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”

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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.