My Two Girls – All About Zara and Zaria

Since last Thursday, every night after dinner, we put on The Sound of Music, and show Zara 3 clips from the movie (thanks to DVD scene select) :
1) Maria teaching the Little Von Trapps to sing Do Re Mi
2) The puppet show put on by the Little Von Trapps
3) The Little Von Trapps bidding goodnight to the guests in their father’s dinner party

She loves it! Keeps asking for more (replay) after each song is sung (the below pix show her concentrating on the show)

On Saturday, while on our way to Ipoh, she started singing the last word of the Do-re-mi song with me. This is how we sing together :
Me : Doe a deer, a female
Zara : Deer
Me : Ray, a drop of golden
Zara : Sun
Me : Me, a name I call my
Zara : Sef (Self)
Me : Far, a long long way to
Zara : Run
Me : Sew, a needle pulling
Zara : Dat (Thread)
Me : La, a note to follow
Zara : So
Me : Tea, I drink with jam and
Zara : Bed (Bread)
Me : That will bring us back to
Zara : DO
And then she’ll clap her hands upon completion of the song. Still a long way from Luke Von Trapp, but both Daddy and I were extremely surprised that she had actually learnt up the last words in 2 days.

She also likes to hum the tune sung during the puppet play, but it goes something like this :
Zara : *mumble mumble* eh- Hoo Hoo

Last night, when I told her it’s time for bed, she pointed to the TV set and said, “Put! Put! Bye Bye! Seep!” Haha.. she wanted me to play her Clip #3. After that song, she took my hand pointed upstairs, and said, “Go Seep!”

See, I’m happy taking a rest from Barney!

There are expressions or faces I can ask Zara to make, and there are some which have to come naturally.

Here is how she looks when I ask her to:

LAUGH LIKE A HIPPO (showing her teeth)

SMILE LIKE THE MOON (crescent)

DO HER POPEYE FACE

And I like this the best, DO HER CUTE CUTE FACE

These are faces which I cannot get her to act out, but have to come naturally.

CONCENTRATING
CRYING

And best of all,SMILING HAPPILY

So a lot of people are interested in knowing how Helen, Helen’s husband, Samm, Sengkor, King’s Wife look like.

I’ll do every one a favour and put up their photo here… Helen, Samm, plesae don’t kill me ok?

There was this warning I read some where, when you see or face a person for a long period of time, you will slowly look alike.. I guess it happened in our Ipoh meet, 3~4hours later, this is how every body looks like.

From left to right : Helen’s husband, Helen, King’s Wife, Samm, Me, Sengkor.

King’s Wife and Seng kor will also be posting the photos taken by them in their sites… go check out if you are interested.

Thanks to Sengkor for his photoshop skill (see, he’s not just soft spoken, has a nice bod, he’s good in photoshop too)

Russ, our cat, went under the dining table to sleep
Zara : *pointing to Russ* Uss, Seep. (Russ, sleep)
She then tried pulling down the big cushion which she uses for her afternoon nap from the sofa. When she couldn’t, she laid her head on the cushion.
Zara : Seep (Sleep)
Tuyam helped her laid the cushion down.
Zara : *reached her hand to Tuyam* Ah Boo (Mr Blue)
Tuyam gave her Mr Blue, and she laid down and tried to nap.

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After our walk in the town centre in Ipoh at noon, Zara was getting tired.
Zara : *lean back on her car seat* Lie down
Zara : toss eyes (Close eyes)
Zara : Seep (Sleep)
And she tried to nap; after a while,
Zara : *open her eyes, pointed at the lamp in the car* Daddy, off. Off light.
Haha, she thought the glaring sun can be turned off like a lamp.

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I stayed in the study to complete my work and got Daddy to watch over Zara in the night.
Daddy and Zara were happily entertaining each other. When Daddy joined Zara’s cot to our bed and then wanted to change Zara to her pajamas. The little one suddenly realised it’s time for bed, and mummy was not with her.

She started crying and pointed to the direction of the study, “Mummy! Mummy!” Then went and banged on the bed room door!

Exasperated, Daddy brought her out to look for me, “She doesn’t want me ah!”

Every night, only I could get her to sleep, she can be happily playing with whoever, but when it’s bed time, mummy has to be the one next to her. I wonder how she’ll cope if I have to travel because of work. Not that there’s plans laid out yet.

Over the weekend, we drove up to Ipoh for a friend’s wedding. It was a simple affair in a local restaurant. The bride, Liew, did not even wear a gown for her wedding, but just a simple dress. Daddy said, “Which is perfectly fine”. I said, “But you only get to be a bride once in a life time, I would at least want a gown.” But then, Liew is a simple, down to earth person; which is why Daddy is very fond of her, and which is also why he didn’t mind driving all the way up for her wedding.Zara was cranky the whole night. Probably because she only napped for 1hr the whole day. Daddy and I had to take turns to bring her out for walks. Not that there’s much to walk about or see, but she was happier than being seated for a long 4hrs.

Clockwise : The bride and groom; Zara finally fulfilled her wish, sitting on a motorbike; Zara didn’t want to sit on Daddy’s lap (see Daddy’s frown?); Jesse, my friend’s 8mth old, sat through the dinner without a single whine

We spent the night in Ipoh, and the following morning after breakfast in the hotel, we went to town for a walkabout. Both Daddy and I always like visiting local markets, so when we saw a building with a sign reading Pasar Besar Ipoh (Malay: Ipoh Big Market), we quickly parked our car and headed there.

I just love markets, not the filth, but it’s always interesting to look at the local produce. We saw a fish monger selling about 10 different types of prawns (very reasonably priced), we would have bought some if we had a big ice box. We bought a bell shaped pumpkin which we do not get in KL (not the imported butter squash, but locally grown). And then the sight of a lady selling beansprout really caught my interest (I actually walked back to the car to get the camera to take the below shots).
Ipoh is famous for beansprouts, and it’s no wonder you get ‘specialists’ only selling beansprouts in the market. Big plastic barrels used to sprout the beans (they looked like huge alfafa sprouts) were next to the stall. I didn’t see how they were harvested but I saw the stall owner washed the sprout in a cement cylinder (I don’t know what that thing is called) and scooped up the amount customers wanted into bags. She was a good sport, and told me I was welcome to take her photos.

What is a visit to Ipoh without meeting up with the local bloggers? King’s Wife even drove up with Seng Kor for a day trip to join the fun. It was a small and intimate meeting. We had lunch with Helen and Hubby, Samm and Gordon, followed by coffee.

With a smaller crowd, and so much time, you get to have a more decent conversation, and able get to know each other better. I’m not supposed to review too much here, but I must say they do live up to the personalities they portray in their blogs. *grin* (Note : Seng Kor did go to the toilet, but I’m not sure if it was to do what Helen mentioned here)

Again, Zara fussed a lot, while sweet little Gordon, spent the whole time seated and amusing himself with tissues and toothpicks. *Sigh*

Clockwise : Daddy keeping an eye on Zara in a local coffee place while I ran back to the market to photograph the beansprout lady; Walking in the town centre; Zara couldn’t sit still, while Gordon didn’t even fuss throughout.

This morning, Zara was still sleeping while I went to the study to start up my PC. I was in the midst of chatting with a good friend in the US, when I heard a faint, “Mummy, Mummy!” coming from the bed room.

Zara has awaken, she was just sitting on the bed, rubbing her eyes, calling out for me. She didn’t cry a bit (which she usually does when she wakes up and see me not at her side), and greeted me with a squeal and a big big smile. This is one of those days when I look at Zara and thought, “Woh! She’s grown so much already!”.

I went through her earlier photos, videos and was filled with a sense of achievement, happiness, and also a tinge of despair. Look at her now, from a helpless new born, she’s now walking, talking, demanding. But she’s growing up so fast, I haven’t spent enough time with her, and soon, she’s no longer be the little toddler she is now. I’m going to miss her baby-ness.

Here is a video I was amusing myself with, taken when she was 9mths +, still cruising. Look at the chubs, and the wobbly gait.

And these, the foot prints I took when she was a new born, vs the foot print I took 2 weeks back. Soft tiny new born’s feet, vs strong walking toddler’s feet.

Do you feel your kids are growing up too fast before you?

I met up with 3 very close ex-classmates on Tuesday night and brought along Zara and Tuyam.

While we had dinner, Zara was playing with Zhu-Zhu, the schnauzer, one of my friend brought along. Zara fed her bread, patted her, and followed her, calling “Joe Joe!” “Dog Dog!” after her. Tuyam then noticed that Zara has some rashes and swelling on the back of her palms. Zara must be like me, allergy to animals saliva. When my skin touches animal saliva, it’ll get itchy all over; if the rash has just been developed, normally just rinsing it with soapy water will get rid of it. It will get worse if I don’t take immediate action. I quickly got Tuyam to wash her hands, and true enough, soon after that, the red patches and swelling were gone.

Since she has this allergy, we stopped her from playing with the dog. My friend took out a box full of her son’s toys and Zara was happily kept busy by the goodies she found.

I’m an animal lover, at one point, I had 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 kittens, 2 guinea pigs. Dogs and cats were stray whom I brought home (hid in the boot when my mum wasn’t looking and innocently said I don’t know how it got there). Cared for lovingly by my mum (whom although strict, has never scolded me from bringing stray home) and me. Back then, I always had rashes all over me, but I was ignorant of the cause, and it didn’t’ bother me.

When I was older, I realise the cause of the rashes and itch, and I started being more careful with animals. After handling any animals, I have to immediately wash my hands. No co-sleeping with animals which I used to do. This helps.

Looks like the ‘curse’ now had landed on Zara as well, whom also seems to love animal a lot. Isn’t it ironic?

In my line of work, I can work from home since most of the ‘customers’ I deal with are out of Malaysia and all ‘dealings’ are done through IM, emails or phone calls; which means I can actually work from anywhere as long as I can connect to the network and have a phone with me.

I still go to the office, to make use of the facilities (printers, stationary), and also to catch up on local office gossips; and I feel to have Zara stationed in King’s Wife’s place, helps her development too because she gets to play with King’s Wife’s children, and not just stuck with Tuyam.

On days I work from home, I’ll lock myself in the study above, and Zara will be playing, napping, watching TV downstairs with Tuyam. At 6pm sharp, Tuyam will hand over the shift to me so that she can prepare dinner. This is the time which I enjoy most, especially when it’s not raining.

Zara and I will walk to the nearby park, where I’ll just let her run in the field, pick up anything from the ground to examine (since she hasn’t taken her bath yet, she’s free to get dirty) while I chat with other parents. I’ll give her a helping hand when she wants to go on the see-saw, slide and the swing. This is probably the only reason why it’s nice to be living in this residential area in the suburb, roads are wide, cars are few, and there are 2 parks within walking distant shared among 200 houses.

She always have lots of fun there, and the good thing is when it’s time to go, she normally doesn’t kick a fuss. I’ll give her some time to say bye bye to everything; “Bye bye slide”, “Bye bye sing (swing)”, “Bye Bye park” etc etc. Then we’ll walk back home for her bath.

Clockwise : She wanted to go on another kid’s buggie, and when I said she had to ask the kid for permission, she changed and said, “touch” (seen here using her foot to ‘touch’); “Down!”; Not even 2 seconds, she wanted to go on another different ride; Walking down the slope (which leads to the slide);

“High” “High!”

Zara’s trying to use more and more words to express herself, her pronunciation is not perfect and sometimes it takes a trained ear to know what she’s saying. When trying to pronounce a difficult word, she always brightens up when we understand her.

My MIL always says to her “only your mummy understands what you say”. I guess it’s people like myself and Tuyam who can make out what she says most of the time because we spends the most time with her.

Here are some of Zara’s talking moments, very straight forward.

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Brought her to the bookshop the other day, when she stepped in, she looked around smiling, and said, “Many Books!”

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Put a Sesame Street VCD on for her
Zara : *took a glance* Don’t want
(we pretended we didn’t hear that)
Zara : *shook her head* Don’t want
Zara : *pointed to the TV* Off. Don’t want.
Tuyam : What you want?
Zara : Barney! (but of course)

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She likes playing this game
Me : Zara is a girl or a boy?
Zara : Boy! *looked at me with a cheeky smile*
Me : *pretended to be shocked* BOY?? Oh No!
Zara : Ger! *giggled*

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And this, really warmed Daddy’s heart.
Me: Zara love Daddy?
Zara : Larf
Then she continues : Many Many

We stayed home on Saturday because Daddy was suffering from jetlag and was sleeping most of the time.

On Sunday, he thought he would make it up to Zara by bringing her to the Shah Alam Lake Garden (*roll eyes* men really know how to have fun huh?). There really isn’t much in that park, except a big dirty grass field. I told him it would have been better to just bring Zara to the football field near our house.

I suggested Kids Sports instead, since lots of blogging mums have given very good feedback about that place (see, mums know how to have fun more *grin*).

So we went to 1 Utama at about 10am, before the crowd started pouring in. We had breakfast, and then brought Zara to see the fishes at the Rainforest section, and finally headed to Kids Sports. I went in with Zara while Daddy stayed outside.

Zara was ecstatic! Especially with the slide right at the entrance, where she could slide right into a pool of plastic balls!! She spent most of her time there, rolling in them, jumping into them, tossing the balls etc.

I brought her to the bigger play area, with all the slopes to climb, and tunnels to crawl. I was like a commando, crawling around the place with her on all fours, helping her on more difficult maneuver. It was fun, I have to say, even for me, but I suffered a back ache and sore knees later from all the bending and crawling.

1hr after the intense activity, while we were climbing up the rubber steps to go on the big slide, Zara just refused to move, laid down midway, started sucking her thumb and chanted, “milk milk!” (below photo). Even with much persuasion, she still refused to budge. I had to half drag half carry her up, slide down the slide, and then give her her milk fix.

Of course after the milk fix, she was all charged up and went on to climb, jump, crawl, slide, with a very tired and hungry mummy dragging behind.

Zara really enjoyed herself. Later, when we asked her did she like Kids Sports, her face went blank; but when I said, “Neh, the place with lots of ball-balls”, she brightened up and replied, “Ball Balls!” “Many!” “Throw!” “Step!” “Jump!” in her disjointed sentence.