My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Yesterday was Zara’s actual birthday! I was meant to post this up yesterday but in the evening,  we brought her out for ice cream to celebrate and when we got home, it was “Mummy-finished-work-already-so-play-and-read-to-me” time for the 2 girls.

The girl is 3 years old now. See how she’d evolved :

Mummy and Daddy both love you very much! You are indeed very precious to us!
We may not be able to spend as much time with you now as before, but don’t think that with Mei-mei’s arrival, we love you any less.

continued from here

♥Nov 5th (Mon)♥
Breakfast was streetfood. Although breakfast was included in our Motel rate, it was lousy. Our Motel is nearby Yun-Nan Road (云南路) which has many small local restaurants. In the morning, lots of stalls are scattered along the street selling green onion pan cakes (葱油饼); You-tiao (油条) and other savoury and sweet pastries. I’m able to fill my stomach with just RMB2 or less, what a steal. Daddy on the other hand, has too much concern over the hygenes level of the food, he preferred having fruits (he’s the healthy eater at home).

We started with a stroll to HuaiHai Road (淮海路), which is like our Bukit Bintang. Lots of high rise and super big department stores.

Around Shanghai :
♥Maple Leaves♥ ♥A muriel outside a toy shop, I thought this looked like a work of a Malaysian Cartonist♥/span> ♥A sign appearing in all underpass “Beware of Slip  – Shouldn’t it read : “Beware, slippery” or some thing else♥
♥Sun Yat Sen former residence (孫中山故居)♥ ♥Daddy slurping some grass jelly/cincau in a Taiwanese cafe. He loves this♥
♥Seafood available on Yun-nan Road. Can you spot the cage of exotic birds with another cage of snake above them? (I can imagine the stress these animals feel)♥

We visited the Shanghai Museum in the afternoon. It was quite good (it was more to make me feel good that I visited places other than the malls).

Items which caught my attention in the Museum

♥Nov 6th (Tues)♥
We were off to Zhouzhuang (周庄), one of the most famous old water township in China.

We initially wanted to take a bus to Zhouzhuang and do our own walking, but it so happened that the next available bus came with a tour guide, and we only had to pay RMB5 extra. It helped to have a guide, as we were able to know what is famous in Zhouzhuang and the history behind the town.

♥Lunch at Zhouzhuang : The vege tasted something like a cross between water cress and choy-sum; the prawns small but sweet; the omelette was fried with local white bait; and dish in the middle is steam Ba-yu (巴鱼) which translates to Palm Fish as the fish is the size of the palm, only available in Zhouzhuang♥ ♥live Ba-Yu, a fish which is not fully evolved from a reptile, so they have lungs. Emperor used to eat only the lungs as a delicacy (LB, any for you?)♥ ♥Famous pork knuckles (for sale everywhere around Zhouzhuang, all claimed to be ‘original’)

Zhouzhuang is made famous internationally by a famous Chinese painter Chen Yi Fei; old bridges, waterways, boats, willow trees lining the walk way. No cars are allowed in the town. However, recent years, the place has become very commercialised with everybody trying to push their wares to tourists visiting the town.

Cobbled street, water ways, boats, bridges are all famous sights in Zhouzhuang

That day excursion was good, not too taxing for Daddy, and we were able to take naps on the bus journey (~1.5hrs to fro).

When we arrived Shanghai, we rushed to the Wang Bao He Restaurant (王宝和酒家). I have a few team members who are located in Shanghai, and my boss suggested we meet and have a team dinner. Since it’s hairy crab season, we went to the most famous crab restaurant in Shanghai, and had the ‘crab banquet’. There were like 12 or more dishes all prepared with something from the crab or to compliment the crab. And the final dish was a hairy crab each. It was a very expensive dinner, costing RMB550 per head. Fuyoh!

These were some of the dishes I managed to capture. The rest ended in the stomach

It was a good meeting with the team members, all of whom I’ve met for the first time.

As for the Hairy crabs, I still find Malaysia’s crab the best! I’m not so much of a crab roe/egg person I guess.

The birthday party preperation started quite a while back, thinking whom to invite, what food to serve (cook? cater? fast food?), what cake to order, what should be included in the party pack, and how to accomodate all the people in our small house.

Last Friday, I woke up at 6am from Stress!
I got changed, and went to the wet market to buy some of the ingredients still missing from the dishes that we’ll be cooking for Zara’s birthday celebration.

We had about 40 guests. 12 kids, and 28 adults, mainly family and the neighbours whom Zara has been playing with. The party was last Saturday, 4 days before her actual birthday.

The preparation (chopping, peeling, seasoning etc), cooking and baking started on Friday. I did those that do not required time at the stove, e.g. cup cakes, coleslaw, grilled chick wings, garlic bread. Tuyam cooked the curry, fried chick wings, fried noodle and rice. We bought some Char Siew (Chinese : BBQ Pork) and Pizzas last minute, worried that there may be not enough food.

Heaps of cupcake baked. Items in Party Packs meant for majority of the kids (babies and older kids have different items) bought from Shanghai 

I baked, cooked, decorated the house, coordinated the re-arranging of the furniture, packing the party packs, confirming with guests if they are coming, etc etc. On Saturday, what did Daddy do huh? He was reading newspaper, when I was working hard at the kitchen and at the same time trying to entertained the girls. He stopped only when I gave him the icy cold stare, and told him to get some baloons blown up. He got the cheek to complain our pump is not the right pump!! Then when I nagged him, he said if I was so stressed out, I shouldn’t throw any more birthay parties at home! Grrrrrr! To give him some credit, he did the last minute shopping and picked up the cake and the pizzas. Oh, and he paid for most of the things.

We had way too much food when every thing was placed on the table (so buzy running around, didn’t even have time to take photos of the food), and lots of left over after that.

When the guests started arriving, we could feel the house was really crammed. We didn’t have enough chairs, so pepole have to sit on the floor.

All the younger girls were admiring Zara’s cake, ordered from A Piece of Cake, just like last year, but this year’s theme is Princess!!!

Zara and her friends from the neighbourhood

Zara and her favourite cousin, Sam (with Zaria looking a bit lost); Zara & Zaria with cousins; Zara making sure I didn’t burn the cake; Zara blowing her birthday candles

After cake cutting, it was game time. I got my two older niece and newphew, Ally and Nick, to organise the games and they did really well. With the help of Sam and Norman, the younger kids have a blast!!

I must really thank Nick, Norman, Ally and Sam for helping with the kiddos, and making sure they have a great time!

Here’s one for the family album

♥Oct 30th (Tues)♥
After all the late night ‘fights’ and ‘quarrels’ Daddy had with Krissflyer, finally we got our flights confirmed.
This time, only Daddy and I were flying, our very first trip away without the kids after Zara was born.

♥Oct 30th (Tues) ~ Nov 1st (Thurs)♥
With China colleagues’ as well as some other friend’s help, managed to find and book suitable accomodations for our trip.
Prepping Zara for our trip, telling her China is cold, not suitable for kids, I’m going for work together with Daddy so can’t take care of her etc etc. She got quite upset, but I guess what can she do to stop us from going?

♥Nov 2nd (Fri)♥
Daddy picked up MIL from her place. She’s been enlisted to help keep an eye on the maids while we’re away.

♥Nov 3rd (Sat)♥
Said good bye to the girls early morning and left for the airport. Zara’s eyes was a bit wet when I hugged her.

A long 5hrs transit in Changi, luckily, there is so much to do there.

Reached Shanghai at 10pm. By the time we got our luggage and checked into our hotel motel, it was already close to mid night.

Since kids are not with us, we chose cheap but clean accomodation, we stayed in Motel 168 Jingling Road (莫泰168金陵路). Everything is within walking distant, even the famous Nanjing shopping street (南京路步行街). For RMB358, we got a room with a computer. Ha! Room is clean and small, but it stank of cigerrette smoke (from other rooms)!
When I called the Motel and to reserve a non-smoking room before the trip, I was told, “All our rooms are non-smoking.” Non-smoking my a***! But for this amount we paid for, I can’t expect Datai’s service, can I?

♥Nov 4th (Sun)♥
Arranged to change to a room without a computer which cost RMB40 less.
After breakfast in the motel, with a map and my guidebook on hand, we started our journey.

The first few sights I took in after stepping out of the Motel

Our destination was Yu Yuan (豫园­). Gosh, there were so many people there!! It’s packed! It’s a shopping area for tourists and out-of-town folks, and the prices were of course tourists’ price.

Around Yu Yuan Shopping Street (豫园):
♥Big red lanterns everywhere♥♥Multilevel Jeweler (do they have really so many different jewelry to sell?)♥
♥Famous Xiaolongbao Shop Nanxiang (南翔) : a 200m queue has formed for take away while we were there♥ ♥genuine juicy pao (so juicy you are given a straw to suck the juice)♥ ♥a man having his juicy pao♥
♥NingPo Rice Ball Shop, wasn’t able to squeeze pass people to enter the shop, don’t know what they were selling♥ ♥Having a black glutinous corn (which was rather coarse and tasteless)♥ ♥Good and Cheap Lunch at Xishi Beancurd Shop (西施豆腐)♥

Note : We are non-pork eaters, so we didn’t try the Nanxiang Xiaoloongbao or the street side juicy pao. 🙁

We visited the Yu Yuan Garden which is a 400yrs old clasical garden. I love the willow trees and the tranquility (just outside the wall, the crowds in the shopping street can be heard).

Yu Yuan Garden (豫园) :

After that it was back to the Motel for a nap, and at 5:30pm (which got dark totally), we went to The Bund (外滩) for a walk. It was nice, and although extremely crowded, the breeze we got and the view made up for it.

Dinner was the famous ShaoXin Chicken (绍兴白切鸡). It’s just basic steam chicken but the sauce was just so delicious. Daddy didn’t like it, so I was the one who finished the plate of chicken with a bowl of porridge.

We almost stopped a cab to get us back to the Motel, but spotted our Motel just a few steps away!! Haha.

Daddy was so knackered he almost wanted to go on strike and stay in the Motel the following day.

We’d started to make lumpier food for Zaria as well as introducing new food to her such as macaroni, noodles and spaghetti. No meat or eggs for her yet, and she’s still fully ‘vegetarian’ until she turns 1 (just to lower the risk of allergy).

She’s having 3 meals a day now. Breakfast is normally oat with fruits; banana or avocado. Lunch is mainly fruits but sometimes her dinner is cooked earlier, and she’ll have a bowl of her dinner for lunch. Dinner is always something savoury.

Here are some of the things we cooked for her :
Apple, broccoli, carrot cereal (cereals are always made using : brown rice, buckwheat, millet and quinoa)
Red spinach cereal
Cauliflower and potato cereal
Carrot porridge with mashed toufu
Carrot and turnip porridge
Purple cabbage cereal
Red dates and gooseberry porridge
Zucinni with cherry tomatto millet porridge
Beetroot cereal
(as shown in above photo)

Her favourite type of food is actually soup (ABC soup minus the meat; ‘pearl bean’ soup; herbal soup) with rice, noodle or macaroni.

Last Sunday I made fry spinach noodle for her, and she just loved it. We can tell she loves something because she’ll be shouting “mum-mum mum-mum” excitedly and impatiently throughout the meal.

The recipe :
~ 30ml blended boiled spinach (as the sauce)
~ finely shreded carrots
~ finely chop spinach
~ chopped shallots
~ small amount of cooked plain wheat noodle (or mee sua)
Fry shallots with small amount of olive oil until fragrant; stir in carrots and fry until soft.
Stir in noodle and chopped spinach until spinach is cooked.
Pour in the blended boiled spinach to coat the noodle evenly.

She loved it so much she even clapped her hands after the meal.

We used to worry that Zara was going to be a bit tom-boyish. She wanted only to wear pants or jeans previously. Bob The Builder was her idol, and she aspired to be a cow girl.

This year, she’s into princess, tiaras, anything frilley (yikes), if they are pink even better.
She would remind us to apply her face cream on her face, so that she’ll be ‘fair’.
She likes to put flowers behind her ears.
She wants to wear dresses or skirt even at home.
She’s always checking herself in the mirror.

She’s after all a girl.

I want my kids to grow up like this boy here. So when he tagged me, I have to oblidge.

1) What is your favourite movie?
I think it must be Pride and Prejudice. I had watched it twice, at home, on a DVD (not Astro). It must be my favourite if I’d watched it twice.

2) Who is your favourite singer?
I’m sure you know the answer already if you’d seen the previous post.
Jackie Cheung of course.
And David Tao too..

3) Which song gets you grooving in the morning?
Actually, I sing the phrase ‘Qi-lai, Qi-lai, Qi-lai, QI-LAI!!’ (Chinese : Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up) to the girls on mornings when they sleep in late and I needed them to get up. I don’t know if it’s a real song or what, but I’d heard it before.

Can I say it gets us all grooving?

4) What is your favourite fruit?
Must be mango; but I don’t just take any, it has to be fragrant and sweet (I so miss the ones we used to get from the tree in my dad’s house).

5) Who is your best friend (excluding your family)?
Gee.. tough one.
I guess it must be Ping Ping. A friend I met during my A-levels, who helped me with my maths since she was a straight As student and I was like the D student.
After A-levels, we try to meet at least once a year. She studied and then lives overseas you see, so the only time we get to meet is when she comes back to visit her family.
We keep in touch with letters, postcards (before technology was available); now with emails and face book.
I tell her my darkest secrets, and she’s been a very supportive friend.

6) Name one activity you would like to indulge in, in your free time.
Spa…….
(you don’t need just free time, you need $$$$ too)

7) When was the last time you laughed so hard till your sides hurt?
Can’t remember really.
But I laugh a lot when I see Zaria dancing, and Zara passing witty remarks.

8 ) Do you recall your last dream?
……… *blank* ………

9) What is your all-time favourite hobby?
Reading!

10) When was your last holiday without the children?
Keep a look out here.. it’ll be soon. Haha.

And I would like to tag :
Jasmine
WMD
Chanel (since the 2 of you already did the last one)

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J-ON wanted to know my most embarassing moment.

I think it must be the time we were naked under the sheets in the Hyatt Hotel (I’ll spare you the details of what we were doing), and this house keeping guy just barged in!!
Even when we shouted “Go out! Later! We’re in the room!”

o.O”

Now, I’m so embarassed, I won’t tag anyone.

Jackie Cheung was in town a while back. Because we were going for his concert, we played quite a bit of his CD at home.

Zara like 2 of his songs most and always listened to them.

Here is she trying to sing one of the song.. take note, this is a girl who doesn’t speak Mandarin, so she’s just remember the “sounds” of the words.

I don’t know why the expression, nobody taught her that.

What do you think? Not entertained at all? How about if I added a background dancer?
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My girls rock, don’t they?

I don’t do much Tag, especially these days, the tags are becomming a bit too complex for simple minded people like me. I owe so many people so many tags though, here are some simpler one which I think I can do :

Jazzmint tagged me the wall paper tag, wanting to know what is on my desktop. I don’t own a home pc, so this is my wall paper on my company notebook.

I try to put only shortcuts of application that I use frequently, as I really like to see the faces of my girls when I go to my desktop. This motivates me to keep the desktop tidy.

I would like to tag these ladies to see what is on their wall papers?:
1) Mom2Ashley
2) Chanel
3) Nadia

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Next it’s the 5 things tag. May and Amah tagged me, although I’d done this quite a while back, this is the updated version.

Instructions:
Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

1. Ehon?s Rojak?d Life
2. Rinnah
3. Everydayhealy
4. little miss may
5. Laundry Amah

Choose 5 people to tag:
1. WMD
2. Chinnee
3. Zaza
4. Whoisbaby (do you still like tags?)
5. Angie

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Preparing for my wedding. Oh boy.. does it mean we’re celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in a few days time? :O
(see, we don’t celebrate our anniversary at all, really, I only remember this now when I type out this tag.. such ‘romantic’ couple we are)

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Very pregnant with Zaria (fuyoh, you should see my stomach size).

Five snacks you enjoy
1. Prawn or Fish cracker
2. Ice cream potong
3. Twisties – cheese
4. Dark chocolate
5. Nuts

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to
…….
Seriously, besides nursery rhymes, I can’t remember lyrics to any other songs.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
(Actually, how many millions are we talking about? Because $ is so small these days)
1. Set up a trust fund for Zara and Zaria, so I’ll never have to worry about their education expenses ever again.
2. Get more involve in charity work.
3. Buy a house in a gated community – cash!
4. Travel the world, see the places I wanted to see but haven?t
5. Take years off from work, go back only when I want to not when I have to.

Five bad habits
1. Untidy and messy (I really like tidy desks and rooms, but it’s really difficult to ‘maintain’ them).
2. Quick to lash out, quick temper (Daddy got it a lot from me, and now, sometimes Zara get it too).
3. Deep fried food or any thing high in cholesterol is my favourite type of food.
4. Idling – dreaming, staring at nothingness
5. Shopping for the sake of shopping, not buying things that I need, but buying things that’s on sales (shopoholic syndrome)

Five favourite toys
1. My notebook, will feel so lost without it
2. My ADSL modem, how will I survive without broadband?
3. Our Olympus E500 DSLR camera (why of all camera Daddy bought OLYMPUS? grrrr) and Pentax (for video capturing)
4. My Nokia N73 mobile – present from Maxis to Daddy for his loyalty, Daddy gave this to me to show me his loyalty (he’s using a lousier phone).. 😛
5. My ActivCard to access to company network – without this, I can’t work from home.
(I’m really not so much a gadget person)

Five things you like doing
1. Spending time with my girls
2. Reading – non-fiction, blogs, interesting websites
3. Travelling
4. Baking
5. Messenging

Five things you would never wear again (this is exactly the same as the last time I did this tag)
1. Nursing bra (once I?m done with nursing)
2. Breast pads (once I?m done with nursing)
(I’m going to do lingerie shopping once I’m done nursing!)
3. Eye shadow (I looked like I?d been punched in the eye every time I apply this)
4. Red lipstick (makes me look whorish)
5. Tight fitting clothes (What to do? Even my daugther thinks I’m fat).

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Thoughts aside..

A blood blister is a kind of blister that causes formation of subdermal tissues and blood vessels are damaged without piercing the skin and blemish effects appear on skin. continues pressure on a part of body or skin causes callus and it could be dangerous to make that specific skin dead and rubbish.

Little Zaria turned 10th month old on Sunday. This post is more on her language development.

She knows the name of more things now, e.g. aeroplane, banana, ball, fan, doll, bear, upstairs, biscuit, cat, book, Mother Mary (a picture we have of Mary hung on the wall), park (as in play ground), duck, speaker, mum-mum (Chinese : food), trees, leaves, up, down, face, etc.

She understand these words : nice, good, hot, cold, clever; and will turn back if she heard us saying dangerous, no loudly, etc.

She knows the name of some actions, and able to do these actions on demand (but depending if she’s in the mood), e.g. kiss, pat pat, hug, sayang (Chinese : pat or stroke), sit, stand up, knock, bang, shake, wave bye bye, flying kiss, throw, etc.

She understands some instructions, but following them is another story: e.g. come back, No, Cannot (e.g. Cannot put in the mouth, Cannot touch)

This is the face she’ll give you if you ask her to do a ‘funny face’

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This is how she tells me she wants milk when she comes to the study

She’s getting better with her hands, so she’s doing her baby signing better. Signs she can do :
More : tapping her index finger on her other palm
Milk : Open her hand, then clutching her fist
Scrared : Patting her chest
Full : Patting her stomach
Good : clutching her fist
Yes : bounching up and down

She moves both her arms like flapping when we say fly, put her hand on her ear, when we say Hello or go on the phone.

She can do the action to the song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” (opening and closing her palms); “If You Are Happy And You Know It” (clap her hands, stamp her feet, raise her hands to the words Hooray, point to her face).
Even without the song being sung, and only the music is played, she would be doing the actions.

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The first word she’s spoken must be mum-mum on her 7th month. She’s started mimicking a few more sounds, and able to say a few more words. E.g.
Ta-Ta (calling Tuyam, kakak)
Doh-Doh (for Doll)
Jer-Jer (the Badger sunblock as there’s a badger picture on it)
Cat to her is “Ao” (just like Zara)
Aeroplane to her is “Aaaa-ohhhhhhh” (very similar to the cat sound, but she would drag it longer).
When she sees me and she wants milk, she’ll say, “Mak”. Probably her short form for saying, “Mum, I want milk.”

When we’re drinking, and she’s nearby, she would say a short “Ah” when we finish drinking and move the cup away from our lips.
When we ask her how does daddy snore? She’ll do the sound “Keghhhh”.

Pointing is her favourite hand action now, point to things she wants, places she wants to go

She also communicates with us with her facial expression, and making other sounds, and pointing to things she wants or pointing to places she wants to go.

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Unlike Zara, she’s not eager to please. With a bit of encouragement and praising, Zara will repeat her action or say a word when we ask her to do so. Zaria on the other hand, will only do an action or say a word when it pleases her, or when she needs to express herself, not so much to please us.