My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Daddy wanted some home made Christmas Puddings. The wife got busy one weekend….

Daddy and the few neighbours I gave this to claimed it’s really nice.
Home made Christmas puddings anyone?

I’m not an expert in this field, but I tried to sign to my girls as soon as they were able to give me eye contact. Since babies’ fine muscles for hands will develop sooner than their muscle required for speech, baby signing will equip them with some means to communicate to us even when they are too young to speak the words.

I don’t believe the maids or myself can master too many signs, so I’d only picked a few signs which I think is important, such as, Milk; More; Eat; Drink; Sing; Pain; Scared; full (patting the stomach); and I love You; and I taught the maids the signs.

To help the girls associate the sign to the word, we do the sign when we speak the word.  Example : “Do you want milk?” When the word milk is spoken, we clenched our fist to sign milk. In the end, the girls may pick up the actual sign, or they may invent their own which is suitable for their little hands. The most important is, we are able to communicate with signs.

I pick up baby signing through these sites : 
Singing with Babies, just to get started
American Sign Language (ASL) Browser, which lists words alphabetically, and provide you with videos of each sign.

An archive pix of Zara signing “MORE”

When the child knows you can understand her when she tries to communicate with you, she will try to communicate more. That’s my experience. So watch out for your child’s own baby signing, or babling which may mean something.

Just to share two incidents where baby signing helped save the day for us:
1st :
It was Zara’s 1st birthday, and at 3am that night, she woke up wailing. We tried pacifying her thinking it was just one of those nights. However, she kept signing “pain” while crying. We immediately brought her to the nearest A&E. She actually had very bad stomach flu, with bad stomach ache, purging and vomiting. We wouldn’t have known and rushed her to the hospital if she didn’t tell us she was hurting.

2nd :
The 2nd day Zara attended her class, she was still scared to be left in class. I told her we’d be waiting outside. On a few occasions, I peeped in through the opening of the door to her arts and craft class and signed “I love you” when she looked up warily. She nodded, and smiled, then went back to work. When she needed the re-assurance, she just looked up and I repeated the sign to her. It was like a secret code, calming her and making her feel good.

I love watching Zaria’s expression when she’s watching TV.

Look at Zaria, all geared for the show, even before the show began she was already signing ‘more’.

The show began, the animals were appearing, Zaria was getting real serious.

The cows went Mooooo, look at Zaria attempting to do moooo.

Watch Zaria signing bath (again, her own version but not the ASL standard) as the pigs were bathing now.

More animals were coming out, Zaria was getting really excited.

The show was about to end. She’s probably asking, “Where are the animals?”

The last scene where all the animal puppets appeared for the last time. Watch her go “THERE……”

Finally, when the show has ended, she wanted me to play it again. “I want more!”

I love to see these expressions. While Zaria is watching Baby Einstein – Baby McDonald, I’ll be watching her. 🙂

When Zara saw these for the first time ……

She pulled on my hand excitedly, “Look! Look! Mummy! So many big fizzy drinks!” (she really thought they were canned drinks)

And then the other day, Zaria saw this for the first time buzzing about in our house.

She pointed to the zooming fly and shouted, “Bird-Bird! Bird-Bird!”

Ha! Ha!

See, I don’t miss TV (which is never turned on on weekdays except for the girls’ program) because I get free entertainment from my girls. 😛

What is Beauty, what is pretty? Who is it to judge if one is beautiful?

Even Zara at the age of 3, judges beaty by its appearance. I had this conversation with her a week back :
Me : Zara, will you still love mummy if mummy is old and wrinkly.
Zara : No.
Me : *teasing* So you want to have another mummy?
Zara : Yeah. Next time when mummy old already, not pretty any more, Daddy will marry another girl.
Me : You want to have a step-mother?
Zara : No. No. Daddy will get married with a kind girl (she relates step mother to wicked)
…. Giving her father the go-ahead to marry another, if I got wrinkly.. o.O” ….

I talked to her further about beauty, and taught her to judge beauty by the heart and not the looks, or what people wear. Etc etc. In the end, when I repeated, “So now, Zara, will you still love mummy if mummy is old and wrinkly.” Her reply was,“Yes, because mummy is a kind mummy.”

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How many young girls out there think they are not pretty enough, how many even think they are ugly? How do most define beauty?

Dove Self-Esteem Fund, a global program, invites us all to play a role in supporting and promoting a wider definition of beauty, to raise self esteem of girls and young women to make them feel more beautiful and confident every day.

As a mother of two girls, I thought this is a wonderful program, but I wonder how they intend to reach out to more people especially outside of the US. My two girls will grow up one day, and would be part of the crowd who are hung up on looks. This same crowd may have their self esteem affected if they think they are not the stereotypical beauty.

This program will help young girls out there understand what is beauty, and it’s not just about looks, which in turn may help raise confidence of these young girls and women.

The program is looking for passionate and genuine real beauty advocates to be part of this online community of supporters. If you are interested, do drop by their website.

Note : This is not a paid post…Oh well, I only got a t-shirt to spread the word. The conversation I have with Zara is 100% real, not made up at all.

LB gave the royal order to do this tag. Such a 8 tag….

♥8 Things I’m Passionate About:♥
1) My girls, Zara and Zaria (but of course)
2) Food – I just love good food!
3) Cooking and baking – I always wonder why I didn’t go into this line
4) Natural Skin Care and Body Care
5) Child care – that’s why I work from home, so I can supervise the maids and not let them do what they feel like doing
6) Photography – but I suck in this area
7) Books
8 ) Blogging

♥8 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:♥
1) Write a Will (please don’t let me die before I get this done)
2) See my girls grow up
3) See my girls walk down the aisle
4) Visit the Grand Canyon
5) Make my first million (possible?)
6) Read all the books I have on my book shelf
7) Watch all the DVDs/VCDs I’ve stocked up on
8 ) Visit my Greek friend’s twins in Greece

♥8 Things I Say Often:♥
1) Zara! (shouting warning)
2) Mei Mei! or Zaria! (shouting warning)
3) Xxxxxxx Yyy (shouting Daddy’s full name when I need him to do something for me urgently)
4) What is it now?! (upon hearing crying or screaming while working)
5) Zaria, danger! or Mei Mei, danger! (if no. 2 didn’t work)
6) Be careful! (to the girls)
7) I love you (to the girls)
8 ) Kiss Mummy

♥8 Books I’ve Recently Read :♥
1) Twelve Dancing Princess
2) Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
3) Princess and The Pea
4) Beauty and The Beast
5) Sleeping Beauty
6) Baby, Boo!
7) Maisy’s Bath Time
8 ) The Long March – by Sun Shuyun (my current read)
(Every day before the girls’ bed time, we have to spend about 30mins on book reading. Most books selected by Zara is princess related, and Zaria likes her Baby, Boo! and Maisy series, so these are the books I read repeatedly to the girls. I do love reading, but then, I only get to read my book in the toilet ahem while doing my business. So it takes like 3 to 4 months to finish one.)

♥8 Songs I Could Listen To Over and Over: ♥
1) Don’t Panic – Cold Play
2) Everyboy Hurts – REM
3) You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban
4) Something Changed – Pulp
5) Somewhere Over The Rainbow
6) 沙滩 (Blue Moon) – David Tao
7) Dear God – David Tao
8 ) Sorry – Jackie Cheung

♥8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends: ♥
1) Intelligence (at least able to catch my jokes)
2) Willing to lend a ear to me when I need it
3) A good heart
4) Comfortable to be with
5) Balance in decision making
6) Humour
7) Positive mindset
8 ) Empathetic heart

♥8 Things I’ve Learnt This Past Year: ♥
1) Be creative and create my own recipe for baby meals
2) Simple cup cake decorations
3) Breastfeeding Zaria on alternate breast while lying on my right
4) Setting up an ADSL Router
5) Managing 2 attention seeking children
6) Blogging for money (ok, I’d just started this, so I’m still learning)
7) Being creative in my excuse, reasoning, ‘lecturing’ with Zara (as she’s getting more intelligent and tough to get conned)
8 ) Pacifying 2 crying children at the same time :-X

♥8 Person I want to tag :♥
1) JO-N
2) Jaccs
3) Jasmine
4) Nadia
5) Sunshine
6) Kitty Cat
7) Vien
8 ) Chooi Peng

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Here is another tag from Chinee and JO-N :

♥7 things you don’t know about me♥ :

1) I studied 12 years in a famous Chinese school (not even government but semi-private where everything is taught in Chinese) but I think my English is better than my Chinese. 🙁
2) I used to be a teacher : 1.5yrs in a primary school, and then another 2yrs in an English Language Centre for children. I thought I was going to make teaching my life time profession.
3) I normally do relatively well academically, but for A-levels, I scored 2Ds and 1N and received several warnings from the college because I skipped classes way too often (all because of a stupid ex boy friend)
4) I almost gave up hope trying for a baby, and thought we’ll never going to have children, and then we got Zara.
5) I’m very impatient, I get very upset if I needed to repeat something several times and the other person just don’t get it. I think I’m a lousy teacher to Zara.
6) I absolutely hate clutter but then I myself am not a very tidy person.. I mean I want to be tidy, but I have difficulty maintaining it.
7) I’m very sentimental, I like to keep rubbish mementos. My BT phone card during uni days, the entrance ticket to museums I’d visited, the extra small blouse I once was able to fit in… I have more cupboards than Daddy in the house to store all these. 😛 And he calls me a rubbish collector.

And I pass this to :
Syn; Seng Kor (You have become a mystery); Irene

What can this 11th month old do besides messing up the house?

♥Mobility & Dextirity♥
She moves around the house mainly by cruising, or crawling on her knee (I thought she would not be crawling on her knee like Zara, but I was wrong).
Can stand unsupported momentarily.
She’s starting to enjoy walking about with her hands being held.
Her pincer grip is getting better, able to pick up small rice puffs for eating.
She likes to pick things up and place them in bottles, boxes, containers.
She is able to climb down from the bed, buttocks and legs first! Even stairs, with some assistance.

♥Speech Development♥
She’s really doing well, and her vocabulary is expanding. She likes to talk and express herself, some words are still not comprehensible (to us), but we’re understanding her more. Here are some of the new words she can say.
Zara : Zah-Wa
Jiejie : Teh-Teh
Daddy : Pa-pa
Banana : Ah-Nana
Bear : Beh-Beh
Park : Pak-Pak
Bath : Ba-Ba
Duck : Duck-Duck
Back (put back, come back) : Back
Biscuit : Kuht
Bird : Ber-Bert
Pat : Peh-Pek
Rusty (our cat) : Tih
Book : Boo

Every morning, when she wakes up, she’ll turn to check for Zara, she will point to Zara and shouts, “Zah-Wah! Zah-Wah!” Sometimes she’ll crawl to Zara’s bed and pat Zara and shouts some more “Zah-Wah! Zah-Wah!” (she normally talks in a shout like voice).

When I ask her, “Where’s Daddy?” If she could hear Daddy in the shower, she’ll shout, “Pa Pa! Pa Pa!”

Me? When I ask her to call Mummy, she grins and keeps quiet. 🙁

Another example of her talking :
When it’s time to go to the park, she’ll shout excitedly, “Pak Pak!”. When we leave the house, she’ll look up and point to the sky, and say, “Ber Bert!”; flapping her hands at the same time. When we reach the park, she’ll point to the rocking duck and shout, “Duck-duck!”, asking for a ride.

♥Other means of communication♥
She sign pain, but in her own way by fanning her face with her fingers, and frowning (she can even do this on demand).

She expresses her happiness by clapping.
She compliments the chef (good food) by cluthching  her fist with a little of her thumb sticking out.
She demands more of some thing, by tapping her pointer to her other palm.

She says YES by moving her head forward and backwards.

She’s also able to understand simple instructions like, “Give mummy the book, mummy read to you.” “Danger Zaria, come back.” “Cannot put in the mouth!

♥Food and Milk Intake♥
She loves eating. We give her 3 meals a day, and some light snack in between, such as rice puffs, fruits, Baby Bites.
She is still still fully on breastmilk, and I feed her on demand (she’ll come to me, and sign the milk sign, or sometimes, she’ll point to the study and sign the milk sign to whoever is handling her).

♥Sleeping♥
Unlike Zara who only stopped taking 2 naps when she’s close to 2yrs old, Zaria is occasinally taking only 1 nap a day. 🙁
She sleeps at 9:30pm (if she only took 1 nap) or 11pm together with Zara (if she took 2 naps on that day).
She wakes up at about 8am daily.

♥Emotions and character♥
She’s more clingy now, preferring me over most people. However, she only fusses a little before she allows another person to carry or handle her.

She shows her displeasure by crying, at times a bit dramatic by crouching on the floor and crying. However, unlike Zara who can cry for hours, she can be easily pacified.

She loves books, flipping them, pointing at the pictures, saying the names of familiar objects (“Ao” for cat, “Ah-nana” for banana etc). Sometimes even laughing when she sees a funny picture (e.g. a baby doing a funny face).

She enjoys Zara’s program occasionally, especially when there are lots of singing involved, and can sit at the sofa watching together with Zara; clapping her hands, and moving to the music.

She’s rather independant, we can normally leave her alone with some toys or books, and she can keep herself occupied.

Continue from here.

This is the last bit of the trip. Bear with me as I don’t go on trips like these often, and I plan to record the trip in detail for my future reading/referrencing as my memory these days really suck!

♥Nov 9th (Fri)♥
Our last day in Shanghai and I was planning to do all the shopping needed on this day.

Our first stop was to change some money as we were running short of cash. Do you know that there’s no money changer in China (unless it’s black market) and besides hotels, the only place you can change foreign currency is from Bank of China and not any other banks? Also, not many shops and restaurants in Shanghai actually accept foreign credit cards; quite inconvenient for the tourists like us.

After getting some cash, we went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (上海科技馆) in Pudong. Not to visit the Museum but actually to go to this shopping place opposite the Museum. This plazy houses lots of little shops selling counterfeit shoes, bags (Le Sport Sac mainly) and clothings, but it was quite dissapointing actually as the designs and items were the same in most of the shops. (What a contrast huh? 1 side it’s the Science and Technology Museum; directly opposite, it’s this place filled shops selling counterfeit goods!)

I bought a dress for Zaria and a pair of shoes for Zara (later I found out the quality isn’t really that good). That was all I got. Not a very fruitful shopping trip.

We then got out of the mall and walked about outdoor, where we could get a glimpse of the modern Pudong.

The modern Pudong : Dragon at the Science and Technology Museum, we caught sight of an airship cruising above; Modern buildings in Pudong; Century Ave (世纪大道); Old folks dancing outside of a mall, for some, they danced with their imaginary partners

It was then back to Nanjing and Fuzhou Road (福州路) for more shopping.

Brightly litted Nanjing Road; Last pic is a photo of our Motel which I took at 5:30am before we left for the airport

The thing I like about China in terms of shopping is the books, DVDs and CDs there are really cheap. Fuzhou Road (福州路) has lots of multi-level book shops. I was spending a lot of time there glancing at books and CDs. Daddy who doesn’t read Chinese, kept himself occupied by going through CDs so he didn’t mind the wait. I bought quite a lot for myself.

While glancing at books, I probably left my own guide book on the shelf and later could not locate it any more. Luckily, this happened on our last day of the trip, and I no longer need to reference it. Still, I was a bit upset because I like to keep my guide books as a remembrance/record of a trip. 🙁

Luckily too, we’d identified the restaurant to have our last dinner before the guide book went missing. We headed to an old restaurant Lao Zheng Xing (老正兴) on Fuzhou Road for our last meal in Shanghai.

Our last meal in Shanghai consisted of : Fried fermented or smelly tofu (臭豆腐); Toufu with crab roe; Fried local vege; Fish and turnip soup

♥Nov 10th (Sat)♥
We headed back to KL in the early morning flight.

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Because I speak and read Chinese and Daddy doesn’t (he actually speaks passable Chinese but he didn’t want to do any talking), I had to do all the ordering, enquiries, directions asking, navigatitions, ticket purchasing, forms filling etc etc. Tired, you know.

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How are the people in Shanghai?
Besides my colleauges, I think most people are quite rude or maybe they are too busy to be nice.
When we asked for directions, it was never nicely told. They would be pointing impatiently and said, “那边!” “”There!”
When we were blocking someone’s way, instead of saying “Excuse me”, they shouted at us, “EH! EH!”, like it’s your fault for inconveniencing them.
In those lower end restaurants, waitresses were impatient you took time to order or checked out the menu.
You find spit every where. People smoke in restaurants!
Men who are alone get approached by pimps offering them female companion in the busiest street. Daddy was offered that service from a very decently dressed man when I was not by his side for 1min!

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Do you wonder how Zara and Zaria cope?
Zaria was fine, as she’s used to us leaving her at home while we go to the market or bring Zara for her lessons.

Zara on the other hand was another story. The first 2 days, she eagerly waited for my return. When the door bell rang, she rushed to the door and happily announced, “My mummy come back already!”. When we called home, she came to the phone and said “Mummy, you bought me any surprise or not?” or “I miss you mummy. Are you coming home?” and then she’ll be sobbing.

Then on the 3rd day onwards, she used a different technique to fight her feelings. She kept telling Tuyam she didn’t like me any more. She said things like, “Ask mummy don’t come back any more!” “I don’t like mummy.” “If mummy come back, I will put her in naughty corner!”. She refused to come to the phone when we called home. However my maid said occasionally, she would cry sadly for no reason.

Both girls were very happy to see us when we got home.

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What happened to breastfeeding?
I expressed 3 times a day when I was in Shanghai. Morning and night was easy, because I did it in our room. The afternoon session can be a bit of a challenge. I did it in the toilets at the Museums (which is cleaner); did it in a quite corner of a restaurant with jackets drapped over me; did it in smelly toilets in restaurants. The worse was in the Shanghai Airport nursing room. It was labelled a nursing room, but it was also a place where cleaners store their carts with all the detergent and mops. In the 30mins I was there, many cleaners attempted to get into the room, even male cleaners! I had to be really fierce and shouted at them, and then they stopped stepping in and waited outside instead. 😛

I should have brought my nursing cape, which would make expressing easier. 🙁

What did I do with the milk? After this experience, I didn’t want to store and bring them home. I drank them all. Yes! Every bit of them. I expressed, I drank. No wastage! Daddy said I actually had better complexion and I glowed after a few days. Haha. Belief it or not?

Ever have your children ‘interfering’ in a fight/quarrel debate you have with your spouse?

As Zara grows older, she becomes more ‘involved’ in the adults’ conversations and tries to include her opinion of things.

Sometimes, we speak in Cantonse so that she won’t understand and she will remain quiet; but when the discussion becomes a bit too out of hand heated, she’ll say, “Shhh.. Shhhhh Daddy.. Shhhh Mummy.” she actually helps to clear the tension that’s building in our conversation, and helps straighten my knotted brows.

Last week, the below happened :

Daddy was angry with some small fault of Jelly, our Filipino maid. He was giving a lecture to Jelly over dinner, and I was getting a bit annoyed (dinner time in the house always ended up being a time he reprimands the maids).
Me : “Next time I’m going to have my dinner earlier before you come home. So stress eating dinner like that.”
Daddy : “So, you think I should just shut up is it?”
Zara : *matter-of-fact-ly* “Yah, Daddy. I think you should shut up and just eat your dinner.”
Daddy : *jaw dropped for a moment* “Oh, Zara, please don’t get involved in this.”
Mummy : *stiffling a giggle* “See, your daugther also tells you to just eat your dinner.”
We never used “shut up” on her before, so I guess, she doesn’t know the ‘seriousness’ of the phrase at all. She probably thought Daddy was yakking too much, and ought to stop and have his dinner.  😛

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

Can’t remember what I did, and Daddy made the remark.
Daddy : “Are you nuts or what?”
Zara : *Quickly went over to Daddy and told him*“No no no. Mummy is not nuts. Daddy is nuts!”
I was stiffling a laugh, thinking to myself, that’s really sweet of her to defend me.
Zara : *added* “Daddy is Nuts. Mummy is Bread.”
Me : Huh? (now, it doesn’t make sense)
Zara : *continued* “Daddy likes to eat nuts ma, so Daddy is nuts. Mummy likes to eat bread, so mummy is Bread.”
Me : *roll eyes*
Still, Daddy is nuts, not me, that’s the important point.  😛

Continue from here. (If you wonder how many more parts there are, there’s only one more left).

♥Nov 7th (Wed)♥
With an overnight bag, we rushed to the train station early morning to catch the fast train to Hangzhou (杭州). We got a first class ticket, the coach was really comfortable and it only cost RMB68 per tix. Daddy and I slept through the ~1hr20min ride.

When we arrived at the Hangzhou station, there were so many elderly ladies offering their help (accomodation? maps? directions?), but we just shook our head all the time. With the information listed on their website, we managed to take a bus from Hangzhou Train Station, walked for 10mins and arrived at Mingtown Garden Youth Hostel (明堂-杭州湖中居青年旅舍), located at West of Xihu (西湖), which is the best place to stay as it’s not as busy as the East (high rise and buzy streets on the East).

We had some problem checking in as Daddy left our passports in the Motel back in Shanghai. The staff in the hostel was helpful, although they could have rejected our stay; they called our Motel, requested the Motel to provide them with out info. Motel168 wasn’t very cooperative, in the end, we promised we’ll fax them our passports and Visas and they agreed to let us have our room (which was pre-booked by phone).

Just like what was written on the guidebook, and the website, the hostel is surrounded by lakes and gardens, absolutely beautiful! We have a room all to ourselves with ensuite bathroom (just in case you wonder if we needed to share our room or toilet). The room was very comfortable. Clean room, clean white sheets, beautiful pine wood ceiling and a window opening to the back garden. Best of all, it didn’t stink of cigerette smoke.

After our lunch, we rented a bike each, and started exploring the area.

We cycled up some slopes and visited the Dragon Well (Long Jing) tea plantation (龙井茶园). It was lovely, so green every where!

Then we rode through Xudi Causeway (苏堤), which cuts across Xihu from North to South (~3.5km), and then have dinner in Wei Zhuang (House of Taste) (知味观。味庄). This restaurant serves the best food that we’d tasted in our trip, every thing tasted so delicious especially the nice dainty dim sum dessert. Too bad I was running a flu, some of the taste were a bit muddled.

Bestest duck! A cold dish, but very delicious; prawn triangles; I didn’t like the fish (baked and accompanied with home made creamy sauce), but Daddy thought it was uniquely prepared; the dainty dessert : some pastry with lotus filing and chestnut stuffing rolls.

After the yummylicious dinner, we cycled another 5Km in the dark to get back to the hostel. This was when we could really feel the chill, but it was still bearable with just a light fleece jacket on.

♥Nov 8th (Thurs)♥
In the morning, we woke up to birds chirping outside our window. We had a simple breakfast at the hostel and started exploring the gardens around the hostel by foot. The gardens are actually very beautiful, with lakes and bridges and streams everywhere. We also took an hour boat ride (battery operated so we just needed to ‘steer’) at the lake, pretty relaxing.

Beautiful views around West Xihu

Some of the plants and objects I found in the gardens

Then it was time to check out. We left our baggage in the train station, and explored a bit of the old town. Things here are actually cheaper than Yuyuan, and I was really amused by the street food available. 10 fried scropions for RMB5 anyone?

We didn’t try any of these, but we saw quite a lot of people buying them.

♥A Chinese Medical Hall which has been listed as Historical Heritage in Hangzhou, they were giving away free herbal tea, which Daddy and I took two cups each.♥♥Street performer getting to work♥♥Xihu beer that Daddy took with words : Free From Formaldehyde (do they actually brew beer with Formaldehyde in China?♥♥Hangzhou station, people were trying to get into the platform to get into the train♥

We headed back to Shanghai on the 5:20pm train, and back to the smokey Motel168.