My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Every time when we go to a super market, one of the girls’ favourite activities is to bring different items which they are strong enough to carry to the available barcode scanners
set up as price checkers. They will say, “I need to check how much.”
That will keep them occupied for some time and we’ll have to wait for them until they are done before we can move to the next aisle.

Nothing beats another dose of Zara’s witty comments.

One day, on our way back from school, Zara told me, “I’ve already started with Mickel. He is my boy friend now.”
I asked, “Oh, how come he’s your boy friend now?”
Zara replied, “Because now, he listens to my instruction. If I asked him to do something, he’ll do it.”
Oh, that’s her boy friend selection criteria.. good. 😛
I asked, “What about Ling Jing? He’s not your boy friend any more?”
(Ling Jing has started Standard 1, and Zara has not seen him since school terms ended last year)
Zara replied, “Even though I cannot see Ling Jing any more, he’ll always stay in my heart. Just like you’ll forever stay in my heart too.”
Sweeeeet.

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Zara was using an expensive celephane tape to do her arts and crafts, so I told her, “Why are you using this celephane tape? I told you before right? It’s expensive. And I told you to use the cheap one for your arts and crafts.”
Zara replied, “Oh. I forgot. If I use (all of) this celephane tape does it mean you will need to sell the house (to buy another)?”
(Like Shopping Amah Laundry Amah, she loves to buy things, and she’s always asking us to buy her this and that. I have to threaten her that if she kept buying things even if she didn’t need it, we’ll have to sell our house to sustain her shopping habit.)

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We were at a neighbour’s house, and my neighbour’s 7 year old said he didn’t like school, and didn’t want to go to school.
Zara, like an old wise lady said, “But you must go to school. If you don’t go to school, next time when you get married then you’ll have problem.”
Both my neighbour and I looked at each other, what did getting married have to do with going to school?
Like a sage, she continued, “If you don’t go to school, you won’t learn how to control your stregth. If You don’t know how to control your strength, after you get married already, you’ll hurt your girl friend.”
o.O”

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Zara told me one day, “You know, WY told me her grandmother is 100 years old.”
WY, who’s Zara’s classmate, is picked up by her grandmother daily, so I’d seen her grandmother before, and she looked like she’s in her late fifties/early sixties, definitely not 100 years old.
So I told Zara, “No la.. how can she be 100 years old.”
Zara replied, “Yesss.. It’s real. Her grandmother is 100 years old.”
I said, “No la.. if she’s 100 years old, how can she look so young.”
Zara replied, “It’s the make up that she puts on.”

o.O”

Daddy and I hardly go out alone, we always bring the girls everywhere we went. In a year, we probably go out for dinner 5 or 6 times without them. The girls, who are hardly left at home without us, had to be informed in advance, it’s kind of like having to apply a going out Visa from them.

Over the weekend, we wanted to go out for dinner alone (first for this year), so here is the Visa Application process.
I asked, Zaria, “Zaria, mummy and daddy go out for dinner tonight, you and jiejie stay at home with aunty ok?”
She replied, “Ok mum.” That was easy.
Zara was upset, and she said “No. Why must you go out without your children?”
I had to explain to her, parents have sometimes spend time alone, etc etc, and I’m not really asking her for permission, but rather giving her advance notice we’ll be going out.
“You think leaving your children behind and locking them up in the house and then you go out is a nice thing to do is it?” o.O”
I have to tell her we’re not locking them up, they are free to roam about, choose what they want to do in the house, and we’re just going out for dinner, not leaving them that long.
“You have all the bad things (thoughts) in your head, that’s why you said this.”
o.O”
(She’s very capable of attacking you using words.)
When I told her that’s not something nice to say, tears was welling up in her eyes, and she said, “I want you to forever stay with me.”
“But I’m staying with you forever, it’s just that Daddy and mummy had to go out for a few hours for dinner to spend time alone, then we’ll be back. You can have your favourite spagetti for dinner, and then you can watch a show after dinner, and then we’ll be back already.”
“What time are you coming back?”
“By ten.”
She thought for a while, and then, Visa approved!

Oh, this is not all, we had another check point. When I told Jelly, our maid, we would be leaving the children with her for a couple of hours while we went out to have dinner, she put on her black face.
Daddy was so annoyed, he gave her a lecture, “What do you expect? We cannot get you to take care of the children when we go out for dinner is it? How often do we go out without them? Just this one time you want to give me black face?”

See, not easy huh? To just want to go ‘pak toh’ (Cantonese : dating). After all these, when we reached the restaurant, Daddy said, “I really don’t like to let the girls miss out on such things.”

Aiyo.. like I’m the bad one, who likes to go out without them, and do not feel bad about it.

A few of the girls’ latest favourite.

Their favourite drink, TEA.
Pokka Green Tea, and after the Singapore trip, they are ordering Teh-C everywhere they go (even at home!).
Both Daddy and I are tea drinker, I guess we kind of influenced them.

Their favourite food, pan-mee or any doughy noodle (lamien, farfalle). They could hardly finish half bowl of rice, but give them lamien, they can finish a full bowl, no problem.
And Zaria recently just loves corn.

Nail art is something they have discovered, and love.

And of course, they love drawing and painting.

Animals,

Butterflies,

Heartshape butterflies.

And sometimes drawing things they do, like Zaria’s hand with nail art, spot that?

This is their current phase.

We were talking about smacking and about why I sometimes smack them although I don’t like it.

Zara told me she doesn’t like to be smacked as well, and added, “When you smack me, the pain in my hand will go away very fast. But the pain in my heart will stay, it’ll take a long time before it goes away.”

o.O”

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Girls were going through my wedding album, which showed a very very slim me.

Zara : “How do you say get big with air?”
Me : “Don’t understand what you are asking.”
Zara : “How do you say get big with air? If no air, it’s deflated, if get big with air..?”
Me : “Inflated you mean?.”
Zara : “Yaya.. (pause) Last time you were deflated. Now you are inflated.”

o.O”

Then she pointed to Daddy’s photo.
Zara : “Last time you got nobody to love. That’s why you love Daddy. Now you got us to love, so you don’t love him any more.”

o.O” We have to remind ourselves not to quarrel in front of the girls any more.

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Not sure why she suddenly got annoyed with Daddy, and then she told me, “I think you should go and get a new boy friend. Then you can get married to your boy friend. Then I’ll have new Daddy also.”

o.O” I have to remind her, her Daddy, although with his flaws, loves them very much, and the fun things he does with them. Then only she remembered, “Yeah.. Daddy is a good Daddy.”

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I asked the girls what they wanted to do be when they grew up.
Zaria said, “I want to be a dentist.”
Zara said, “I think I want to be a doctor. But what does doctor do mummy?”
Told her about the many types of doctors, surgeons do operations, obs and gynaes do delivery, GPs give injection, medicine for people who are sick.
Zara said, “I think I don’t want to be doctor already. I think I want to be a teacher (actually, she’s been saying she wanted to be a teacher for a long time already). I like to talk, so I think it’s better I be a teacher. Then I can talk and talk and talk.”

o.O”

When we read on newspaper that the National Museum of Singapore will be cooperating with Kunsthistorische Museum Vienna, Egyptian and Near Eastern Department to display some artefacts from ancient Egypt early this year, we’d already planned to make a trip down to Singapore as Zara has a lot of interest in pyramids, mummies, etc.

I never knew it was under such circumstance that the trip finally materialised. Daddy drove the girls down together with Jelly (my insistence) on 18th March. Luckily my dad recovered well after surgery, or I think we won’t be doing all the sight seeing.

♥17th March, Thursday♥
Girls and Daddy arrived. Girls were so happy to see me after a week. They were hugging me and kissing me, and Zaria kept telling me, “I love you very very very very very much, mum.”

Daddy was showing sour face the whole time because of the sleeping arrangement, and also his inability to get tickets to Universal Studio (as if it’s my fault!)

♥18th March, Friday♥
I cooked a hearty breakfast for everybody. Scrambled egg white for my dad, egg and bacon for the rest. I had Greek yogurt and honey instead, something I can’t find or cost too much in KL.

After instructing Jelly what to cook for lunch, Daddy, the girls and I left for the National Museum. Girls got all excited when they saw the Quest of Immortality posters in the ticketting hall. Finally, they could enjoy what we’d talked about since the newspaper reading.

Zara then pointed, “Mum, look, Hieroglyphic!”. I had no idea what it was, and had to follow her gaze. You can imagine how much interest she has in all things Egyptian.

After the Quest of Immortality, we went on to visit The Singapore History Gallery. Seriously, how much history does Singapore has? But they did it in a story telling way, with free multimedia handheld device given out which guides you around the gallery, it made the whole thing so interesting.

I left the gallery with the girls first (because my device broke down half way) and proceeded to have lunch. Daddy turned up 30mins later. He said he thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

After lunch, we went shopping at Sommerset 313 and later met up with my brother and his family, my dad and sis for dinner.

♥19th March, Saturday♥
My brother brought my dad for his check up, and left my nieces with me. Again, I made everybody a big breakfast, and I continued to have my yogurt.

We went to the zoo after breakfast. It was actually pouring, but since we didn’t have any other day to do this (my nieces were going home the following day), we just braved on, with raincoats bought from the zoo.

That’s how silly we looked.

Even in this weather, the walk around the zoo was very pleasant. So green, so much to see, so informative. We could see almost all the animals up close.

There’s the outback section where girls can pat kangaroos.

My favourite, the polar bear.

Zaria’s favourite, the baboons. She has a book about June the baboon, so she was very interested to see a baboon real life.
After that, she told everyone “Baboons have heart shaped backside!”

We left the zoo in the evening, and then straight on to dinner with the rest of the family, and off shopping again.

♥20th March, Sunday♥
We had breakfast together at Tiong Baru Market. Probably the only market we know how to go, and my dad’s favourite eating place.

After breakfast, my brother and his family, my dad and my sister left home. We had to sort out with the ‘hotel‘ on the refund we wanted since we were leaving earlier (as my dad has been given permission to leave Singapore by the doctors earlier than planned), and also moved to a new room. (When I wrote this post the refund is still in progress)

We then brought Jelly along and took a taxi and went to Suntec City. Big mistake! Nothing there, not much to shop. We made the girls walked from Suntec City to Millenia Walk, then to Marina Square, and then later to Esplanade.

We then headed back to the ‘hotel’ to rest. At night, it was another round of shopping, this time at Ion (which I think where we shopped most).

After shopping, the girls played at the water fountain at Ion, and had a lot of fun.
Luckily we brought them spare clothes.

Daddy then suggested we took the MTR to Raffles Place to look at the Merlion up close. Zara and I were so tired, we didn’t really bother, Merlion or not. Zaria was however very keen. So off we went again.

♥21st March, Monday♥
We woke up late, had a lazy morning, then went to Wisma Atria for lunch, and then headed home.

11th March, Thursday
My brother flew down to Singapore with dad as dad has to do some more test at the hospital and to get himself admitted.

I’m not sure if it’s normal procedure, but for dad’s surgery, he had to do an ECG, Stress Test, CT-scan on the heart to see if he’s strong enough to go through the surgery. All these he did on 5th March when my sister and I went to Singapore with him. His risk was 5%.

My brother sms-ed us sometime in the afternoon informing us that dad has done a ct-scan on the heart artery, and the results wasn’t very good. His calcium deposit on the arteries was high. Increasing his risk. They were in the midst of talking to Dr KC Tan, the very famous liver surgeon, who’ll be performing dad’s surgery.

30mins later, my brother informed us that dad was all set for surgery. Dr KC Tan said due to the size of my dad’s tumor, the risk of him waiting longer to do the surgery after fixing his heart problem (3~6mths) is higher than doing the surgery the following day.

In the evening, my BIL drove 2 of my sisters, my nephews and me to Singapore. We arrived after 9pm, where my dad has already been warded, we had a short chat and left early so he could rest and be prepared for the big day.

My youngest sis stayed with my dad in the hospital, and each of us went back to our own accomodation.

12th March, Friday
All of us arrived early at the hospital. They started to sedate dad at about 10am +, we told him we would wait for him outside and asked him to be strong. He was already in a daze when he was wheeled into the operating theatre.

The doctor told us the surgery will be at 12pm and would take about 4hrs, and we can do our own things and come back by 4pm.

So off we went, having lunch and shopping around Orchard.

We got back at 3:30pm, and at 4pm, Dr Tan came out and told us the surgery was a success, dad didn’t loose much blood, and he’s in stable condition. There were also other satelite tumors found around the main tumor, and one of them was already leaking, as a pool of blood was found in the abdoment when they cut him up. It was good that he didn’t wait any longer to do the surgery, because if the tumor ruptured, it’ll be an emergency surgery.

4pm +, Dr Gong, the assistant surgeon came out and showed us the left lobe of the liver that was removed from my dad. It’s almost the size of a placenta.

I have some photos here, and if are interested to take a look (just for knowledge), just click on the links. Take note they are not a pretty sight.

Photo 1 : This is the size of what was cut out, and the main tumor can be seen right in the middle (lighter colour).
Photo 2 : The white bit is where it separates the left and the right lobe.
Photo 3: Another shot from another angle.
Photo 4: The super ugly satelite tumors can be seen clearly.
Photo 5 : Dr Gong actually sliced up the liver to show us what healthy liver and tumor looked like.

By 5pm+, my dad was wheeled out and brought straight to the liver unit ICU. He was still and will continue to be sadeted until the next morning. We were only allowed to see him through the glass panel, as he’s still very vulnerable.

The sight of him with all the tubes and machine beeping nearby, was rather heart breaking.

That evening, knowing his surgery is successful, and he’s in stable condition, we went to celebrate. We had dinner at Jumbo at Eastcoast, after sending my eldest sister off to the airport (she was going to Hong Kong 2 days later).

13th March, Saturday
I stayed the night at my BIL’s niece’s place, and at 6am+, we left for the hospital. They have removed the sedation from dad, and he was waking up when we arrived.

They actually have to strap him down, worrying he might just pull out all the tubes and gadgets that were attached to him when he’s awake.

Besides having a slightly high blood pressure, he was slowly coming to his senses. He told us he could remember nothing about the operation. His last memory was him being put on the stretcher, and then waking up now in the ICU.

He was not talking much, as he said he still felt sleepy, but we tried to keep him awake by talking to him etc.

By 11am+, he was out of ICU and transferred to the normal ward. My brother stayed till 1pm before he left for the airport for his flight home (he was going to New York a day later). The rest of us, just hung around the hospital accompanying dad. Luckily there’s TV and there’s broadband, so we were kept entertained.

Dad was slowly more alert, and chi-chatted to us a bit. He was still not able to eat anything, but solely depended on drips.

In the night, my youngest sis stayed the night at the hospital, and I went to my friend, SK’s house to stay.

14th March, Sunday
My dad could only have clear diet. I boiled him some ABC soup before I left for the hospital.

I took over my sister’s shift, and she was free to do her own things (but most of the time she remained in the hospital).

The nurses helped my dad to stand up for a couple of times, but he was complaining he felt dizzy, so he only walked till the door, and then had to turn back to rest. The nurses claimed the morphine might have caused that. He was spending most of his time seated however, and only lied down to take naps or to sleep.

His appetite wasn’t very good, eating (soup only) and drinking a little only.

15th March, Monday
Dr said he could start on soft diet, so I boiled some porridge for him. The hospital provided pretty good food actually, mashed potato with chopped fish, minced beef, etc, so it has been decided that I no longer needed to cook for him, and he’d just take the hospital food.

He could stand longer and even walked in the room withoug feeling dizzy. In the afternoon, the nurse decided to take him out for a walk. He’s definitely back to his normal self when he asked, “Does my hair look good?” before we left the room.

16th March, Tuesday
Still on soft diet, but eating more.

I came in about noon time to relieve my sister. We ate cold food which I packed from the coffee shops near my friend’s place, and also whatever dad couldn’t finish.

Dad was doing well, walking more, and the nurses actually had to tell him to slow down his pace. He complained no pain, but just said the stitches were a bit tight.

They also removed the catheter, so he had to go to the toilet to pee.

17th March, Wednesday
Still on soft diet and the nurses and doctors were closely monitoring his bowel movement. No bowel movement, no discharge. That was the order.

Dad went to the toilet a couple of times, but always came out disappointed.

We bought prune juice, got him papayas, and more fruit juice to try to help him.

When I left for the day, there was still no sign of the poop. Dad was getting a bit anxious.

18th March, Thursday
I sms-ed my sister in the morning, and she said dad has done his poop. He was sooo happy, he was declaring victory when he came out of the toilet.

So when I got in to the hospital, he was all ready to be discharged.

I settled all remaining hospital bills, and then waited till 2pm, our check in time at the service appartment.

We moved to a service appartment on Grange Road called Hotel Alternatives. They have a couple of units in Lucky Tower. Tey partitioned each condo units to several rooms, and let everyone share the common kitchen. We had a 2 Bedroom unit, and it’s actually the living and dining room of the condo. The toilet was the powder room. 🙁

It’s reasonably priced ($270/unit), and we thought we were going to stay for 7 nights, that’s why we settled for this. Boy, the thin plywood wall made the slightest sound audible, being a light sleeper, I didn’t have any good sleep while we were there.

That evening, the girls arrived with Daddy. They were so happy to see me after a week. Both was clinging on to me all the time.

19th March, Friday
My brother and his family arrived. Dad was feeling so much better, but he complained about the bed in the ‘hotel’ being too low, and difficult for him to get in and out of bed.

20th March, Saturday
Dad went for his follow up in the hospital, and requested the doctor to allow him to go home earlier. Instead of staying in Singapore for another 7 nights, he was given the green light to leave, since he was recovering well.

So it was decided that he will follow my brother home on Sunday, 20th March.

We were left with the problem of getting our money back for the other 3 nights that we would not be staying in the ‘hotel’, since we paid them up front in cash!

I will write about girls’ time in Singapore next. As for my dad, he’s now staying home and recovering well. He’s however, complaining that he’s very bored, and trying to get us to allow him to go back to work at his book shop.

We thought he should at least have a 30days confinement period, but I think he’s winning, next week I heard, my BIL will be sending him to the book shop to work half day.

Zaria is very chatty nowadays, and very good in talking back, I’m sooo entertained by the things she said.

When she’s angry with us nowadays, i.e. for not giving her something she wanted, she would say to me, “I’m going to give you poison apple to eat.”
And to Daddy, “I’m going to put you in jail.”

When I raised my voice to her, she’ll ask me, “Why did you scold me?”

Once, she wasn’t eating properly during dinner, I kept asking her to just take the last bite. After some pestering, she reluctantly took the last bite, and then started coughing dramatically and said, “I think I’m going to vomit already, you better send me to the hospital.” o.O”

When she wants us to carry or piggy back her and we refused, she would say, But I’m very very very very very very very very…. very very very very tired.”

One day, we were out and I was piggy backing her, I have my hair bunned up, and when she wanted to lean on me, her face got pressed on my clip, making her uncomfortable; so she asked me to remove my hair clip.
I told her it was a hot day, and I preferred my hair bunned up.
“You know mum, you don’t look nice if you tie up your hair like that. Better you put your hair down” o.O”

When we went out one Sunday, Zaria sat in the front passenger seat, andＩsat behind. So she told us she’s now the mummy, I was the jiejie, and Zara the meimei.
To tease her, I asked, “You can be mummy meh? You don’t know how to write also.”
She replied, “I know wut, I can write my name already.”
“Ok, then you know how to read or not? Later must read bed time story you know.”
She replied, “It’s already late in the night. We cannot do any more reading. o.O”

Daddy normally does grocery shopping with the girls, and will give them an ice cream treat after shopping. I have been telling him off not to give them any more ice cream because they shouldn’t be eating ice cream so often.
One day, after grocery shopping, Zaria came straight to me and declared, “Mummy, today we didn’t eat ice cream!”.
Sensing a lie, I asked her, “What flavour did you eat?”
She replied without thinking, “I ate smarties flavour.”
Ok, for now, mummy is still smarter than her. 😛

We brought our father to Asia Centre For Liver Diseases & Transplantation located at Gleneagles Hospital Singapore for another round of diagnosis last weekend. It has finally decided that, it’s best he does a surgery, for these reasons :

1) His tumor is only on the left lobe, other part of his liver and organs are clean

2) His liver function is normal based on the blood test, meaning the other part of his liver is in good condition

3) His tumor is too big to be removed or killed by chemo, if he were to go for chemo, he’ll have to do many rounds to reduce the size.

His surgery will be tomorrow. Hope all will be well.

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

I’m so touched by a few, who’d shown me so much compasion since they knew about my father’s condition.

Dinah, who helped me made the appointment with her BIL during Chinese New Year.

C, my neighbour, dropped by with books; one by Dr Wu, who has fought and won his cancer battle through a change of diet and lifestyle; and another book on negative ion and its benefit.
C also offered to take care of the girls and have them stay with her, if I needed to be away.

K, also my neighbour, in the midst of moving, dropped by with recipe books for cancer patients which she has to dig in her packed boxes.

SK, who’ll be giving me a place to stay, and her kitchen to use next week when my dad is in the hospital.

I’m most touched by Lisa, who is herself battling cancer with spunk. When she knew about my father, she started sending me all the long sms-es with information on things that I can do, or get for my father to help him, based on her own experience and what she knows. She said, “Fighting cancer is like a crash course.. getting a new degree.. in the shortest time.”

I thank her for giving me the cheat sheet.

And what touched me most was her dropping by my house yesterday with these for my dad.
Leaflet on Dr Rath’s Program.
3 bottles of Mangosteen juice (high in anti oxidant)
A box of Maharishi Amrit Kalash Mak 4 & 5 (also high on anti oxidant)

I didn’t get to see her, because I was out with the girls.

She also gave 2 Chinese style bags for the girls.

The girls were so happy to see those, and immediately started using them. See what they used them for?

*bow humbly* Thank you Lisa, C, K, SK, Dinah. I’m so touched by your compasion, your help and your friendship.

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

Girls’ prayers for my dad now became something like this,
Zara : “Hope Ah Kong’s operation will not be painful. And he will get better after that, then he can play with me.”
Zaria : “Hope the doctor wash the knife clean clean clean for Ah Kong’s operation. And after that Ah Kong will not have diarhea any more.”

I was meant to post this earlier, but so busy with so many things.

I think Zaria is very much influenced by Zara, because Zara draws a lot, Zaria too likes to join in and does her drawing, and I think she’s quite good for her age. I like it especially when she adds a story to her drawing, explaining what she’s drawing.

These were done by Zaria a month ago.
She said, “This is a princess with her beautiful bed. See the crown or not?”

“And then the wicked witch casting a spell, and the magic is zig zag zig zag coming out of the wand.”

And then during Chinese New Year, she started writing her name and adding ‘faces’ to it. Nobody actually taught her how to do it. o.O”
It’s become kind of like her signature.

She’s growing up so fast. And I’m enjoying her cute drawings and her cheeky conversations very much these days.

The little artist (the ‘crystal’ on her chest is a sticker ‘pendant’ Zara gave to Zaria. Since Zaria doesn’t have a necklace yet)