My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Some of these I’d had put up on Facebook, but here is to put everything on 1 page.

Now although I’m a born Catholic, I rarely go to church, which means the girls too don’t go to church except the 2 times we went to attend my grandfather’s funeral service, and his memorial service.
One Sunday, I just felt like going to church, and I brought the girls along.
After a few minutes in the church, Zaria asked, “Nobody’s dead. So why are we here?” o.O”

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Most churches nowadays do have some sort of band, so the one that we went to is no exception. After attending that mass, we drove passed the mosque on a Friday and Zaria asked why there were so many cars parked along the road.
I explained to her that people are going to the mosque to play.
She asked, “Do they have a band in the mosque?” o.O”

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The was a particular week that she was extremely naughty.
I said to her, “these few days you very naughty huh?”
Zaria was quiet for a moment, then added, “Yeah yeah yeah, if you want to go to another country (remembering my Hong Kong trip), just go then. I still need you but if you don’t need me, you just go ahead and do it.” o.O”

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Over dinner, Zaria licked pieces of food fr the common dish, so I threatened to smack her if she did it again. She frowned and said You have a beautiful child and you want smack her?” o.O”

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Zaria kept asking for a chick as a pet after her visit to the Bird’s Park.
I told her, “Do you know chicks will grow up to be chickens? And what will you do when they are no longer cute and become chickens?”
She replied, “Then I fry it and eat it.” o.O” Talk about loyalty.

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We had a casual talk about growing old.
Zaria : “I don’t want you to grow old mom.”
Me : “But I’m going to grow old…. So what will you do when I grow old?”
Zaria : “I’ll push you into the river.” o.O”
Zara who over heard this chipped in : “You cannot push mommy into the river. You have to take care of her when she’s old.”
Zaria : “Ok then, I won’t push you into the river, I’ll bring you to jiejie’s house and she can take care of you.” o.O”
A couple of days later, I asked her if she really meant to put me in jiejie’s house, and she won’t look after me when I was old.
Zaria replied “I can always go and visit you, ok?” o.O”
Talk about filial peity.

Have you tried your children’s growing up milk? Are you like me who find growing up milk excessively sweet?

Recently, I saw in a message at the supermarket that we could be feeding our children up 13tsp of added sugar with their current growing up milk. So I picked up a sugar calculator, follow the instructions on it to cross check if is true.

The girls so far have taken 2 brands of growing up milk. First brand indicated I might be feeding 8~12tsp of additional sugar to my children, and another indicated I might be feeding 13~17tsp of additional sugar to my children! Shocking?

And here I am trying to control the girls’ excessive sugar intake (which I wrote about in an earlier post)

I have tasted the girls’ growing up milk before, and I thought it is too sweet. I thought it must have been intentionally sweetened so that it’ll be tasty enough to appeal to young children. However my girls like fresh milk too. Without the added sugar, they still love the creamy and milky taste (per how they describe it). I’m still letting them drink growing up milk though, because I want them to get all the added vitamins they’d included in growing up milk.

However, with this new information, I will try to find children growing up milk with no added sugars, or with less added sugar.

Read the label next time you pick up a tin or pack of growing up milk. Even though you can’t see all these common names of added sugar (i.e. corn syrup solid, sucrose & glucose syrup solid), check the Carbohydrate level with the sugar calculator. Use the sugar calculator to find out how much sugar you’ll be feeding your children additionally with the growing up milk you are about to purchase. I’m definitely going to do that.

More than a month ago, Daddy has given me the most romantic present ever, a trip to Hong Kong, without him, without the kids, just me, alone. He took a couple of days off to be home with the children (since it was school holidays), while I have this personal time, that is, a ♥romantic♥ gesture to me.

I spent 5D/4N in Hong Kong, staying with my best friend. We managed to spend time together, and besides this, I got to catch up with a couple of my ex colleagues as well. It was a relaxing trip of shopping, eating, spending time with friends.

Just photos (taken by point & shoot, which explains the quality) and a brief trip summary.

♥16th March♥
Arrived Hong Kong in the afternoon. My friend Ping lives in an extremely nice appartment on Old Peak Road. After unpacking and playing with Maya, Ping’s 2.5yrs old daughter, a bit, Ping and I left for Causeway Bay.

We had wanton noodle at Mak’s Noodle (麥奀雲吞麵世家) for tea, something Daddy and I won’t miss when we are in Hong Kong; bought my Fancl stuff; and then packed some roast goose and char siew home from Keung Kee Meat Shop (強記飯店), another place I try not to miss.

After dinner of roast meat and rice at home, we went to the spa (a very nice one) at Ping’s appartment.

♥17th March♥
This was the only day that were packed with activities!

In the morning, we went to Central and had a typical Hong Kong breakfast.

And then took a stroll around the Central market. (I just love markets!)

Narrow lanes but so many things to offer!

By late morning, I took the MTR to get to Tung Chung station to meet with my ex colleagues. They brought me to Tai-O (大澳), a fishing town in Lantau Island, about 45mins bus ride from Tung Chung. The bus was zooming through narrow and winding road up hill and down hill, so I was feeling rather sick when we arrived. Luckily the air in Tai-O is fresh, which made recovery quick.

Tai-O being a fishing village has lots of shops selling dried seafood.

The locals drying their own seafood.

Some leaves (紫贝天葵) being sold. My colleague told me it can be boiled and turned into a herbal drink.

Most houses were built on stilts.

Houses are small and low, and streets are narrow.

The whole town is mainly occupied by older people. The younger ones probably all have gone to work in the city.

As we were there on a weekday, the place was really quiet, most shops such as this one, was closed.

We had late lunch at one of the seafood restaurants. Mixed seafood, kailan with salted fish, and their famous octopus cake.

We then took the bus back to Tung Chung and then headed home. It was a good trip, and it was nice catching up with my colleagues.

In the night, Ping brought me to a super fancy restaurant Zuma.

We ordered 2 sampler sets, and there was so much food! The food was delicious, but oh my, it was so expensive. Thanks Ping, for the treat!

♥18th March♥
A relaxing day. Had early lunch with Ping, and then I went out looking for books on my own. In the night, we went to Espirt outlet in Mongkok.

♥19th March♥
We went to Stanley to shop (lots of small shops selling out of season branded stuff at a fraction of the price). It was raining, so besides shopping, there was not much we could do.

We had lunch there, and then headed home.

I met with another ex colleague in the night. We went out for dinner together at a quiet Yunan restaurant in Tin Hao.
Another good catch up with old friends over a good meal.

♥20th March♥
We went out for dimsum breakfast. I checked in my baggage at Hong Kong station and then Ping and I went to a supermarket to do some last minute shopping as well as to grab some pastries (嫁女饼) from Kee Wah Bakery (奇华).

See, the whole trip is really to spend time with my best friend and also to meet up with my ex colleagues whom I used to work with closely.

Thanks Daddy! Second half of the year another trip yeah?

As I was talking about how our family has outgrown our car. I am very honored to have been offered a Proton Exora for the weekend, a VIP test drive. I used it to run my daily errand (marketting, shopping, 1 trip to the kindergarten and 1 trip to the primary school), and here is my experience with the car.

(The car that I had for the weekend)

I’m not a technical person when it comes to car. If you talk to me about engines, torque, performance of a car, don’t blame me if you see me looking bored. What is important to me is what the car can do for me, as a mother, as a woman.

I find Exora to be one of the best MPV around, its design is very practical, it takes into consideration the various needs of Malaysian women or mothers.

There’s the key that can trigger the honk remotely! For a forgetful person like me, it’s very useful for me when I’d forgotten where I parked. Oh, and it can also be used to sound out an alarm if we’re in trouble/danger.

I love the car boot. So spacious! It means it has plenty of room to carry my shopping when I go to the market. And when the family goes on a holiday, there’s more than enough room for our bags!

The car has the flexibility to turn into 7, 6, 5, 4, 2 passenger mode with a few easy pulls or clicks. Even a car-dummy like me could adjust the seats myself.

Click. The boot in 6-seater mode. With 1 of the seats on the last row collapsed.

Click, and it turned into 5 passenger mode

Another click, and 1 of the 2nd row seats is lifted, easy for the person on the 3rd row to disembark, and also provide a longer boot space.
I’m even thinking, we can bring our bicycles to parks like Lake Gardens, Bukit Cherakah with all these extra space created by these easily collapsable seats!

Unlike some MPV where the 3rd row is super narrow, there’s still leg room at the Exora 3rd row! Girls were delighted to be seated there to allow the in-laws to be on the 2nd row.

I love the front seat, spacious, and with each seat has its own arm rest!

Seats on the 2nd row can be reclined! The girls love it, becasue now, they can recline their seats when they are tired and needed a rest.

I have no problem installing 2 car seats in the car, and still leave room for other passengers. And if the girls are not getting along, we can always separate them to reduce friction.

Wonderful isn’t it?

There are other little things which also delight me.

There 2 glove compartments! Alright! 1 can be for the manual (Daddy’s section), and another for my things (my section)! CDs, Sunglasses? And included is also a little hook for me to hang my packed lunch or breakfast.

And the best is the adjustable speed built-in aircon ventilation at the 2nd and the 3rd row. For the girls who always have different demands, one complains “I’m cold ma.” another complains “But, I’m hot!”; I can tell them to adjust their own ventilation themselves! They can solve their own problem and have controls over their own ‘aircon’.

What the kids like most about the car?
Zara the sociable one said, “I like the 3 sections (3 rows). It’s very nice because, now we can invite a lot of people into the car.
Zaria the wise one said, “The TV! I like it. And it’s very big (the car). So many seats. And there’s arm rest in the front!”

See them in action.

The Primary school gang, so engrossed with the TV.

The bags. Lots of room even in 6 passenger mode.

The kindergarten gang, who chose to sit on separate rows.

Now, if you are considering an MPV, do register yourself for the VIP Test Drive Session, it’s just a few clicks away.

Go to www.allaboutexora.com.

Go to Get Exclusive Treats with Proton Exora and click Enroll here!

Then click Register here.

Fill up your details then click Next (remember to fill up all your details or you won’t be able to go to Next)

Once you’d filled up your details on Page 2, click submit.

Easy peasy. Hope you’ll enjoy the car as much as I do.

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By the way, if you are not my regular reader and do not know my girls are 4 and 6, which explains the way the car seats (front facing) are installed in my car, take note of the below :

According to Dr Ng Lai Oon, Clinical Psychologist from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), for children below the age of 18 months, they should ride in a rear-facing car safety seat.

Photo credit : KONSUMERKini.net.my

Make sure you install your car seat the right way for proper safety measure.

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.

Those of you with 2 children or more, if you don’t already own an MPV, like us, do you find your car a little too small for the family?

I’m finding our family of four outgrowing our cars.

Currently, we still have both girls on their car seat when we go out. With 2 car seats installed on the back seat, there’s hardly any room left for another person. Our current cars, can accommodate 4 people (including the driver) comfortably, but when the helper or other family members or friends who want to come along, we’ll either have to drive 2 cars, or have to remove the car seats to allow more room (which I hate to do, because I prefer my girls on their car seats all the time).

When the girls were younger, we had to buy a compact pram to fit into our car boot. I’m glad they’d outgrown their pram now, and we have 1 item removed from the boot to give us more space. Still, I find our boot rather small for a family of 4.

Every time when we go on a holiday locally, we find the boot too small to hold our 2 suitcases, and the numerous little bags to hold the snacks or things the girls have packed to bring along for our trip. For a shopper like me, there’ll be not much room to hold shopping from our trip. I always have to be careful with what I buy during these holidays, and with every purchase, I have estimate space required for the things, and if our boot can take in that extra bag.

Looks like it’s time to explore getting an MPV. A 7-seater maybe? Due the constant increase in petrol prices, we have to look into an MPV with lower fuel consumption as well, one which is lower than 2.0 liter.

I’ll let you know how our hunt go.

“Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) hosted the 12th Raptor Watch event at PNB Ilham Resort, 10th Mile Tanjung Tuan, Port Dickson on the 12th and 13th March 2011.”
It is a festival to celebrate the return of the migratory birds of prey or better known as raptors on their journey back to their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere.

Thanks to Daddy (who likes this sort of outing), we are glad we joined in the fun, on 13th March, the Sunday the school holidays began.

The grounds in Ilham Resort has been set up with tents, with different companies either selling goods, or promoting their club. Monoculars and binoculars were at various booths where we can use to watch the raptors when they flew passed.

They were for all to use, and free!

We were actually a bit afraid the girls may break the thousands of dollars binoculars, but nobody seemed to be as worried as us.

It’s not a guarentee that you may get to watch the raptors, but we were lucky, they were circlying above when we arrived, and appeared again later in the evening.

(That’s what our camera could take. Well, Daddy thinks he should get a zoom lens for these kind of shot.)

When the raptors appear, the real bird watchers whipped out their own equipment.

There were face/body painting as well, all contribution will go to MNS. Of course, we all, except Daddy, went for it.
Isn’t the owl cute?

The event being held next to the sea, the girls were so eager to move on and play at the beach. It was 3pm, HOT! But nothing is going to deter them.

It was low tide, very suitable for the girls to splash about (we were not really prepared for the trip, it was kind of impromptu, that’s why the girls didn’t get changed into swimming costumes).

Zaria seemed to like getting dirty wet.

There were crabs to be found as well.

Besides the beach, we explored a near by hill, with a 20min climb, got us to the lighthouse in Tanjung Tuan.

View from the hill.

Although it was a hot day, we all had fun! This might just become our yearly event.

(Just For The Records)

Last year, during Chinese New Year my dad was diagnosed of having a 14cm tumor in his liver. After his surgery, he recovered well, and for this year’s Chinese New Year all of us were glad to see him, although thinner, looking good.

It’s another year of blessing, and good health is all we wish for.

My two girls love sweets, especially Zara. She can be popping sweets in her mouth like pop corns while watching TV, and before you know it, she’s finished a bowl of sweets. Does your child love sweets like Zara?
At times when I see them eating sweets like that, and all the rest of sweet drinks they are taking, I’m worried about their sugar intake.

The girls are already eating lots of other things which contain sugar, e.g. the daily carbohydrate that they are taking, fruits, biscuits, cultured milks and not to mention the various sweets (the ones we bought or the ones they got from party packs).

I don’t want them to grow up to be obese, and have a string of other health issues (e.g. diabetes, high blood pressure, which I’m high risk for both) because of their excessive sugar intake.

Just like our MOH’s Less Sugar campaign launched last year (url: ), in our own household we’re trying to do something similar.

When we buy something which will be consumed by the girls, e.g. juice, milk, even sweets, we always check the label for the sugar content. Do you know besides checking the label for the sugar content for added sugar (e.g. sucrose, corn syrups solids, glucose syrups solids), you should also check the carbohydrate content, if you are not aware, the higher the carbohydrate means the higher the added sugar level.

For sweets, we always try to buy those that are sweetened by fruit juice. (Girls called them ‘high quality sweets’.) If possible we go for non added sugar product, or a product that has lower sugar level (in the form of added sugar or carbohydrates).

When I bake at home, I too tend to reduce about 1/3 sugar in the bake goods.

Do you do sugar watch like this in your household too?

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”

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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”

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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”

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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!