My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

When I told Daddy I wanted to meet my friend who’s back from Hong Kong for holidays with her children in Petrosains, he was skeptical about the place. I too was thinking what there was to do.

I was there with my nieces and nephew more than 8 years ago, and we really didn’t think it was nice. However, this was more of a trip to meet up with my friend, and not so much about enjoying Petrosains.

I met my friend and her sister at the entrance of Petrosains with her two sons plus her two nephews and her niece. 7 children and 4 adults all in, what a group!

We bought the family ticket, RM24 for 2 adults and 2 children, although Zaria is below 4, and is free, it still worked out to be cheaper buying the family ticket than individual ticket. We entered Petrosains after our lunch, and didn’t think we would spend so much time there.

Let the photos do the talking.

Six children trying to build a track with tubes so they can see balls roll through.

Zaria trying in vain to ‘catch’ a hologram car. She said, “It’s magic!”

There were lots of Information Panels, and computers throughout Petrosains, and Zaria loved pressing on the buttons and checking out what they each did.

Zara and her new friend trying to move around iron dust with magnets.

Look who’s an astronaut? You can actually take a photo of yourself, and see your face displayed as the suspended dummy astronaut’s.

Zara’s thermal scan.

Pulleys and tubes, and conveyor belts formed this play area for children (and adults) where they see how little metal beads travelled in a loop.

This is my favourite, the interactive art. Where the images projected on the screens moved and ‘reacted’ accordingly to your body movement.

Girls here were trying to make the butterflies stand on their shoulders.

Catching falling crystals.

Feeling the different viscosities of different oil.

My friend’s son trying to find out how fast the balls he threw travelled, and at what momentum they hit the wall.

Girls trying to race in an F1 race.

Zaria and myself driving our own F1 cars. I did extremely badly as the car was hard to control with such power. Zara told me, “If you cannot drive this car, then I think you cannot drive a real car”

Zara’s turn, she could hardly reach the pedal, but that’s not stopping her.

I don’t know how this work, but you put on a strap (with electrodes) on your forehead and try to use your mind to resist the ball from being pushed to you. My friend’s son (the champ of this game) and myself having a go here, he beat almost every contestant, including me, but I gave him a strong fight, lasting quite long.

Girls and me in a Hurricane Chamber, the girls didn’t like it, and when the ‘wind’ started being slightly stronger, they ‘escaped’.

My friend had to rush through some of the activities because she had a dinner to attend.

There are lots of other things to play with or try out which are not shown here. We tried the earthquake stimulator, helicopter simulation, etc etc. And before we knew it, we spent more than 4hrs in Petrosains!

The girls were exhausted and since we wanted to have dinner around KLCC, we brought them to Coffee Club at Kinokuniya to nap, while we had tea.

After a short nap, we brought the girls to the KLCC play ground, to play some more.

With all this time spent in KLCC, our parking came up to RM19! o.O”

Dinner was just us at Hakka Restaurant overlooking KLCC.

Two things that Zara can really concentrate on are : 1) TV watching 2) drawing.

And of course, because of that, she’s able to draw what she has watched. Can you tell what shows she’s trying to draw? (answer in comments)

Drawing 1

Drawing 2 (which is from the same show as Drawing 1)

Drawing 3

Drawing 4

And Zaria, much younger, wanted to try too, and this is her drawing, and according to her, of a very famous character in one of the movies she watched recently.

Drawing 5.

Too bad they are all drawn using colour pencils (except Zaria’s drawing), making the colours and lines a bit light.

The girls are growing up so fast, and loosing their Kiddish English or Thoughts.

Although we conciously try to correct them (especially Zaria) when they mispronounced words or made gramatical mistakes, so that they get a good start in the language, none-the-less, I like to reminisce the little mistakes or the innocent thoughts they have.

Here is to capture a few of them.

Over dinner, Zaria was holding a princess book of stickers (Thanks to Rachel), then she asked me, “Maa, which one you think is mosest pretty?”
(mosest = most)
😀

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In the car, the girls wanted to see who can count the fastest.
Zaria gave the command to start the race, “Alamak… get set, go!!”
(alamak = on your mark)
😀

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Zaria always pronounce Maggie Mee as Mega Mee, so I asked her, “Why you always call maggie mee as mega me?”
She replied, “No, I never say mega mee wut, I say meh-ger mee.”
😀

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One day, Zara was standing behind me watching my computer display.
She asked, “Maaa, what are you doing?”
I told her, “You know how to read right? So you read this (pointing to the top left of the display), and tell me what I’m doing.”
She slowly read (phonetically), “Feh-Keh-dook.”
o.O”

If you don’t get it,
Fa == Feh
ce == Keh
book == dook (she always mixed up d and b)

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We were seated right at the back in the church attending my grand father’s 100th day mass, making it difficult for the kids to see what’s happening at the alter (and although I’m Catholic, the girls don’t go to church. o.O”).
During the eucharistic prayer, when the server rang the bell, Zaria tip toed, tried to see what’s happening in front and asked, “Is that Santa Clause??”
😀

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Daddy brought the girls out to do grocery shopping, and normally after shopping, he always gives the girls an ice cream treat. However, on this particular day, as both the girls had the flu, Daddy said no ice cream for the day.
Zaria begged Daddy, “Give me a chance dad…”
😀
Daddy gave her a chance by buying her smarties instead.

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Girls were fighting just before I finished work.
So when I got downstairs, I took the cane and asked them who started the fight first, and what they each did.
Zara kicked Zaria down from the sofa; her punishment, 1 cane stroke.
Zaria kicked Zara numorous times because she wanted space on the sofa; her punishment, 1 cane stroke too.
While caning Zaria, her skirt actually prevented the cane from touching the buttocks, so I lifted her skirt and smack again.
She cried and looked at me with pitiful eyes, and through her sobs, she asked, “Maa, *sob sob*, you *sob sob* want to give me *sob sob* a cane mark?? *sob sob*”
o.O

Zara could read, phonatically. However, she takes time to read simple sight words like their, my, we etc. I do not know what reading level children her age should be at, but I’d seen her friends in the same age group (from school, from her music calss) reading phrases with difficult words effortlessly. If I used that as a bench mark, then we’re in trouble.

I thought I’ll do something about it.

Normally in the evening, I try to spend about 30minutes with Zara, helping her with her keyboard pieces, her Chinese, her maths, and English writing or reading. Most of the time she’ll protest having to do more work (on top of her school homework).

So since last week, I thought I’ll start a reward system. Every day, if she’s done well with her extra homework from me, she gets a star. And each star is RM1. She can cash out the money at any time to buy anything she wanted. When this was first introduced, she already had things in mind that she wanted to buy. A pair of sun glasses (30 stars) and a helium balloon (30 stars).

Since the introduction of the reward system, daily, before we read her her bed time story, she’ll proactively ask me to choose the book for her to read; she’ll try to read phonetically, and I’ll help her with the difficult words. For passages which she struggled to read, I will ask her to re-read them the following day to familiarise herself with the words she found difficult.

After slightly more than a week of doing this, I could see her reading has improved a lot! She’s more familiar with the sight words, and getting better with her phonics.

These are the books I used for her reading.

Zaria seeing her sister getting stickers and all, wanted to participate too. She’ll ask me to pick a book for her to read too. Being younger, I’ll do most of the reading, but I’ll ask her to read words that are 3 or 4 letters which are spelled phonetically.

Some days, I got her to spell out the words she has read too, and she could. This was one of her ‘spelling’. She got the D written wrongly in AND, so she wrote again; and she tried a few times before she got the tricky S in STOP right.

I gave them each a ‘sticker passport’ (just A4 paper folded into 4), and their rewards are pasted on the ‘passport’. Rewards come from reading mainly, but I also give them a star if they are able to spell, do some sums, or behave extremely well.

Each day, after getting their stickers, they will count the total, and Zara woud do a count down, “20 more stickers and I can get my sunglasses.”

And Zaria told me yesterday after getting her 11th stickers, “I’m going to the shop to find something with 11 (dollars) on the label.” 🙂

Everytime Daddy goes to Japan for work, all of us will be delighted, because it means, he’ll be bringing back some of our favourite things.

However, I do wish that it was I who’s going, because I think I shop more wisely than him. I’m more resourceful (i.e. checking out more shops); I do not hold the philosophy of “Expensive is Best”; I would probably come back with more things and not spend as much.

Normally, I’ll have to give him a shopping list to get the stuff I wanted, down to the product code if possible. However, depending on his mood (generous? bad? stingy? giving?) he does still buy some whimsical items, especially from the airport (airport shops are created for men like him!).

This sweet is one of the whimsical item, not in the shopping list.

One look at the box, you know it’s not something cheap.

Made with pure cane sugar, they look so lovely, even I do not have the heart to eat it.

But to the kids, they just went “Waaaaah, so pretty.” And then “Chomp!” Almost half the box gone in 30 seconds.

I won’t buy it if I were him. They tasted just like sugar, just prettier.

Royce Chocolate, something that you cannot come back without from Japan. So far, of all the chocolate I’d tasted, Royce is the best. If you have not tried them, you can now get them locally, brought in by Taitung Group.

I wanted just the bars, with almonds or without, he wanted to give us more variety.

The sesame is for me for baking; and the seaweed is for the girls.

And my Fancl supply, which will probably last me 3 to 4 months. For this, I have to provide him with the code, or else, he’ll end up buying something else.

I wonder when I’ll go to Japan and do the shopping myself!

Since Flower mummy likes doses of the girls’ talking, so here is another one. 🙂

I was trying to tie 2 plaits for Zara one day, and after trying a few rounds, I found her right plait is always thicker than the left.
So I asked, “How come your hair one side is thicker than the other?”
She replied, “I think that’s my birth defect mum.”
o.O”

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Her hair is getting thicker, as she gets older, so I commented on it.
She said, “I think my hair is splitting into two. One becomes two. That’s why my hair is bushier.”
😛

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There was a thunderstorm brewing and Zara was looking up into the sky.
“I think the white clouds and the black clouds are having a fight. If the white clouds win, then it’ll be bright. If the black clouds win, it’ll be dark.”

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One day, when I was facebooking, she saw some photos my colleague tagged me, that photos were group photos taken on one of my work trip in Singapore.
“Mum, is that photo taken on your field trip?”
o.O”
I guess you can say so..

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I was talking about trips I saw parents took without their kids, and I pretended to sulk and told the girls, “Everybody goes on a holiday without their children. Everybody, except your mummy. I’m going to plan for a holiday without you girls. I want to go some where ALONE.”

Zara said, “You are an animal, and we’re the animal keeper. We’ll watch over you and make sure you don’t escape. Hahaha..”

I continued, “Even you. You go on field trips without mummy and your daddy. Why can’t I go on a holiday without you?”

Zara quickly defended herself, “That one is not planned by me ok. That’s something that my teacher planned, and you allowed us to go.”

o.O”

On our way out shopping, another squabble broke up at the back seat.
Zaria : Maaa.. jiejie lying down on the arm rest.
Me : Let her lie down then. What’s wrong with that?
Zaria : It’s a(n) arm rest, not a head rest! I want to put my arm there!
o.O”

Zaria made a big mess in the bed room, taking out most of the toys from the toy basket, one of them was an iguana stuffed with alphabets. I asked her to clean up, and put everything back into the basket or we’ll not bring her out for dinner.
Zaria gave a big sigh then said, “But the Iguana will be so bored in the basket!”
o.O”

Lately, she’s always use the word bored, boring. Like in Penang, she wanted to stay in the hotel all the time, when we said we had to go out for lunch or dinner, she’ll roll her eyes and comment, “So boring, always eat and eat and eat and eat.” And when she found out we’re going to eat char kuey teow, she feigned boredom and said, “So boring, always char kuey teow, char kuey teow, char kuey teow.”
o.O”

In the mall, she wanted to go to the book shop but it was lunch time. So I told her, “No, we are going to eat lunch now.” She replied, “After we eat, then we read. OK?”
🙂 Glad she loves reading so much.

I showered her one cool evening, and when I was towelling her dry she told me, “Just now it’s so cold, my teeth was chattering like a castanet.”
o.O”

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She wanted to do ‘homework’ when I was coaching Zara, so I asked her to take a paper, and write A to Z for me, without any help from us.

And here is her writing at 3 and a half. The J and S are mirror image, the K strokes are a bit out, but I think she’s doing good.

Zara gave her a star, and I gave her a sticker which made her so proud of her work.

Glad the school holidays are finally over and the girls are back to school, and I’m back to peace and quiet, at least for the whole morning and most part of the afternoon.

Another few more weeks and I think I’ll go nuts, with all the bickering, the furniture moving and the big mess they created in the house.

Here are photo shots of the rest of their holidays :

Sent them to neigbour’s play group (thanks to my neighbour who accepted them), even if it was meant for kids for 1+ to 2+, just to keep them occupied and burn some energy.

Sent them to the gym.

And then let them play at home (their own games, their own rules),

I havent’s started sex education at home with the girls yet, except the below few points :
1) You have to get married to have babies
2) tell me if someone stroke them or touch their private parts (Daddy also cannot, Aunty also cannot, their school teachers also cannot, not even their friends, etc etc.)

Here are some conversations with Zara, which is so innocent.

I talked to her about original sin, baptise and baptism.
She asked : What is baptism?
Me : Baptism is the ceremony of getting baptised. Just like if you get married, what is the ceremony? Wedding right?
Zara : Yah. So what happened if I don’t get baptised?
Me : (already told her about original sin, so I thought I’ll tell her what she can’t do if she’s not baptised)Then if you get married next time, you cannot have your wedding in the church.
Zara : Never mind, I can have my wedding in the restaurant.
Me : Normally, you don’t have your wedding in the restaurant. You throw a party after your wedding, and it’s held in a restaurant. You don’t get married in the restaurant.
Zara : Oh….I know. The real real wedding is in the hospital.
Me : Huh?
Zara : You get married already, then you have baby, then you go to the hospital to take out the baby. So your real real wedding is in the hospital right?

o.O”
I had to tell her doesn’t mean once you get married you’ll have a baby, and I told her our story of waiting for her for so long (well, not the whole story, but the waiting and finally having her).

She went “oooooh….” but don’t know if she really understood it.

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Sometimes when we share a toilet, they will check my panty to see if I was getting my period.
“Oh… you are not having your period. But how come you got pus in your petpet?”
o.O”
“It’s discharge, not pus!” I have to tell them.
It’s rather embarassing if they said that out loud in the public toilet.

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On another day, Zara told me she felt a pain in her private area and she might have ‘pus’. We waited till we got home so I could check what happened to her.
Upon checking, I found that it’s just because we were out the whole day, and she’s just a little dirty down there so I washed her and told her she would be fine.
Me : How come you don’t know your pain is caused by your petpet being dirty?
Zara : I don’t know because my teacher never teach me in school.
o.O”
And then, she thought of something really funny and she started giggling.
Zara : My teacher cannot teach me in school also. Hahahahaha.. Because if they teach me, then they’ll have to say the word ‘petpet’. Hahahahaha..
Zara : How can teacher said the word ‘petpet’.. Hahahaha..
o.O”
I told her they don’t have to use the word petpet to teach her, they can say ‘private part’. But then, normally teachers don’t teach them about such things.

Wait till it’s time for me to tell her the real truth about how a baby is made. Maybe I can write a blog post and give her the link. o.O”

I can’t remember since when this started. Probably some time last year, Zaria started getting extremely annoyed by the labels on her clothes.

Initially, she would tug on them, and complained. Then she started getting the scissors, and tried to snip them off herself. She gets frustrated when she struggled to reach the label with one hand, and trying to cut it with the scissors in the other; she’ll shout for help in frustration.

Reasons she gave, “The label makes me so itchy!” “It’s poking me.” etc etc.

She will only relax when we cut it off for her. So most of her clothes has the washing instruction tag as well as the label snipped off.

Then for a few months, she refused to wear her socks to sleep (As girls don’t use blanket, I let them wear socks to bed so that they don’t get cold feet and can sleep better). She said, “The sewing so not nice. Make me uncomfortable.”

Eventually, I let her wear a pear of socks 2 sizes bigger, and she happily wore them and said, “This one the sewing is nice.” o.O”

So this girl doesn’t like frills, laces, that sort of things.