, and started using words to describe the past. However, she’s still confuse with the usage, and it’s cute to see her attempts.
E.g. “Just now we went to Cowboy town, the pony kick kick Zara right?” (although it wasn’t just now but some time back.)
“Last time Zara saw reindeer in Ikea, and point(ed) to Mummy and Daddy.” (although it was something that happened the day before)

Me : “Zara you shu-shu (Chinese : Pee) is it?”
Zara : “No, I didn’t. I (am) lying down only” (she was on the bed trying to get herself to sleep).

Me : “How are you today? Do you still have runny nose?”
Zara : “No I didn’t (don’t). I’m feeling better already.”

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She likes to help Tuyam with her pronunciation or us when we can’t find the right word to use.
Me : “Remember in Phuket, you saw the lobster in the restaurant, hmm.. what are those things on the lobster’s head? *using my pointer to make the ‘horn’ on the head* antenna?”
Zara : “Mummy, it’s fillers mummy! It’s fillers.” *grinning happily*
(Is it really called fillers? I actually don’t know, but that’s what Daddy told her during the trip and she remembers.)

Tuyam : *Pointing to a bee picture on her book* “See this ‘beh’ flying flying.”
Zara : “Bees lah. Kakak, Bees”

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Yesterday, she was crying so much for me before her nap. Wanted me to give her milk and nap with her. After her nap, when she was in a better mood :
Me : “Why did Zara cry just now? Kept asking for mummy?”
Zara : “……..” (she always doesn’t like to talk about embarrassing stuff, and crying is one)
Me : “Tell mummy, why did Zara cry just now?”
Zara : “Because mummy pregnant (I started wondering what has this got to do with her crying) . *She paused then continued* (obviously trying to find the right words) Zara wants to sayang sayang (Malay: TLC) mummy.”

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On a loving day,
Zara : “Zara is mummy’s ?? (precious). And mummy is Zara’s ??.”

After a week of celebrations (another birthday song singing just within the family, a trip to Kidzsports and Gymboree) and not being well (sore throat from all the nasi lemak and little fish, fever, cough, flu), finally the birthday season is over. 😛

Here is just for my record, her 2year old development.

~ Weight : 10.2kg (taken during her fever)
~ Height : 86.3cm

Emotions and Character
~ I’m not sure if it’s a two year old thing or it’s because our 2nd one is coming, she’s extremely clingy to me. She prefers me to tuck her to bed, even for her afternoon nap (she’ll cry if I don’t do it but I just ignored it), she only wants me to bath, she’s always asking me to look after her instead of working, “Mummy look after Zara, don’t want mummy to work”
~ She’s expressing her love, by kissing us or by saying, “I love you Mummy” (almost every night before she goes to bed), “I love you Daddy” (occasionally).
~ She is becoming a handful especially when we go out shopping, and she goes wild running here and there, climbing this rack and that.
~ She loves going to the super markets (Giant is her favourite because of the free kiddy rides)
~ Very stubborn, especially if she has set her mind on something (e.g don’t want to take bath, don’t want to have her meal). However, my ultimate weapon, ignore her or send her to the naughty corner, or sometimes smacking (I’m really trying to avoid smacking her, but there are times when she’s really unreasonable even after much coaxing, and I sometimes blame it on my raging hormones.. I know it’s just an excuse).

Language
~ She is doing very well in this respect
~ She’s making up the lyrics of songs she knows spontaneously, e.g. when I can’t find my car keys, she’ll go “Where oh where is mummy’s car keys, Oh where oh where can it be?” (singing to the tune Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog gone)
~ She started picking up Malay and Mandarin words; speaking to Tuyam using some Malay or to us using some Mandarin. E.g. “Kakak, this one very sedap (tasty)”; “Kakak, Zara tak mau (don’t want)”; “Zara is mummy’s ?? (precious)”; “Mummy, Zara ?? (don’t want).”

Toilet training – I wonder when she’ll be potty/toilet trained
~ She’s getting adversely affected by the smell of poo and urine. Especially her own. She vomited once when I got her to pee in the shower cubicle before her bath and she smelled her own urine; she also vomited when I got her to flush her stool away and refused to do it again (normally I flush her stool even when she did her business on the diaper)
~ She once said, “I don’t want to poo poo already. Poo poo is so smelly.” when trying to control her bowel movement
~ She knows to be a big jie-jie (Chinese : big big-sister), she has to stop wearing diaper, but she doesn’t want to use the toilet bowl or her potty because she said, “Shu shu and poo poo is so smelly.”
(Tips anyone?)

Food
~ Very fussy with what she eats and has very acute sense of taste. Just a speck of coriander on her steam fish, and she’ll spit out that piece with the coriander mixed with it.
~ Doesn’t eat a lot of things, and doesn’t eat much, and it’s making us worried. We’re trying to psycho her into saying if she doesn’t eat, she’ll be very thin like her mama (Chinese : paternal grandma), and won’t have muscle like daddy or have body shape like mummy, and it helps sometimes, saying she wants to have body like mine (Ha! Wait till she’s older, but now, I’ll just savour this).
~ Loves ice cream, sausages, chocolate, pop corn, cheese. For real meals, she likes rice or porridge with ikan bilis (Malay : little fish or anchovies); macaroni and cheese; garlic bread.
~ Have 3 or 4milk feeds : 6oz in the morning upon waking, 6oz in the afternoon before her nap, 4oz in the night before bed, and sometimes 6oz in the early mornings which started recently (she’s preparing me for my night feed)

Today is Zara’s actual birthday, I’m supposed to write about her monthly development, but I’ll do that later. I want to write about her negotiation skill and how good she’s getting at it.

Zara : Mummy, I want to watch TV. (she started using lots of “I” instead of Zara now)
Me : No, bed time already, go and brush your teeth and change to your pajamas.
Zara : Mummy, one time only.
Me : No, it’s bed time.
Zara : Mummy, please. One time only. *puting out her pointer to show ONE*
Me : Ok then. One time yeah.
Zara : Ok. *happily sat down and wait for me to put on her program for her*
After finishing
Me : Ok, time to get ready for bed.
Zara : Mummy, one more time.
Me : No. Enough already.
Zara : Please. Last time. Last time only.
Me : No. Just now you said one time only. So, you already watched one time, so get ready for bed now.
Zara : Last time please. *looked at me with Bambi eyes*
Me : Ok ok.. one last time.

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She had fever yesterday, and started recovering today.
Zara : (for lunch) I want to eat nasi lemak (Malay : Coconut rice) with little fish.
Me : No, you still have a bit of fever, cannot eat nasi lemak with little fish.
Zara : I’m feeling better already.
Me : No, not today. When you are all well ok?
Zara : Little bit only. Please.
Me : No. (not this time)

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Tuyam got her a set of toy bathing set from Indonesia which came with hair dryer, shampoo, comb etc. After opening up Tuyam’s present, she wanted to try it on Sam, and ‘wash’ Sam’s hair.
Sam oblidged, but after the N-th time, she wanted to stop.
Zara : Sam jie-jie, I want to wash your hair.
Sam : No thanks.
Zara : You must wash your hair. *pulling strands of her own hair to show Sam* After sticky. Got cockroach in the hair. Got bugs. Got lizard. I wash for you, ok?
Sam : ……

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When she asked for me, and I’m in a meeting, she would wail and cry for the whole duration of my meeting. So I asked her :
Me : Why Zara always cry when mummy is in a meeting.
Zara : Because Zara loves mummy.
Me : *melted* Mummy loves you too, but why you cry?
Zara : Because Zara don’t (doesn’t) like mummy to close the door
(I always close the door to the study when I have a meeting just in case the people on the other side of the line can hear her)
Me : Oh.. But mummy needs to close the door because mummy needs to talk to uncle and aunty on the phone. It doesn’t mean mummy don’t love you.
Zara : *look at me like she understood*
Me : Mummy will always love you ok? Even when mummy is upset or angry, mummy still love you. Mummy love you very much. But mummy just can’t carry you or have you sit on mummy’s lap when mummy have meeting ok?
Zara : ok. (not sure if she understood though, but she loves being re-assured that I love her)