My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Woh… more than a week I’d not posted anything. If you wanted to know why, go here. I’ll be posting more photos of the holiday here once I sorted out all the photos.

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Recently in blogsphere, we’d lost a dear friend, Lisa. She has been battling cancer with so much spunk, but eventually, cancer won. We’d lost her, but heaven has gained an angel.

We’ll always remember her fighting spirit, her generosity, her humour despite the situation, her positive vibes.

We’ll always miss her.

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I’m not sure if it’s a good thing to expose my children to death at such an early age.

This year, Zaria has attended my grandfather’s funeral, and I also brought her along when I went to pay Lisa my last respect.

She used to tell me “Ma, I don’t want you to be fat.” occasionally. Because she knows fat = unhealthy or maybe it was the Harry Potter’s Prisoner of Azkaban that she saw where Harry inflated his aunt.

She would tell me I need to exercise, and if I missed my sit ups in the night, she would ask me, “Why you didn’t do your exercise, ma? I don’t want you to be fat. You must do your exercise.”

Now this week, her tone has changed. She’ll tell me “Ma, I don’t want you to be old.”
She says that to me, Daddy, and even Jelly.
And she’ll work herself to tears after a while, sobbing quietly away, and said, “But I don’t want you to be old.” after we’d explained to her (upteenth time) growing old is natural, and we’ll all go through that.

Yesterday, she brought this up again. Before she shed her first drop of tear, I told her, “All of us will grow old. Even you, you’ll grow bigger, you’ll be 4, then 5, then 6 and then one day you’ll be sixteen.”
She replied, “But I don’t want to grow bigger or older. I want to be small forever.” o.O”

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On our way back to school, we had a chat about the day. Zara as usual likes talking about her best friend WY, telling me about WY’s dad etc. I asked her, “Do you know what WY’s daddy do?” (I was asking more of occupation).
She replied, “I don’t know.”
I asked again, “If people asked you what your Daddy does, do you know (what to say)?”
She replied, “Ya, I know. My Daddy always sleeps, sometimes he snores. My Daddy wear glasses. My Daddy always drinks tea. Sometimes my Daddy goes out with his friends to drink beer.” o.O”
(Wow Daddy, you sounds like someone who’s retired and having a good life.)
I asked another question, “What does Mummy do then?”
She replied, “You bake and you read a lot of books.”

I’ll have to give her more details about our occupations soon.

Kids get influenced so easily.

I had taken a few cake orders, and I like to ask the girls when I make something new, “Is this nice? Can mummy sell this?”

(She can finally write her own Chinese name)

One day, Zara did a painting, and she asked me, “Is this nice?”
When I told her it was, she passed it to Daddy, “Can you go to the market and sell this?”
She thought for a while, then added, “Maybe next time you get orders, you can give this as a free gift with your cake” o.O”

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We watched an MTV of a hit song on youtube yesterday, and after watching it, Zaria started drawing this.

Can you guess who this famous artist is?
.
.
.
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Lady Gaga!

She can’t draw that well yet, but the glasses is very Lady Gaga. And she said the O–O she drew on the chest is Lady Gaga’s bra top! o.O”

And she even started doing the Bad Romance Dance.

Do you find your weekends zoomed by so quickly? Every Monday I look forward to Friday, and then I just see Saturday and Sunday being fast forwarded and then I’m back to Monday looking forward to the weekends again. Gee….

This weekend, the girls had lots of play time with different children.

We had dinner with Daddy’s friend, and then went over to one of the friend’s house, the girls had a chance to play with Daddy’s friend’s 3yr old son, Jayden.

Then on Sun, a blog reader who wanted to buy over my Graco infant carier, met up with me some where in town. While we were going through how the carrier can be installed to the pram (I sold her my whole carrier/pram system), how to fasten the carier to the car etc, the girls spend a good 15mins playing with the lady’s 5 year old girl, who’s so friendly.

After that, I met up with Irene, and we hung out at a friend’s place. Krystal who’s in love with Zara and the girls, got on so well.

When it was time to go home, Krystal wanted to abandon her parents and come with me. She cried and cried when Irene pried her away from Zara. Soooooooo cute.

In the night, I went to Amah‘s house to check out her super-duper Alisan blender (an exact replica of my dream blender Vitamix). The girls had so much fun playing with Kylie and Kieren and also Jessie‘s kids. They complained why we had to go home so early.

See, that’s how the weekend was fast forwarded.

And now, I’m looking forward to this Friday!

Zaria was very good the whole of last week. No horrible temper, or fierce tantrum. I think my lecturing (and also the smacking) did put some sense into her. The whole of the week, I never had to raise my voice at her. She’ll listen if I speak nicely to her, and if not, just a little more stern, and she’ll budge. At least I know how to handle this one.

Everytime when we wanted to take a photo of her (if she didn’t volunteer), she’ll be twisting and turning to avoid the camera

Some of the things she said lately :

At dinner, she’s always chewing her food real slowly; one day, Jelly asked her to hurry up, she replied, “I still got food in my mouth.”
Jelly said, “Where got?”
She replied, “I’m chewing unvisible (invisible) food.” o.O”

Hiding behind the curtains

One day, she did a beautiful drawing and she showed it to me. After that, she took a pen and started scribbling on her drawing.
I told her, “What are you doing? Your drawing is so nice, why are you scribbling on your beautiful drawing?”
She told me irritably, “It’s my drawing right? I can do anything I want with it right?” o.O”

Finally, managed to get a shot of her.

The girls were demanding that we have dinner at their favourite restaurant, Dragon I, but I wanted Japanese. So I told them, “Why not the 2 of you stay at home, and I go and pak toh (Cantonese: dating) with Daddy, since both of you don’t like Japanese?”
Zaria replied, “You cannot go pak toh. After you come back with another baby then how?” o.O” (get married = have baby, now pak toh also can have baby)

The girls were fighting over who gets to control the fate of the arm rest in the car, Zara wanted to rest her harm on the arm rest, Zaria wanted it to push it back in. So we told Zaria, “It’s an arm rest right? So let jiejie rest her arms.”
She got upset with us not supporting her, “You say some more I’m going to write something bad about you Dad. I’m also going to write something bad about you Mum.” o.O”
(writing something good to her is “I ♥ Mum” and “I ♥ Dad”, I guess, writing bad is “I don’t ♥ Mum” and “I don’t ♥ Dad”? But wait till she has her blog or facebook.

We attended my cousin’s daugther, Monique’s, 2nd birthday party during the weekend.

After settling ourselves in the hall (and the girls each got a couple of baloons), Jelly asked Zaria, “You want your birthday party to be like this?”
Zaria replied, “No, this party is so fancy. Just like a wedding.” o.O”

In some way she’s true. Look at the photos.

Like a wedding, the dinner started after a ‘birthday’ march (I don’t know what else to call it). The children, with Monique leading, followed the Sikh Drummer into the hall.

Zaria didn’t like the drummer, and when he started playing, she ran back to our table, and told me, “It’s too loud! It makes me feel like vomitting.”

Jelly took her out, and she spotted Barney at the changing room! When the Emcee asked who wanted to meet Barney, looked at how she looked at the Emcee longingly.

All the children rushed out to hug Barney when he appeared!!

They just clung on to him.

Zaria and Tasha were like leeches on Barney.

During dinner, we were entertained by some singing from a band (actually, the lead singer is my nephew).

Then, two Belly Dancers appeared, and invited the kids up on stage to dance. Monique also has changed to her ‘dancing’ clothes.

Tasha and Zara went on stage to join as well.

I persuaded Zaria a few times, but she preferred to just watch.

After belly dancing, there’s magic show. The magician made a dove (or was it just a white pigeon) appear, and all the kids were facinated by the bird (not the magic act).

Then kids got to do limbo rock, and did The Chicken Dance. This time, Zaria joined in too.

You would think that’s the end of it.. and then one of the Belly Dancers started doing fire eating, and the Sikh Drummer reappeared assisting the Belly Dancer.

Zaria said, “How come like Genting one?”

After that, it was dancing all night long. We left after a couple of songs.

This is probably the most fancy birthday party we’d ever attended.

Thanks cousin, for the invite! The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Daddy likes to say we always end up in the shopping mall during the weekends, but guess what? He was away this weekend, and we didn’t step into the mall at all, and the girls still had a swell time.

We did something we would never have done if he was around, we had a sleep over at my sister’s place, and spent the whole of Sunday there. With Tasha, their cousin, also sleeping over, the girls absolutely enjoyed themselves.

On Saturday, I did some cookie decoration just for fun, and kept some icing for girls to have a go with decorating their own cookies.

To stop myself having to scream the
“Be careful!!”
“Don’t spill it!!”
“Watch out!!”
I set up the table at the porch, and let the girls make whatever mess they wanted, and I could focus on trying to take some shots of them hard at work.

Zaria did hers real quickly, she topped them with lots of icing and lots of sprinkles, all for her beloved Auntie Jelly.

And she proudly showed off her decoration.

Zara took her time, but she was frustrated they didn’t come out they way she wanted.

I think I’ll have to invest in the edible marker set for her to do drawing on cookies, but I kind of like her abstract ‘art’ pieces here.

We then drove to my sister’s, had dinner there, and the girls (Zara, Zaria and Tasha) played together. When it was bed time, I think I knocked out first, the last phrase I heard was from Tasha, “Agnes yi-yi, who talks must go outside one.” (she was repeating this the whole time, when I said whoever spoke next would have to go outside). I was too lazy to reply the 100th time, “Yah, now go to sleep.”

On Sunday, we went to the market together. Jelly deliberately not get ready in the morning although I told her she had to follow me to the market a day before (normally it’s Daddy and I who did marketting together, and she never had to follow). I was handling the 3 girls alone until later my sis and her family came and joined us (they woke up slightly later than us).

In the evening, it was to the most ‘fancy’ (borrowing this word from Zaria) birthday party I’d ever attended. My cousin threw a grand birthday party for her daugther, Monique’s 2nd birthday. I have to write a post about all the fancy stuff, but here is one photo of Tasha, full of courage, singing I Love You from Barney.

(Look at Zaria covering her mouth, she was so afraid she had to sing too.)

When Zaria was younger, I mean not even 1 year old, we found her having this liking to hold on to something to sleep, i.e. remote control (See photos from here and here). Now at 3yrs plus, she still likes to do that.

Unlike Zara, whose loyalty lies with her softoy Fifi and a piece of linen cloth, Zaria holds on to anything her heart fancies on that day.

Today, it was the party rattle.

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Yesterday morning, Zaria woke up declaring she didn’t want to go to school. Her excuse, “I know how to read already wut. I know all the names of the shopping malls. I don’t need to go to school.” o.O”

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She got caned again in the night. She was eating dinner (carrots and potatos) using her hands, and I was telling her to user her utencils instead of her hands, and she didn’t like it.
When I took the last piece of fish cake from the common dish, she stood up and reached over to take it from my plate, then tossed it to Jelly’s plate, and told me, “You don’t eat!!”
When I told her sternly to put it back on my plate, she tossed it towards me, on the table, instead.
I smacked her twice.
Then I told her, “Now you are done with your dinner, go and wash your hands.”
Guess what she did? She walked over to the sofa, and wiped her oily hands on the sofa!! Just to spite me.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! 4 strokes went to her buttocks.

How would you have reacted if you were me?

Like the weather, she gets moody real quickly, and she calms down real fast too. After her shower, she came over to me with her upturned lips and said, “Sorry mummy.”

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The day before, Zaria saw Jelly packing clothes for her (to change at my sister’s place since we were going over); Zaria came over to me and said meekly, “Maaa, I don’t want to go to jail.”
She thought we were packing her bags to send her to jail because of her attack on her sister!

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As for Zara, here is how her eye lid looks like.

On Tuesday

On Wednesday

Getting better, and kids, they don’t bear grudges. They are best of friends still (for now!).

Remember this?
The little Denis The Menace struck again!

Yesterday, we were driving back from MIL’s place, and the girls were at the back seat, and as usual teasing each other. Next thing I know, a hard TWACK, a scream from Zara, followed by her wailing. I stopped the car, and turned back to ask what happened.

Through her wailing, Zara said Zaria just took the sun shade (retractable type, so it’s big rod-like) and hit her in the eye.

I quickly checked Zara’s eye, asked if she could see, see if there’s any cuts. Her eyes seemed to be ok, but her left eye lid was bruise.

I was fuming, I turned to Zaria, took away the sunshade from her, smacked her hand and shouted at her.
“WHY DID YOU HIT JIEJIE? LOOK WHAT YOU’D DONE? WHAT IF SHE GOT BLIND?”
She was just a bit scared with my outbreak, “But… but…”
“KEEP QUIET AND SIT AT THE CORNER”
She then said, “Don’t shout at me in my ears, ma..” and sobbed a little.

On the car journey, I told her if anything happened to Zara, I’ll have to call the police. Not sure if the police will need to put her in the jail, etc.

When we got home, I quickly did another check on Zara, Zaria just stood a side quietly. Confirmed, it was just the eye lid that got hit, luckily.

When I told Zara it’s not too serious, she asked, “How come like one eye cannot open properly?” I told her because one of her eye lid is swollen.
“People will think it’s my birth defect. But actually it was an accident.”
I reassured her the bruise and the swelling will fade eventually.

She called Daddy (who was out) to tell him what happened. Zaria refused to go to the phone to listen to Daddy lecture her.

I asked Zaria what made her hit her sister.
She said, “I said something to jiejie, and she made funny noise. I don’t like it.” o.O”
I told Zaria I was really upset with her behaviour, and maybe the police will need to put her into jail if jiejie’s eyes didn’t get well.
She said, “But I said sorry already wut.” o.O”
I asked her to stand at the naughty corner for 5 minutes.
She said, “But what if there’s coackroach?” o.O”
I had to shout, “GOT COACKROACH ALSO YOU MUST STAND THERE!!”

She was cool throughout, until I issued the ultimate punishment……..
No reading for her tonight!
Then she started crying.
However, when she cool down, she said, “Never mind, when you read to jie, I can listen.” o.O”

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I thank God only Zara’s eye lid got hit.

There’s a knight, who does not do much.
He grooms himself, and he looks smart.
There’s the maid who cares for two dames,
She works twenty four by seven, no rest, and three hundred sixty five days;
teaching, cooking and whatever chores.
With all the work and no rest, imagine the strain.
At times the dames misbehaved, and the maid screams (Oh, maybe a tad too harsh).
The knight will then put on his shining armour, and gallops in with his white white horse.
“I shall save thee from the wicked one!” he declared; and stirs up a storm.
Making him the dames’ hero, and the other, the crook.
The knight then just gallops off, since he’s said his piece.
The maid goes on, although beaten and crushed, to work on whatever that needed to be done.

If the maid was swearing and cursing so much, maybe she’s too stressed, don’t you think?
The dear knight should have taken pity and start rolling up his sleeves,
Instead of just trotting in only in his shining armour and to do the ‘save the damsels in distress’ stunt.

Zaria is a cheeky girl, but a little morbid at times..

Daddy was talking to me in the car, and Zaria wanted to say something to Zara, and so she told Daddy, “Daddy you stop talking!!! STOPPPPPPPPPP…”
Daddy told her, “I talk to mummy, you talk to jiejie, why must I stop?” and he continued talking to me.
Zaria shouted from the back, “I said stop!!!!! I cannot concentrate if you are talking. If you talk some more, I’ll buy some firecrackers and put in your mouth!”
o.O”
(Later, we asked her where did she learnt how to put ‘firecrackers’ in the mouth, she said it was in her Donald Duck show, where don’t know who put dynamite into Donald’s mouth.. See.. Disney cartoons do teach you violence too!)

We were talking about being a doctor, and Zaria said, “If someone cough cough cough until cannot stop. Then I’ll cut her neck and take out the cough!”
o.O”

I was showing Zaria a bracelet from Mom’s Little Treasure Box that I’d ordered for the girls.
Zaria asked, “Where is the bracelet now?”
I told her it’s still with Dinah.
Zaria asked, “In Auntie Dinah’s house?”
I replied, “Ya….”
Zaria said, “If Auntie Dinah don’t give us, then I’ll…. *she put her hand on her neck and did the slicing motion across her neck, then stuck out her tongue*”
o.O”

I was helping her at the toilet, she said, “Maaa… my she-she is so yellow.”
I said, “Aaah.. told you to drink lots of water right? See.. don’t drink water so your she-she is yellow.
Zaria replied, “Nooo.. My she-she yellow because I drink a lot of chrysanthemum.”
o.O”

She has a very fierce temper, when she’s unhappy, she’ll beat Daddy (it’s always him who became her victim), mess up the furniture and once, she even threw food from the dining table. When she behaved in such a manner, I’ll use the cane (actually it’s a big chopstick) and give her a stroke. Nowadays, she’ll cry after I smack her and say, “You want to leave me another cane mark, is it!!!???”
o.O”