One day, Zara handled an expensive toy lizzard roughly and torn a big piece of fabric where a sucker was glued to the palm of of the lizzard.

I was really upset. Although I bought it during a sale, it’s still none the less expensive. I told her “From now onwards, I won’t buy you any more toys!”. I could see she was upset as well with my reaction, but she didn’t say anything.

I went to our bed room and did some reading. Zara came in, with trembling voice (not from fear but rather on the verge of crying) she said, “It’s ok, you don’t have to buy me any more toys. I don’t want any.” and before I could say anything, she walked away.

Then 2 mins later, she came back in holding a sticker, with tears in her eyes, she said, “Actually I wanted to give you this. But now I won’t.” Again, she walked out of the room before I could react. I didn’t go after her either, because the book I was a page turner.

Another 10 mins later, Zara walked back in with a drawing. She just gave it to me, and walked out of the room. Below is her drawing.

You can see that she has drawn me crossing her out in my thoughts, and both the love next to our names being crossed out, she said it shows that we don’t love each other any more.

After looking at the drawing, I went out and saw her standing at the door sobbing. I told her I didn’t really mean what I said, and I was angry but now I forgave her for breaking the toy. She asked me, “Do you still love me?” I told her “Of course.” She asked me to wait, and she went back to the table to draw, and 5 minutes later, she came back with this.

She said now we have a lot of love for each other, and both of us are happy

Zaria on the other hand is speaking and communicating really well, she’s growing up to be quite fiery. She’s easy to get angry, and when she does get angry, she throws things, shouts, beats or scratches us. o.O”

Influenced by Zara, she tries to correct our English occasionally too.
One day I pointed a picture to her, “Mei look, so special this umbrella.”
She replied, “Don’t speak sloppy English, there’s no la in English.” o.O”

We were telling the girls about the trips Daddy and I used to take before they were born. When we went through the photos of our trip, Zaria started frowning, and she banged her fist on the album, “Why you didn’t bring me?” but then remembering, she brows straigtened and she added, “I not yet born? Oh.”

One evening, she came to me, “I love you mummy.” and kissed my lips.
“I love you too meimei.” I kissed her back.
She laid her head on my shoulder and a moment later, she remembered and asked, “If I naughty, you love me or not?” o.O”
I told her, although I don’t like it, I will still love her.
And she looked at me and said softly, “Sorry, mummy.”

One day after her nap, she wanted to get out of the room but the room door was close. Not able to get out, she started kicking the door, when I opened the door for her, she frowned and said, “I was trapped!”

That’s our Zaria, the fiery, spunky chilly padi

We see Zara growing up beautifully and we’re happy for her development. She speaks politely most of the time, using proper English, and she tries to influence people around her to do the same.

We were told in school, she will correct other children’s English, or manners. And she correct her music teacher’s English too, when the teacher uses ‘la’ or ‘ma’ in her instruction.
“Teacher, don’t speak sloppy English.”

She shows more interest in Mandarin now, and always asks me to speak to her in Mandarin. She will try to speak or reply in Mandarin, mixing in English words when she doesn’t know or forgot the word in Mandarin. E.g. “老师对不起，我没有做功课。因为我went out, 没有time做” (Sorry teacher, I didn’t do my homework because I went out and didn’t have time to do).
or “妈妈，我可以吃那个biscuit吗?” (Mummy, can I eat the biscuit?)

She’s becoming more mature in her thinking, i.e. She has been playing and walking our neighbour’s dog, and one day she came back and told me, “Mum, can you buy me a dog?”
I told her we’ll need to get a bigger house first, or else we won’t be able to accomodate a dog.
“Then from now on, you should not buy me any more things. Even if I deserved it.”
She said that way we can save more money to buy a bigger house.
When I asked her what about her birthday, she deserves a present, but should I get her one?
She replies, “No, my birthday is different, you must get me something. Maybe you draw me a card?”

She does her homework on her own after her nap daily, she puts back her things after using it. She’s doing well, really. She’s very honest even when she knows if she confessed something she may get punishment.

Of course, there are times she still snatch things from Zaria, or bully Zaria, but she always have her excuse (the same one), “I got a bit carried away.” o.O”

Her strength is defintely around the liguistic field.

We’d celebrated Hari Raya and also Deepavali in the same month. For us, it’s really just a holiday break. For the girls, it was a time for them to discovered the differences in each of this celebration.

Zara drew this in school for Hari Raya. She knows there’s ketupat and the pelitas (some type of Malaysian wall candle sconces or oil lamps) in this celebration.
.

And then for Deepavali, she realises that there’s Kolam drawing every where, and she made one herself on paper.

Zaria, not to be outdone by Zara, did a drawing too. She has been very proud of her drawing, and kept showing it to us. Can you tell what she tried to draw?

Here’s her answer : “See, my birthday cake drawing. I draw (drew) decoration on the cake. They are sweets. This is the baloon. See, Daddy and mummy is (are) also there. My picture got present also.” Zara helped to write Zaria’s name, and put in the words (ok, she spelled that phonetically); she also drew Zaria next to Daddy and mummy, drew a present (which Zaria later coloured), and also some candles on the cake.

When I picked Zara up from school, Ling Jing, the boy Zara likes, was there too waiting for his transport. When we got to the gate of the school, Zara told me to wait and turned back, “I need to go back and give Ling Jing a hug.” o.O”

In the car we had this conversation. It goes something like this :

Me : Why do you like Ling Jing so much?
Zara : Errr….. Because he’s a bit taller than me.
Me : Mikel (who was his dancing partner in her concert) is nice and quite good looking also, why don’t you like him?”
Zara : Mikel is not so tall ok. How can I marry some one shorter than me?
Me : Oh, you like someone tall. Then you should marry mummy’s boss. (my boss is very tall, fyi).
Zara : Your boss is too tall, his head is going to poke through my car. o.O”
Zara : And Mikel should marry Chi Ling, because their skin colour is the same. (both have darker tanned skin) o.O”
Me : Then why don’t you like Ze-Wen (another boy in her class)? He’s tall.
Zara : Do you know Ze-Wen has a problem?
Me : *o.O* What problem does he has? (I thought he has learning disability or something)
Zara : You know he’s only five years old and he’s so t-a-l-l, something is wrong? o.O”
Zara : Ling Jing’s height is perfect for me!
Me : Does Ling Jing speak well?
Zara : Ling Jing’s Chinese is very good.
Me : His English is not good?
Zara : His English is ok, he doesn’t speak sloppy English (at home when she uses lots of ‘lahs’ and ‘mahs’ and ‘wut’.. Daddy will say she’s speaking sloppy English)
Me : Is Ling Jing nice to you or not?
Zara : He’s very shy. You know, WY (her best girl friend in school) also likes Ling Jing. I have to see how to get rid of her. Maybe I’ll set a trap to catch her. o.O”

I don’t think she meant the last remark, because she said it while smiling.

I don’t know where she learnt all these, or where she got the talent from (maybe from me? I used to draw manga when I was in school you know. Haha), but this girl has started coming out with different font styles as part of her drawing.

A few are captured here.

She calls this the Curly Whirly Letters

Another take on the Curly Whirly Letters

I don’t now what it’s called. She used this when she was drawing something more ‘manly’. Masculine font?

And yesterday, she cut a piece of paper into 4 strips, stapled them together, did some drawing and came out with this.

She actually wanted to create a book, and the title of the book is The Story Of A Girl, in her phonic spelling.

♥Food Intake♥
1) She’s taking whatever we’re eating except spicy stuff. She’s more adventurous with food then Zara, and willing to try new food.
2) She loves parmesan cheese, nuts, beans (green, red)
3) The amount of food she takes is as much as Zara ~ about 1/3 bowl of rice (my girls eat very little). When we go out, the girls will share a kid’s meal, or a bowl of noodle (and still, there’s left over).
4) Drinks 3 times and 24ozs of milk a day, but sometimes she will refuse a milk feed.
5) Supplements that she takes : Kawai, Nordic Naturals DHA pill.

♥Emotional Development♥
1) She’s shy compared to Zara. Quiet in others’ presence but very chatty with us.
2) Even after 8mths in school, when we send her to school, she still clings on to us, and takes a while to let go.
3) Always bully Daddy. When she falls down, she beats Daddy. When I scold her, she beats Daddy. It’s like she blames Daddy for anything unpleasant that she experiences.
4) Very loving to me, when I’m upset with Zara, she’ll come and kiss me, “It’s ok mummy. I love you.” She’ll give me kisses very often, but very stingy with Daddy.
5) When she doesn’t get her way, she will throw tantrums, especially when Daddy is the one who doesn’t give in.
6) When she’s angry, she likes to fold her arms and announce loudly, “I’m very angry with you.”
7) Gets angry easily but also cool down very quickly.
8 ) High pain tolerance, but very emotional. Rarely cries because of pain, but will cry because we speak too loud to her, we scold her, or punish her.

Once, Daddy punished her for some naughty things she’s done, and she told him, “I don’t like you. You are not my daddy any more.” When I explained to her Daddy loves her so much, always brings her to Giant shopping, always bring her to the beach, she started sobbing and then gave Daddy a big hug feeling really sorry for what she’d said.
9) She always has this cool, arrogant look on her face especially when she’s not smiling; but she’s actually quite soft inside, and very cheeky and smiley at home.

She’s very witty and funny.
Once we went to the park, and I told her not to run on uneven ground, she didn’t listen and fell down. When I went to pick her up, she folded her arms and said, “I’m very angry. I don’t want to friend..” before she finished, I added, “Oh, You don’t want to friend mummy? Mummy told you not to run right? Or else you’ll fall down. Mummy told you nicely you don’t want to friend me?” She quickly said, “I don’t want to friend the grass only. I friend you, mummy.”

♥Others♥ :
This is a girl who loves to mess things up.
~ She loves to see where the water goes when she pours it on the table.
~ She likes to step on dirty puddle to see what will get dirty.
~ She loves to pour all toys out from their containers to hear their clanking sound.
~ Not attached to any particular soft toy. Likes my belly button, but I won’t say she’s attached to it. Loves books, and can spend a long time flipping through her books.
~ She’s selective with what TV show to watch, and only pay attention to those she likes (unlike Zara who will stare at the TV no matter what show is on).
~ Started to understand that when she’s not behaving, she’ll have to stay in the naughty corner, or get a smacking.
~ She has a love hate relationship with Zara. They play well together, but sometimes for the slightest thing they fight, or argue. Most common argument that they have is when one found something (which has been ignored all these while) to play with, the other insisted on wanting to play with the same item, and then there’ll be snatching, argument, shouting, and finally crying (from the one who lost the battle).

I feel extremely guilty for not providing any development update on Zaria like what I did for Zara. Here is one which I will try to capture her development this year in 2 parts (too overdue, too much to update). And for the records, she’s 2 years 7 months when I wrote this.

♥Academic Development♥
1) She’s the youngest in her class but doing very well. The teachers said she’s quiet in class, but always have the answers for questions which other children can’t answer.
2) She can count and recognise 1 to 10 (counting objects, and not just memorising the number sequence). She can also put out her fingers 1 by 1 to indicate number 1 to 10.
3) She can recognise alphabets from A to U (capital and small letter), and of course Z, and know the sound they make. (Thanks to Letter Factory and Letterland)
4) She knows quite a lot of Mandarin, and Bahasa Malaysia vocab; sometimes, when Zara doesn’t remember how to say something in Mandarin or BM, Zaria will be helping her.
5) She got awarded, best improved in Mandarin for her age group, on her 100th day in school (June ’09).
6) She can sing a lot of songs taught in school, although sometimes I can’t make out the words (especially BM and Mandarin songs), her tune is pretty accurate.
7) She’s very interested to learn, and always asking me questions like, “How many swings is (are) there” “What is bench in Chinese?” “What is sing in Malay?” and the best is, she likes to ask “Sky starts with letter what?” “Grass starts with letter what?” Normally, I’ll ask her to give me the answer, and she’ll start with the sound first, e.g. “S-S-Sky, Samy Snake! (Letterland character for S). Letter S!!” “G-g-g-Grass, Golden Girl! Letter G!” etc etc

Zaria doing colouring in May, she’s already doing within lines. Then last month, she started ‘drawing’ by drawing circles, and then colouring the circles to create her picture.

♥Language Development♥
I think she’s doing very well in this area, able to express herself like a little adult, using some complex words, and her extensive vocabulary. Sometimes for a not-commonly used word, she may make mistake, but she’s quick to correct herself. E.g. When she wanted to do painting, she said, “I want omelette.” When I asked, “Did you say omelette?” She thought for a while and corrected herself, “I want the palatte.”
For her age, her pronunciation is very good, she could pronounce most words accurately. The only regular mistakes she makes is leaving out the S sound for S-blending sound, e.g. Sweet; Swim, School, but when we repeat her wrong pronounciation after her, she’ll quickly self correct.

♥Other Skills♥
1) Can draw circles and colour within the lines.
2) Loves to cut paper with scissors and mess up the house
3) She can work on the todler sewing card, stringing them without supervision.
4) She likes working on jigsaw puzzles, and figuring out how to buckle things or button up.
5) She can take off and put on her own clothes, but sometimes still put 2 legs into one trousers hole.
6) She can now reach for the door knobs, so she’s getting in and out of closed rooms freely.
7) She can feed herself very well, but Jelly still prefers to feed her. When she’s out with us, I normally let her eat on her own.
8 ) She stopped wearing diaper in the night since Feb, ’09 (2 years 2 months). And since then, she’s wet the bed 4 times (and we found out it’s becasue she didn’t go to the toilet before she went to bed). She normally has her last pee before going to bed, and she’ll sleep through until the following morning without another toilet going.
9) When she needs to go to the toilet (be it small or big business), she’ll remove her own pants and climb up the (adult) toilet seat on her own; and will shout out when she’s done. Sometimes, Zara will go and help her ‘clean’ up.

Saturday was a busy day for us all. Besides working (yes, it was a working weekend for me), we attended the girls’ sports day in the morning and my cousin’s baby’s birthday party in the evening.

The girls have been practicing for the sports day events in school daily in the morning for a month. Daddy, who’s the one who sends the girls to school told me our girls can really run and do all the sporty stunt. I was looking forward to see for myself.

We arrived at the rented hall and met with a good crowd, had some breakfast and waited for the event to start.

Zaria all prep-ed for the event. And you can tell that she’s in Red Team (and so was Zara)

The sporting events started after some speech giving, and good that they kept that short.

1st event, the kids have to run a short distant, crawl under a bench, run another distant, u-turn back and run to the same bench, crawl under it and run back to the team.

2nd event, the kids have to hold a bean bag with their chin, run a distant, u-turn back and run back to their team.

3rd event, the kids have to hold a ball, run a distant, u-turn back, and run back to their team.

4th event, the kids have to use a hoop to drag a ball a distant, u-turn back, and then drag the ball bag to their teams.

I have to say I was very impressed with both girls. Both could really run, and have good coordination. When Zaria returned from the crawling-under-the-bench event, her teacher and some parents came to tell me, “Your girl is really good, and she’s so fast”. Some other kids needed the teachers’ help and guidence, while Zaria did that on her own, and she’s the youngest in school. *beaming with pride*

And Zara runs like the wind (actually I call her Dash, after the boy in The Incredibles). All our daily trip to the park, and getting them to race in the park for exercise does help.

My only regret, our lousy camera couldn’t get good photos with the girls in motion. (Just see how crappy the photos look like).

(Luckily these came out ok, but that’s also because they were going slower)

After the 4 events, they have a short break.

They had so much fun when the principal asked “Do you want more”. Zaria replied loudly, “YESSSS!”

The parents then joined in the fun.

Mummies formed a human chain, and passed rubber bands with straws. See in 5 minutes, who passed the most rubber bands.

Parents joined in baloon fight, see which team remained with unburst baloons.

And then there was also family drawing competetion.

Although Red Team came third place overall, everybody got their prizes, and everybody had a fun day. Well done, school! And Bravo Girls!

The girl one day just declared, “I’m not getting married to an Italian any more. I’m going to get married to Ling Jing my boy friend.”

o.O”

Me : “Who’s Ling Jing?”
Zaria : “Ling Jing is jiejie’s boy friend la, in kool (she always leave out the ‘s’ for words with blending sound starting with s).”
(oh.. so even Zaria knew about it)
Me : “In kool?”
Zaria : “SSs-kool. Ling Jing is jiejie’s boy friend in school.”
Zara : *smiled shyly* “He’s from the 6 years old class. I like him.”
Me : “Why? Is he handsome?”
Zara : “A little bit. But he’s nice.”
Me : “Why do you say he’s nice?”
Zara : “He always smiles. And he always greets all the teachers in school.”
I was wondering if this was the boy which had lost some teeth and was always grinning.
Me : “Is he the boy with some teeth missing?”
Zara : “Some of his teeth fall off already.”
(I’m rather glad she likes some one for his ‘goodness’ rather than for his looks).
Me : “Did you tell him you like him or not?”
Zara : “Ya. I told him he’s my boyfriend.”
Me : “What did he say?”
Zara : “He just smiles.”

Hmm… I thought it’s just for that one day she thinks she likes this Ling Jing fella.

Then she drew this.

Zara : *shyly* “Mummy, look. I draw (drew) Ling Jing and me. See. He has flowers for me, and he’s holding my hand”
o.O”
Me : *tried to sound cool* “Nice picture. Why is he thinking about himself and you are thinking about yourself?”
Zara : “No. He’s thinking that I love him, and I’m thinking he loves me.”
o.O”

Zaria not to be left out, also said, “I also have boy friend you know. Benjamin is my boy friend”

o.O”