Remember this photo? Which I posted here when Zaria was 15months old?

Her love for my belly button hasn’t reduced even at 30 months. She doesn’t really ‘depend’ on it for comfort, but she loves to poke her finger in my belly button, or wriggles her finger in my belly button.

When she watches TV and if I sat next to her, she would put her finger in my belly button.

At night when I lay on my stomach to read to her, she’ll try to lift my shoulder up (and sometimes make the dramatic sound as though she’s exerting herself trying to do that) so that I’ll lay on my side, and then she’ll have access to my belly button. While I read to her, this happens :

Sometimes when we’re out and about (in public places), she would lift my t-shirt to reach for my belly button. After many times of telling her not too, now when she has the urge, she’ll say, “In public cannot poke poke belly button right? At home only right?”

Normally at bed time, I’ll tuck them in then I’ll go for my shower. At times, Zaria will tell me, “Can (I) poke poke your belly button first?” So I’ll lay next to her and let her poke my belly button for a while.

Nowadays she even wants to control what I can do with my belly button. If I appled lotion after my bath, and the belly button caught some of the lotion, she would tell me off, “Why got cream in your belly button? You cannot put cream in your belly button oh-kay??!! Next time don’t put huh?”

If I wear a dress, she will tell me, “Why you wear dress? Now I cannot poke poke belly button already.”

If I go to sleep at the same time with the girls, with Zara on my left, and Zaria on my right (yes, we’re still co-sleeping, with Zara on her own bed parked next to ours, and Zaria on our bed in between us); Zara will ask me to hold her hand or put my hand on her tigh (as long as I’m touching her); Zaria will ask me to turn towards her so she can poke my belly button. Imagine how uncomfortable it is for me? With me lying on my right facing Zaria, and my left hand stretched towards the left to touch Zara until either one fall asleep?

Comments on previous post : Ok, I have decided that it’s a good thing that Zara is able to talk back, and we should not discourage her unless she’s using rude words.

Besides talking, I think this girl of mine is quite good with her arts.

Here are her recent art work.

Most of her drawings are on princesses, fairies, mermaids, things she likes.

Fairies

Mama fairy, and a little fairy (top right). With worms underground.

Flower Fairy

Check out the bugs!

Mermaids

Flower Princess

2 big sisters, and 1 baby, and they are under a rainbow

She also started puting caption on some of her drawings. She draw on one page, and wrote the caption on another.

Flower.

Girl with a mop

Guess what’s she’s writing here?

This is the clue.

Lick On The Lollipop, that’s what she wrote.

Sometimes she just creates patterns.

Or even arts and crafts. Do you know what she’s trying to make here with tissue stuffed with white paper coloured with some green?

That’s her juicy pow (xiao long bao) served on a plate.

She also likes colouring, but unfortunately, do not have the patience to finish a big picture.

And the best of all, she leaves me drawings as notes. This one, she put in an ang pow (as an envolope) and left it in my wardrobe. But she doesn’t quite know how to ‘surprise’ me, she took it out to show me first, then put it back there, and said “I left you a surprise in the cupboard.”

Zaria has become very possessive recently.

When Daddy reads to Zara, and Zara sits on his lap, Zaria will quickly try to squeeze herself on Daddy’s lap too. Sometimes pushing Zara away in the process.

When Zara lies close to me on the bed, she would try to squeeze herself in between us (even though there are lots of space on my other side). Failing to do so, she would complain “Mummy, jiejie don’t take turns.”

When I carry other babies or toddlers in the park, she will quickly leave whatever she is doing and come over and tug on my t-shirt, “Mummy, cannot carry XXXX.” (XXXX the name of the toddler or baby).
When I reply, “It’s ok, mummy carry XXXX for a while.”
She will then say something like, “I want to go home now. It’s getting dark. Put XXXX down.”

The latest incident further proved her possessiveness.

Normally I would carry her on my back after our daily park visit.
Two days ago, on our way home, Zara fell and scratched both her knees. She complained she couldn’t walk, and asked me to carry her. So I asked Zaria to walk and then I piggy-backed Zara.
Zaria : *screaming* “Mummy, I want you to carry me!!”
Me : “Jiejie fell down, she cannot walk, mummy need to carry her.
Next thing I knew, she plonked herself on the road, siting ther and telling me, “See, I fall down already. Now you carry me.” o.O”

I didn’t fall for her trick, even though she cried all the way home, I got her to walk.

Yesterday, while I was working (yes, it was a working weekend for me), Zara was hanging around in the study. She started pointing to objects, and said, “Per-per-per Eh-Eh NNN.. PEN!” “Ker-ker Ah-Ah Per Per.. CUP.” “Der-Orrr… DOOR.”

I have been trying to teach her to put phonic sounds together to make words, but she had not grasped it, so I was surprised she’s doing it herself just overnight.

In the night, when it was reading time, I took out a book I’d been keeping away from the girls which is meant for phonic readers, a book Zara has not read before. I got Zara to read it. Shorts stories like, “A bug. A rug. A bug in a rug. As snug as a bug in a rug.“ or “Tom’s dog has lots of spots. Tom and Bog have not got spots. Splot! Now Tom and Bob have lots of spots. And Tom’s dog has not.“

She was able to put individual sounds together in a word, and read the sentences; with occasional help on words she has not learnt the sounds yet (i.e. Now). Slowly but surely, she finished reading the few short stories in the book.

You can imagine how happy both Daddy and I were! We cheered and carried her around the room. I told her, “Now that you know how to read, very soon you’ll be writing as well. Writing is just putting sounds in a word on paper.” All motivated, she said she wanted to try.

She wrote these. Can you make them out? (Some alphabets were written in mirror image. I don’t correct her when she’s writing words, so that it doesn’t stop her flow of thoughts, but only correct her when she’s writing alphabets)
CUP, DOG, MUM, DAD, SIS, SAM and then she turned the page and wrote more, BOOK, CAT.

These are pretty obvious.

And then she said, “I want to write (the word) calculator. Can you help me?”
o.O” (I didn’t help, as it was already 11pm, and she hasn’t learnt the sound ‘oo’ ‘ay’ or ‘er’ yet. I’ll keep that for next time).

I used to work in an English centre for pre-schoolers where phonics were taught, that’s were I picked up my phonics, and understand the importance of phonics for young kids to learn reading and writing. I made sure the school I sent the girls to emphasise on phonics, and I spent time to help Zara with phonics; so I’m really proud that Zara has finally understand how to piece sounds to make words (for reading), and how to break the words into sounds (for writing). We’re really happy with her development at 4yrs 3months.

Taken 3rd of Feb 2009 @ 2yrs 2months.

This girl is so independant she doesn’t want to be helped to get up the toilet bowl. If we offered our help, she’ll say, “No. I do myself.”

Looks dangerous right? She started doing this when she turned 2yrs +, at the first few climbs, she peed facing in, it was later that she was able to adjust herself to face out. And… she had 1 accident where her foot landed in the bowl while trying to turn herself.. luckily she didn’t get hurt and there was no stool in the bowl. o.O”

Zara’s current favourite pastime besides watching the TV is drawing. Give her a piece of paper, some colours (pencil, markers, crayons, doesn’t matter) and she’ll be busy drawing. It seems she’s not picky with where she draws, sometimes she just draws on scraps of crumply paper.

At first, it was simple lines, and then the stick man appeared; later, she started adding the hair, hands, the dress, and even designs on the dress. She likes drawing girls, flowers, butterflies; and her favourite shape is heart shape.

Here are a few of her drawings.

Done before the year end school holidays. She calls this Picasso. This was when she started drawing flowers.

Done during the school holidays. Seems like it’s flowers in a vase.

Done beginning of the year. She started ‘signing’ her name with a heart shape nearby

Done during Chinese New Year. She started drawing designs on dresses, and flowers are now always in a pot.

Done after Chinese New Year. More things are added to show a scene. Mountains, houses, trees and butterflies.

Potentially, besides being a lawyer, she can consider being an artist too

Girls current favourite ‘adult’ show is Mama Mia. They have been singing the songs from the movie frequently but every time when I took the camera out, they’ll all go quiet.

Yesterday, Zaria found her ‘microphone’ (an ear probe from her doctor set), and she said, “Like the auntie’s hairdryer.” (referring to the character Tanya using the hairdryer as a microphone in Mama Mia). After that, she sang Dancing Queen on and on.

Here is her singing at 2yrs 2.5months. (She said, “You can sing.” instead of “You can dance.” at the beginning)

After she has gone to sleep, I replayed the video from the camera in the room with the volume turned on, suddently, she lifted her head from her sleep and said, “That’s me.” and then laid back down and slept.

Both Daddy and I went o.O”.

This chili padi (Malay : Birds-eye chili, i.e. small but ‘potent’) is growing up to be her sister’s equal.

She likes to say, “Aiyo.” like an old lady, when we ask her to do things she doesn’t want to.
She likes to answer us “Ohh.” thoughtfully, when we explain something to her.

She pronounces the blending sound starting with S, i.e. SM, SN, SP, SW without the S sound. I.e. Small sounds like “Mall”; Sweet sounds like “Weet”; “Plash” (splash); “Wim” (swim); “Neck” (snake) etc.

She can say her name perfectly now, emphasising the 3 syllables “Zah-Ree-Ah”.

She doesn’t want anybody to help her adjust the hairband, to her, this is the right way to wear it

Nowadays, when she sees something she likes, regardless if it belongs to her, she’ll say protectively, “It’s mine!” when anybody tries to claim it or touch it. At times, even using force by pushing away the approaching owner. *sigh*

Every day when I finish work and declare by shouting, “DING DONG!”, I’ll hear loud cheers from the girls and both will be waiting for me down stairs. Zaria will come forward and ask her daily question, “You finish(ed) work oh-di (already)? Now we go park?”

Zaria and her cheeky smile

More things she says:

When we take off our clothes to go for our shower, she’ll always comment, “Why you so shamey (shameful)? You want to take bath?”

Once she fought with Zara (it’s becoming so comon, I won’t loose sleep over it), I told her, “Don’t fight with jiejie, she’s your best friend you know?”
She replied, “Jiejie not my best friend, Goofy is my best friend.” (thanks to Disneyland).

She asks me frequently, “Mummy (you) love me?” When I say I do, she’ll go on and say, “I love you, mummy.” sweeeeeet….

Once at the play ground, I was standing on a path which happens to be crawling with red ants, Zaria pulled me aside and said, “Mummy, don’t go there ya. Got lots lots (of) ants there. Come here.”

On Feb 1st, she had high fever middle of the night just out of the sudden, and I had to sponge her, she woke up, groggily smiled and said, “So ticklish. Hee hee.. “ o.O”

In a restaurant, she wanted to lie on my lap, but I was siting so close to the table. She knocked her head while lying down, and she shouted, “Ouch!! Give me some space!” o.O”

One evening, Zara did some drawing making used of Zaria’s pencil.
Zaria : “Give me back. It’s mine!”
Zara : “Let jiejie use, jiejie borrow from you.”
Zaria : “You dee-den (didn’t) borrow, you take only!” o.O”

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

Her own version of face painting, done by herself using markers

This girl at 25months, is totally off diaper (except night time to prevent accidents, but most of the time the diaper is dry and re-used for 3~4 nights before I toss it away).

She walks up and down the stairs on her own.

She drags the stepping stool to the sink to wash her hands, pushes the (covered) rubbish bin to her chest of drawers (as a stepping stool) to reach for her things up on the cupboard.

She plays her own DVD : gets her own preferred program from the DVD folder, turns on the switches of the DVD player and TV; puts in the disc, and hits play on her own.
When she’s done, she’ll reverse all the above (hits stop, takes out disc, turns off the switches, puts the disc back into the folder).

She knows how to put on her shoes (those with velcro or crocs) and removes them.

And her latest achievement, pulling down her own pants, climbing up the toilet bowl (both girls never used potty and went straight from diaper to adult toilet bowl) herself to pee and poo on her own, telling us only when she’s done. The first time she did that, I didn’t believe her, as she’s too short to pull herself up the seat. But she showed me how she did it, quite a feat for such a small girl.

We have been preparing Zaria for the big day, asking her over and over again if she wanted to go to school, and she always replied “Yes.” And then we did count down telling both the girls, in X more days, they’ll be going to a new school, in Y more days, it’ll be school day etc.

For the last few weeks, Zaria has been crying for the tiniest problem.
I.e. She wanted to flush the toilet, and we did it before her.
She wanted to put on her own shoes but since we were in a hurry, I wore it for her. Etc etc.

So, on her first day of school, I was preparing for the worst with all her recent unnecessary crying bouts. She was the youngest in her class, just turned 2 and joining the 3 year olds. I sent her to her class, bid my good byes, and walked and stood at the door. She wanted me to be with her, but I kept telling her “This is your school, this is not Mummy’s school, so mummy cannot go in, mummy must wait outside.”. She looked at the door (where I stood) a few times, but did not shed a single tear, although all around her, 4 out of 6 of her friends were crying or wailing. Later, I told her I had to go out for breakfast and I’ll be back to pick her up. She hugged and gave me a kiss and went back to her class.

I was at the school the whole time, moving between the girls’ classes. Peeping and making sure she couldn’t see me after I said my goodbyes. She did well, although a little quieter then usual. Her teachers said she was very independant, doing her own things, fetching her own water and snack from her bag when she needed it, and asking for help occassionally.

3 days has passed and she has not cried at all, although she did tell me today, “I don’t want (to) go school, I want (to) go kaikai with mummy.” when we were on our way to school, but she was ok once she went into her class.

♥I’m so proud of her.♥

As for Zara, this is a new school for her against her wishes. One of the reason why I moved her to this school is because she’ll be getting equal lessons in Chinese and English; and the Chinese is taught by a lady who speaks perfect Beijing Chinese. Although she didn’t really kick up a fuss, she kept telling me “I like XXX better.” (XXX == her old school). “I don’t like to learn Chinese.”

However, in class, she does mingle with other children, and answering teachers’ questions when necessary. Hopefully, very soon, she’ll have some really close friends like she did in XXX.

♥I’m so proud of her.♥