Kiasi (traditional Chinese: 驚死, 惊死, kiaⁿ-sí) is a Hokkien phrase, literally means afraid of death, to describe the attitude of being overly afraid or timid.

Since she was very young, Zara has already shown sign she’s very kiasi.
She’s afraid of the dark.
She’ll try to eat healthy so that she’ll not fall ill.

When she was 3+, she sometime had nightmare which woke her up in the middle of the night. Her nightly prayer during that time would include a line like “Jesus, please don’t let me have nightmare.” and she would ask me everynight, “Mum, will I have nightmare?”

She’s never been on a nebuliser, but had seen kids using it. When she’s not well, she will eat her medicine on a timely basis even though it’s extremely yucky. She will not touch cold drinks when she’s having the flu/cold/cough because I’d told her if she didn’t take care when she’s not well, she might need to use the nebuliser.

When she learnt about Hand Foot And Mouth Disease and H1N1 in school, she started checking her body frequently, and when there were ‘suspicious’ spots, she would ask worriedly, “Do I have Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.”; and when a stubborn cough or flu continued for a few days longer, she would ask, “Do I have H1N1?”

Early this year, she started having frequent nose bleed. A couple of times, it bled in the middle of the night, making everybody worry. I initially taught it was caused by extreme ‘heatiness’, so I told her to watch what she eats, and drinks more water.
Her prayer became “Jesus, please don’t let me have nosebleed.” and she would ask me everynight, “Mum, will I have nosebleed?”
She stopped having chocolate and deep fried food although those were her favourite (Even if you tempt her and placed them in front of her, she’ll just say, “No! After I’ll get nosebleed.”)
We eventually found out the reason for her nosebleed. She has extremely sensitive nose. No nose picking and no nose spray (anto-congestion nor salt-water spray) and that fixed the problem.
She’s back on her favourite food now.

She eats most vegetable although she may not like them just because they will make her healthy.
She makes sure her hands are clean before picking up anything to eat.

Recently, I started making homemade ice cream and told her that most ice cream sold had some sort of chemical or preservatives to make them last longer, so best for her to just stick to my ice cream. I shared with her as well some ice cream use artificial sweetener which may cause cancer.
So now her favourite question is, “Will I get cancer.” when she touches something which I told her might contain artificial flavouring or sweetener. o.O”

The Little One is very into drawing lately although we did not start her on any arts classes.

In the beginning, she liked copying what Zara drew. E.g. Zara drew this.

She drew this (even the font for her name, she’s trying to copy Zara).

And guess what movie they were drawing about?
TANGLED.

Then she stopped copying, and started creating her own. Some following movies she’s watched, like these :

Some following famous characters.

(See if you can make out what she’s drawing, answer is at the end of the post)

Sometimes she just drew whatever that came to the mind.

Or inspired by what she was doing (taking photos, plucking flowers, and wearing the dress that she wore in the photos above).

I was praising her and then I called her Little Van Gogh one day. And since we told her briefly in Singapore who’s Van Gogh and what is he famous for, she replied very quickly, “Don’t call me Van Gogh, after I’ll cut my ear suddenly.” o.O”

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

Of all the subjects in school, Zara scored the worse for Arts (She got As for all subjects, but B for arts). Hmm.., I think her drawings are quite original, I would have given her higher score myself. Then again I’m her mother, so I may be buyous.

These are the 2 that she did recently and passed up for arts class.

Topic was to desgn and decorate their names.

Topic was to draw something from or with Angry Bird.

Not too bad right?

And answers to Zaria’s drawing : Monster Inc.; Power Puff Girls; Angry Birds (a bit abstract though).

Zaria loves her Yamaha JMC class. In fact, she’s saying, “I don’t want to go to school any more, I only want to go to music class.”

Everyday, without fail, she’ll play the songs she’s learnt in class without me asking her to, and she has great satisfaction if she could play the whole song right. To her, it’s not like a practice at all. And she likes Daddy calling her “Little Mozart”.

4 months after attending Yamaha JMC class, she’s started playing the 2 most difficult songs for this level, Happy Days, and The Cuckoo Clock, and she’s really happy to be able to do it.

See the grin after she’s completed the song?

She’s now asking me why she has to continue attending class for Book 1 when she can already play all the songs. She is impatient to move on to the next level!

Well, each JMC book takes 6 months to finish, so another 2 more months, and she’ll be moving to Book 2. But I’m wondering, since she wants to move on, if we should pull her out of JMC course and get a private tutor to teach her so that she can progress at her own pace instead of following the 6-month schedule.

Any piano players out there to advice?

(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).

When your child does not squint, does not have cross eyes, does not complain about eyes being tired, does not show any inability to string beads, put details on drawing, does not complain about not able to see writings on the board or books, how would you know if her eyes have problem?

You don’t. Just like us.

I only realised something was not quite right, when Zara dashed towards a car one day in the park. She said it looked like her Daddy’s car, that was why she got so excited. Unfornately, it wasn’t her Daddy, and the car did not look anything like Daddy’s car, except it’s also a sedan. That day, when we walked back home, I decided to test her eyes by asking her to read out the number plates of cars parked along the road.

I have low astig power, and I could read them all without my glasses. Zaria had no problem chipping in with her answers. Zara said all she could see was lines, no letters nor numbers were visible to her. o.O”

We had an appointment made for her to see an eye specialist in Tun Hussein Onn National Eye Hospital (THONEH) immediately.

5 minutes with the doctor, and she said yup, Zara has very high power and also astigmatism. She has not complained so far because the power on the left eye is lower, so the left eye is doing all the work. And because of that, her right eye has turned a bit lazy.

Next, we had her power checked (they had her eyes dilated with eye drops before checking).

And then had a pair of glasses made for her in THONEH.

Daddy wasn’t with us, and when I told him about her power, what the doctor said; he said I wasn’t asking the right questions. o.O” What is Zara’s problem anyway, why is her power so high? So we thought a second opinion should be seeked, and we made another appointment in International Specialist Eyes Centre (ISEC). This time Daddy took time off to go with me.

At ISEC, she went straight to Optemetrist. Got her power checked the 2nd time (they too had her eyes dilated with eye drops before checking).

Then we got to see the pediatric eye specialist, and here is his diagnosis. Zara has hyperopia. He did this drawing for us.
The top showing a normal eye, where far objects are focussed on the retina (yellow colour), and near objects are focussed at the back of the retina. Our lens through relax accomodation, will make the focus of the near object be on the retina (As we age, our accomodation weakened, and hence we’ll need reading glasses).

Someone with hyperopia, will have far objects focussed behind the retina, and near objects even further away from the retina, so in this case, near or far objects are not clear to this person. Being a child, Zara has higher accomodation (up to 7 to 8 diopter), and hence, she can still focus and see things. Her left eyes which has lower power, is also doing most of the work, compensating the right eye. However, it has taken a toll on the right eye, and she has a bit of lazy eyes.

But anyway, we need to get her prescribed glasses, so that she does not tax her eyes trying to accomodate, and her lazy eyes will not worsen.

I asked the doctor, can Zara’s hyperopia caused by anything that we’d done? Too much TV/iPAD? Fringe too long (I get blamed for this)? Reading light not bright enough (and this)? Doctor reassured us it was nothing we’d done which could have caused this, it’s probably something she was born with. *Relief*

We went back to THONEH to get them to make the glasses according to ISEC’s prescription (which is +100 more on the right eye).

Glasses were collected after a week.

Zara didn’t like it. She said everything looked blur to her. She could see better without the glasses.

You can imagine our frustration! After so much money and time spent, the problem was not resolved!

Daddy again took time off and brought Zara back to THONEH to complain. She got her eyes re-checked by another Optemetrist, this time without dilating the eyes. The power is +100 less than ISEC prescription for both eyes. According to this Optemetrist, it’s common after eye dilation, the power gets higher, some children are ok with that power, some are not. We had THONEH took back the 1st pair of glasses and made a new one using this new prescription.

So another week of wait and then last Saturday, we collected the new pair of glasses for her. She likes it, and said now everything looked magnified to her.

Obviously she chose the frame because of the cute designs (although I think half frames are so not practical for children). (See the snowman and the Christmas tree?)

This week was her first week in school with glasses. She said her friends, especially the boys, laughed at her. I’m blessed to have a daughter who’s so confident, she wasn’t upset by all the taunts. She told me when her boy friend laughed at her, she laughed back and told him, “哈!等下你也有啊! (Ha! Later you get it too!)”

Now if you are an optemetrist, or an eye doctor, or someone who’s familiar with hyperopia, can you tell me if Zara should be wearing her glasses just for reading? Or she should have her glasses on all the time (to see far and near)? Because I think there’s some contradiction we read on the internet. The ISEC pediatrict eye specialist said we should let her wear the glasses all the time though.

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”

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

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”

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

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”

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

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!

♥Zara♥
Finally, 6 years and 3 months old, she had a shakey tooth (lower central incissor).

As she has 2 new teeth sprouting (her 1st permanant molar), and caused the gums to be pushed back and bleed (she spat out blood when she was brushing her teeth this morning! Gave me a shock!), I brought her to the dentist to have a look.

Since we were there, I got her shakey tooth extracted.

As for the bleeding and pushed back gums, it’s common when the permanant molar sprouts. And to think all the teething problem is over!

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

♥Zaria♥

Just the other day, I called her mei-mei, and she told me “Don’t call me mei-mei. I’m not small any more. I’m 5 years old.” o.O”

This girl has grown up. Yup. Since she was able, she has been sleeping with 1 finger in my belly button.

Daddy has been reminding her that she’s older and has stronger fingers now, and she shouldn’t be poking my belly button any more, or she might actually puncture my belly button and blood will start gushing out like a fountain.

That did deter her a bit, and slowly, when she’s concious, she’ll retract her finger, and then, just leave her hand on my belly when she goes to sleep.

It’s back to school.. after a month’s off.
Zara to Standard One in a Chinese school and Zaria back to her kindergarten alone.

♥Zara♥
We went to school for orientation last Friday, to pay for her fees, collect her text books (from government) as well as to buy her work books.
The headmaster then had a communication session with the parents, while the kids got familiarised with the teachers.
The school is not too huge in size, there are 320 children in Standard One, out of which 80 are Malays (and our goverment is still in denial, not building enough Chinese schools).
She’s in a class with 38 others.
The amount of books she has is A LOT, so we had to get her a huge trolley bag (those of you with Trunkie, you can consider using that too. :P).
After orientation, I asked her, “So how? Are you ready for Standard 1?”
Zara replied, “I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
I asked her again, “Then how?”
She replied, “Well, I don’t think I can go back to kindergarten, so I’ll just have to handle.”
Big girl in deed.
(And no, her school doesn’t have the horrendous toilet mentioned here, they have squatting toilets which are pretty clean)
She doesn’t know anyone in her class, although some close friends of hers are in other classes (Standard 1 and 2); but this girl is sociable and she makes friends easily. I’m more worried about her Chinese than her ability to mix around.
1st day of school, she’s fine, even started swapping snacks with a friend she just got to know during recess. 🙂

♥Zaria♥
Seing how much there is to Standard 1 (the big bag, the books, the coaching that Daddy is giving Zara on her BM), she said, “I don’t want to go to Standard 1, I want to be four years old forever!” o.O”

Asked if she wanted to go back to school, she said, “Go to school go to school, how many times more do I have to go to school? I like holidays more!” o.O”

But no fuss for her when she went to school, happy to meet her BFFs.

♥Daddy♥
Worried.
He only realised on the day of the orientation that there is no more English maths nor science, and Zara will be doing both subjects in Chinese.
How is Zara going to know the English terminologies? When all Chinese in China are trying to learn English, here we are sending our kids to learn Chinese.
These are his comments.
Do we have any alternatives? Malay school? Private school? But still these subjects are taught in Malay.
International school? Can we afford it?

♥Me♥
Tired and Worried.
I have 1 attending school in morning, and another in the afternoon.
And a lot of people think working from home means you have all the time in the world to do all these chauffering, or homework coaching etc etc. As if.
Anyway, I’m doing some car pooling with neighbours.
I’m not trying to be kiasu, but the pressure is there; and because Chinese is not a language she’s comfortable with, am worried if she’s going to be held back due to the language.

Anyway, we shall see.

(I was meant to post photos and write about this earlier, but only found time now)

If you have been reading my blog from the very beginning, you know it’s been a rather long and bumpy journey for us to be finally blessed with Zara. And here, she is already 6. And in another 3 1/2 weeks, she’ll be Standard One. *sweat*

What can I say except time flies! And my baby girl is growing up too quickly.

What did we do for her birthday?

We had 1 combined celebration for Zaria and her in school (although Zaria’s birthday is not until end of December).

I made some cupcakes and brought to school during their snack time.

Their friends sang the birthday song to them in different languages. Now for Zaria who doesn’t like to be sung the birthday song any other time, she didn’t mind her school friends singing to her at all. Funny girl, she is.

We hired a clown.There was another girl in school who celebrated her 5th birthday, and her parents hired a clown to entertain the children for a couple of hours. How nice.

They had so much fun in school, I could tell because she was soooo tired, and fell asleep in the car in the oddest position.

Zara was really happy with the celebration. I was feeling a bit sad for her because it’ll be the last birthday she can celebrate in kindergarten.

As for her actual day, per her request, this year, there’s no big party at home, but a very small one in Jungle Gym. Since I told her Jungle Gym is very expensive, and we cannot afford a big crowd, she invited only 3 friends and Tasha (who couldn’t make it last minute), and she insisted that no boys should be invited.

I made another batch of cupcakes for her with a different theme for this occasion.

We had dim sum lunch, although the dim sum was really good, the children were more keen in starting their play time than enjoying the food.

The girls had so much fun, it was hard to catch them on camera.

She said she had such a good time! And so did her friends.

How is Zara’s growing up affecting Zaria?
“I don’t want to be in Standard 1.”
“I don’t want to grow up.”
“I don’t want to go to primary school, I want to be in XXXX XXXX (her school name) forever!”

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”