My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

During the school holidays, the girls spend most of their time watching TV, playing iPad, doing drawing, etc etc.

Daddy has been deligently coaching Zara with her BM to prepare her for Standard 1. Zara dreads each class. Today, she even went hiding (and took us 15mins to to find her) when Daddy called her to start her BM revision. o.O”

Weekends when we are not working, we bring them out to check out Christmas decorations.

Bring them out for ice cream,

Meet up with their cousins.

One of the fun thing they did was to join the Christmas Carols organised by our BEC. We had 2 rounds of practice and then went around singing in people’s house on the weekend.

To Zaria, the nicest thing about carolings is going to people’s house to ‘collect’ packet drinks, sweets and chocolates.

The girls of course sometimes play together, and do all sort of funny stunts.

We made a weekend trip to Melaka as well, but didn’t spend much time outside, as I wasn’t well, and the girls preferred to stay in the hotel and watch cartoon and enjoy the aircon.

And then, look here, see who came to have a play date with the girls?

Dinah, myself and another mutual friend, C, has been organising this play date, and it finally materialised yesterday. They started with drawing…

And the highlight is actually doing cupcake decorations.

Our youngest member, Kaine (C’s son), at work. He’s kind of torn between eating the sprinkles and putting them on his cake.

After a while, Zaria preferred to play with water serve her friends water.

Slightly more than a week to go, and then it’s back to school.

I think the most expensive toy that we’d bought for the girls is this doll house we got them for Christmas 2 years ago.

What we did was we got the house (which came without furniture) and the dolls, and then informed my sisters and SILs to get them furniture as their Christmas and birthday gifts, so by the end of all these celebrations, they have a complete doll house set.

The thing is, Zaria was too young then, she was more interested in ‘breaking’ the items than playing. And Zara didn’t show much interest either, so off the house went, into the store room.

The girls have recently requested that we brought out the doll house. So we did today. Opening 3 more sets of furniture which were given 2 years ago.

They had some fun playing with it in this morning.

The house is the height of Zara, it’s sturdy and very good quality. It’s rather heavy too. So after playing, they will have to push it back to lean against the wall or it’ll take up too much space in the centre of the room.

Any way, not sure how long their interest with the house will last, but I do hope we don’t have to push it back to the store room any sooner, and wasted the 3 new sets of furniture.

Gee, it’s the holidays, and the girls are spending the whole day with me on a work day. They watch lots of TVs and play lots of iPad games. I screamed at them a lot, and they screamed back at me or at each other a lot too. At times, the two of them will chi chat or they will play a quiet game together, and that’s when I said, “It’s so nice to have two girls.”

Here are some chatter that’s worth the mentioned.

They were taking their naps in the study, and I overheard their conversation which started about ghost.

Zaria : You are older than me… Mommy is older than you… Daddy is older than mommy… Giant is older than Daddy… The ghost is older than giant…. Then the transformer is bigger than the ghost, right jie?
Zara : The sun and the moon is bigger than transformer.
Zaria : Even the clouds is bigger right, jie?
Zara : The clouds is nothing, it’s just vapor.
Zaria : It’s paper?
Zara : No, vapor.
Zaria : What’s vapor jie.
Zara : You asked mommy, I don’t know. (Don’t know but know how to use the word. o.O”)
So I have explained to Zaria what vapor is.

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

Daddy is not very happy the girls and I are spending too much time on the iPad, especially playing games. He told the girls while they play, they have to describe what they are doing, then they’ll learn; as the iPad was meant to be a learning tool and not a gaming tool, yada yada…

Zaria was taking her bath right after she had her turn of games on the iPad. I over heard her talking to Jelly.
Zaria : Auntie, you know iPad is for learning, not for playing games… You know how you learn? You must talk when you play. Talk talk talk, play play play. o.O”

I told Daddy about it, so he quized Zaria.
Daddy : What must you do when you use the iPad?
Zaria : You must talk when you play.
Daddy : You must describe what you are doing. But you are always playing, and not describing.
Zaria : Got wut.
Daddy : I see you playing, but you don’t tell me what you are doing.
Zaria : Who said, I got talk wut.
Daddy : If you only use it for playing games, and not learning, then I’m going to sell off the iPad
Zara : Dad, just because you bought the iPad doesn’t mean you can bully Zaria, ok?
o.O”

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

We went out for lunch with our neighbour C in 2 cars as C would be heading for her facial afterwards. The girls went in C’s car. As C is a Taiwanese, I’d let her know before to speak to the girls in Mandarin, so that they have more exposure to the language.

After lunch, C left for her facial, and I had this conversation with the girls.

Zaria : I want to go in Auntie C’s car again.
Me : Auntie C is going for her facial, you can’t go in her car.
Zaria : What is facial? (they are not exposed to this word obviously because their mom had never ever gone for a facial since they were born)
Me : Facial is you go to the shop and let people wash your face.
Zaria looked aghast.
Zaria : You mean Auntie C doesn’t know how to wash her face at home so she has to ask people to wash her face in the shop? o.O”
I have to explain to her that some people like pampering in a facial etc etc but she still had that question mark on her facial expression. 😛
And then I turned to Zara : Did you talk to Auntie C just now?
Zara : Ya I did.
Me : What did you talk about?
Zara : Well, actually right, I don’t know what she was saying about because she was speaking in Chinese. o.O”
(I asked C later what they talked about, she told me Zara was answering her questions in short answers, sometimes answering something not related to the question. So I guess, when it comes to Chinese, she’ll pretend to know what is being said although she doesn’t really understand it.)

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

I ran out of cash so I was complaining, “Oh no, I have no more money.”
Zara gave me the solution, “Well, you can always take a few more (biscuits and cupcakes) orders, and charge really really expensive.” o.O”

The other day, when I put on the primary school uniform on Zara, and saw her in the blue pinafore, I just realized, my little girl has grown up so much, and there’s this sense of sadness. Do all parents go through the same thing?
When the time comes for her to try on her wedding dresses, how would I feel then? Sigh. Can’t imagine.

(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!”

Gee, more than 10 days I’d not posted anything?

There is so much happening at home.
1) We celebrated Zara’s 6th birthday (yes she’s SIX now, I started this site when she was 8months plus, what does this mean? I’d been blogging for more than 5 years now!)
2) We had a joined birthday celebration for both the girls in school although Zaria’s birthday is not until another month’s time
3) Girls had their school concert
4) Girls went to a couple of birthday parties, which of course means they have a swell time.

And me, what I’d been up to?

Lots of this

Baking, simple cup cake decorating, cookies decorating, for the girls as well as a couple of orders I’d taken. Hop on to my cooking site for more pix, but then again, I’d not been very up to date there as well. o.O”

And playing lots for Farm Story, Restaurant Story.

Farm Story, Restaurant Story is sooo addicting. Even Zaria is asking me daily, “Mum, have you checked your restaurant yet?”
“Mum, can I help you to water other people’s farm?”
(Daddy is so going to nag me)
Ok, Ok, I do limit myself to check on the farm and the restaurant like 3, 4 times a day.
Anyway, the girls are always crowding around and asking, “Are you done yet? It’s my turn.”

I have to work on these soon :

1) Write about Zara’s birthday
2) Write about Girls’ concert
3) Get Zara’s school uniform, bag, shoes, sorted out
4) Get the Christmas tree up

And it’s already December. *sweat*

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”

Having sensible kids is like having something precious stacked some where, which will occasionally bring a smile to your face. Do you agree?

Zara is turning 6 next week, besides still being rough when playing (the shouting, the shoving when she doesn’t get her way) and doing occasional crazy stunts (riding her new bike down a slope in full speed), she’s growing up to be rather sensible.

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

We asked her how she wanted to celebrate her 6th birthday.
She said she wanted to have it in Jungle Gym.
I told her Jungle Gym is very expensive, we cannot afford to hold a party for her there.
She asked how come Zaria can celebrate her birthdays there?
I told her, that’s because Zaria only invited one guest, Tasha (my niece).
She asked how many guest she’s allowed if she wanted a party in Jungle Gym?
I said the most is 3.
So, she said for her birthday, she will invite only Tasha, Chloe and Chiyi (kids from the neighbourhood), that’s all.
Then I asked her, what should we have for lunch before playing.
She said she wanted to go to Grand Imperial which is also in BSC.
I told her that’s a very expensive restaurant.
So she said, “Then, you just cook a big pot of nasi lemak and bring there, and we can have nasi lemak for lunch.” O.O”
Good idea!
I’m actually trying to check out if Jungle Gym allows outside food to be brought in, so I can order pizza (her favourite food) for her friends before the play. I’d been trying to call Jungle Gym but no one picked up the published phone number (can’t you beat that?). So if any of you know the answer, please let me know.

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

I was just complaining before bed time, “So long I didn’t do my exercise. Aigh.. You girls never remind me also.”
Zara answered, “Well (this seems to be her favourite word before a start of answer nowadays)…. this is not daddy’s (body), this is not your daughters’ (body), this is yours, so you must remember yourself.”
O.o”

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

Daddy spend 30 minutes to 1hr coaching Zara on her Bahasa Malaysia everynight. Zara doesn’t appreciate the language, and always trying to avoid Bahasa Revision time.
She negotiated with Daddy. Daddy will spend half the time with her on Bahasa, and she will spend half the time coaching Daddy with Chinese.
And Yes, she’s more comfortable with Chinese now, and can write a few words confidently, so in her ‘class’, she’ll ask Daddy to translate what she wrote into English, of give Daddy 听写 (Chinese spelling).
One particular day, we only had 30mins before bed time, and she told Daddy they should do Chinese instead of Bahasa.
Daddy told her, “It’s more imporant for you to learn Bahasa than for Daddy to learn Chinese.”
She replied, “It’s important for you to learn Chinese. If you don’t know Chinese, when you go to China (for work) what are you going to do?” o.O”

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

And here is the Ms-Coming-To-6-Year-Old frying an egg. I just started letting the girls do some egg frying for their own lunches recently.

One day, just out of fun, we had this discussion.

Me : *asking the girls* “Do you think you are my children? I think maybe the stork delivered you to me.”
Zara : “No, we are your children. If we are not your children then you’ll have to have another baby. You’ll have 3 daughters!”
Me : “Huh? Why do I have to have another baby?”
Zara : “(Because) You don’t take a husband for no reason.” o.O” (looks like, to her, husbands are only meant for reproduction purpose!)

Zara : “Anyway, I can feel your intestine last time.”
Me : “When you were in my stomach?” o.O”
Zara : “Ya, and I was playing with the umblical cord.” o.O”
Zara : “I can (could) hear your voice.” o.O”
Me : “What did I say?”
Zara : “I can’t remember.”
Isn’t this spooky? Although she said it’s true, but I think she only said this as she saw the videos I showed her on youtube.

Zara : “And I have your eyes.”
Me : “Zaria doesn’t have my eyes, so maybe she’s not my daughter”
Zara : “She has daddy’s genes”

Now Zaria interupted and asked : “What’s jeans? I have Daddy’s jeans?”

But Zara ignored her and continued : “Her eyes are like Daddy. And, she has Ah Kong’s (Hokkien : Maternal grandfather’s) bulgy forehead. She has Ah Kong genes, so she’s also your daughter.”

Hmm.. ok.. she does know her stuff.

Zara has been attending the Yamaha JMC class since last July. She has just started her Book 4 in October.

It was quite a struggle initially to get her to practice, and pay attention, but now, she seems to enjoy playing those musical pieces, and is quite motivated to practice.

She’s doing quite well in her keyboard playing, and she memorises all the musical pieces instead of reading the notes from the book when she plays. She’s still rather weak in note reading, and I hope she’ll pick up.

Occasionally, she even creates her own musical pieces; or adding the left hand chords herself when the teacher has only taught in class how to play the piece with one hand. Too bad her notes reading/writing is not very good, or I can ask her to start writing those notes down as she composed.

Here is a video playing The Little Red Shoe in her book 4, recorded 2 weeks back.