My Little Vain Pot

For someone who likes Thomas & Friends and favorite color is BLUE, how vain can that person be? I was so wrong. Ziyi was once a big fan of the boyish Thomas & Friends toys, books & cartoon and likes everything in blue color. I was a little worried that she might grew up into a tomboy, but I can now leave all those worries behind.

She is so into PINK now, likes Dora The Explorer and Disney Princess too. She has yet to like Barbie Dolls. Sometimes when I dress her up, she will even choose her own clothes. She will tell me she wants to wear watch, necklace, hair clips, and bracelets because she wants to be so pretty. Whenever she sees me with my makeup brush, she will sweep that brush across her cheeks too.

I hope she will grow up into a fine young lady, and not be an Ah Lian....muahahahhaha!!!!

Cleaning Herself Up

Just 2 months shy from her 4th birthday, Ziyi has started to clean herself up after her pee pee. I have no confidence in her initially, thinking how would she be able to reach for the toilet paper, as one has to twist and turn to the back to reach for it, thanks to the developer who installed the toilet roll holder at such an inconvenient place. However this lil cili padi of mine convinced me when I saw her doing it on her own few weeks back. Guess it's time for her to be independent and less work for us, the parents.

Ziyi even tried washing her hair, bathing and brushing teeth all by herself, but of course, I would freak out if I were to let her do it on her own. One step at a time, I told her, cleaning up after her pee pee is a good start. The rest shall wait. 

Taman Botani, Putrajaya

On one of the Sundays in March, yes, this post has been drafted weeks ago, hubs suggested visiting Taman Botani Putrajaya. We brought Ziyi's bicycle along just in case we couldn't rent a kiddie bike there. We reached there around 10+ in the morning but the bicycles were all rented out and we were told to wait for another hour to get a bike. Nah...1 hour is too long of a wait, we decided to just let Ziyi ride her bicycle and us walked along with her. We munched on a few buns as our breakfast and bottles of mineral water to hydrate ourselves. 

No entrance fee needed, unless you are renting their bicycles. 

While waiting for hubs to off load her bicycle.

Cycling happily...initially........but.............

Few minutes later, she was screaming and crying the whole time when her dad told her not cycle too fast at a slope downhill. She wanted to go real fast, but when she couldn't she screamed on top of her lung "FAST FAST, I WANT FAST!!!" 

I got real mad at her unacceptable behavior and gave her a good lecture when we reached the lakeside, with other parents and children looking on. We had no idea what was wrong with her that morning, it was not her nap time nor her meal time but she was just so cranky! She kept crying for at least another 10 mins and after she settled down, her behavior was back to normal and she transformed into a lovable princess. Weird 'lil girl we have here. 

This is the happy and lovable face we would like to see everyday! 

You scratch my back, I scratch yours

One night Ziyi saw me scratching daddy's back, she immediately ran to me and lift up her shirt and asked me to scratch hers too! She was so cute. I remember there was once I asked her to help scratched mine and she answered me: Mummy, why you are the same like daddy. Always scratch one.....

I couldn't help laughing at her statement.

Ziyi's Drawing

This is the first drawing by my lil girl. I was surprised to see this. Her family is her very first drawing! Love it. 

Plain Lazy

I have been hearing comments from the school principal about Ziyi refusing to write but I usually just leave it as she doesn't have any problems writing at home. However yesterday, the principal told me again that Ziyi refused to write again. She has a new class teacher now, Teacher Kim, and she lied to Teacher Kim that she doesn't know how to write the alphabet D. When the principal entered her classroom and saw Teacher Kim holding her hand to write, she was shocked. She told Teacher Kim that Ziyi can write pretty well without help. I too have noticed that Ziyi is very lazy to write/color whenever she is not in the mood and it sometimes took her 10mins to write 1 alphabet! 

It so happened that her school friend's mother brought some fried Nien Gao over to share with the daycare kids yesterday. Being a very "wai sek" (love to eat) kid, she asked for a piece of the kuih. So the principal told her to finish writing her alphabets before she could eat the kuih. She happily wrote the whole page of exercise book with the alphabet E within 10mins and proceeded to help herself with the kuih.

She is just plain lazy to write or do any homework when she is not in the mood for it. She would even cry in the class when she was forced to write/color. I wonder whose trait she is after eh?? hmm...

New Bicycle

Ziyi's first bike was given to her by her paternal grandpa on her 2nd birthday. She has outgrown it and we reckon it's time to get her a new bike. The hubs has been telling her that he'd buy her a new bike since months ago, but never really make the effort until a day before Christmas. We finally ended buying her an 16 inch bike for her 2011 Christmas present. This bike cost us RM180, which is the cheapest we could find. No point spending so much on a bicycle that she would use for only a year or so and we wouldn't be shipping this bike over to Oz when we make the big move next year. 

She was so excited and she goes cycling every evening without fail. It took her 3 days to learn how to cycle the proper way and she's doing fine with it. Can't believe my girl is growing up fast. 

Angry Ziyi..

Strong willed girl with attitude, that is how I would brand my 3yo girl. 

She got reprimanded by me one morning for spitting out her chewable vitamin in the car while I was driving her to the kindy despite me warning her not to spit it out. I got mad at her and threaten to throw her out of the car.  She cried a little and apologize after that.

When we reached her kindy, me being a "long-winded" person, reminded her again on what happened in the car earlier, stressing that the vitamin helps to prevent her from falling sick so that she could have her ice-cream again. She told me off by saying "NO ICE-CREAM, I DON'T WANT ICE-CREAM".... 

and off she went into the kindy. 

I called her to say goodbye and she refused to respond. Despite me calling her numerous times, she still refused to turn around and just walked straight into the kindy! My girl was mad at me for scolding her earlier. 

Later when I fetched her in the evening, she told her caretaker that she doesn't want mummy, just want daddy. Gosh, my little 3yo girl was holding grudges against me!

She is glued to the TV most of the time, another TV addict in the making.

From a fussy eater to an adventurous one

Ziyi started solids at 5mo and later progressed to eating porridge at 8mo. At around 10mo, she started to show no interest in food at all. I thought she's bored with porridge and so I introduced rice to her.  She was quite reluctant to eat too. Generally, she was a very fussy eater and hardly ate anything during her younger days until lately, when she was 3 yo. It was my most torturous and stressful time with her. 

In the recent months, she has turned into a very adventurous person in trying out new food. She has become a better eater, means less stress for me too. Even when I cooked weird looking porridge (yes, I like to put stuff like beetroot, purple cabbage, leek, etc etc that no one else would eat them) with no seasoning at all, she still finish her bowl of porridge. Oh well, that's of course, with the help from my good ol' assistant, the TV!! 

She is also a "fan thong" (rice lover). She's happy with just plain white rice on her plate. If I attempt to cook something fancy like western food, it will be more difficult to feed her. Yes, I still have to feed her, and sometimes force feed her. She will try everything, but she won't finish up her meal on her own, voluntarily. Feeding is still mandatory.

Although she may not be a very good eater, but I'm glad she is willing to try almost everything.

Here, she ate 2 slices of cucumber, few bites of bread, some nasi lemak rice with sausage and tomato sauce and few mouth of steamed glutinous rice.

The flu bug was here and still not leaving us alone!

Yes, me and Ziyi. She was down with cough and cold for the past 1 week, not too serious I'd say. I gave her Zyrtec for a few days and she recovered. Too bad, 2 days later her cough and cold took revenge and this time her cough is disrupting her sleep. She has finished her medicine earlier, so no medication this round. I was hoping to let her immune system fights itself. I can see improvement in her condition, lesser cough during the day and hardly any coughs when she's sleeping too.

This morning it was my turn to be bitten by the flu bug! Started off with sore throat and I did a quick home remedy.

I gargled with sea salt, took a teaspoon of Manuka Honey neat, drank a cup of honey lemon (juiced a whole lemon) and popped vit C too. I am feeling slightly better now but can feel the flu is coming and I've been sneezing the whole morning....

Hope all of us will recover soon!

Random... @ 3yo 3mo

Some random pics on what we did over the last 2 weekends....

Went to MV and she is  still obsessed with fountains and balls.. stayed at this area for quite a while, refusing to leave

The little samseng not afraid of height, will climb and jump all the time

Playtime on the bed with daddy and mummy just before bedtime, love the laughing & cuddling moments.. psst...this don't happen often, coz mummy gotta attend to other house chores, this is usually leave to daddy (hubs is better at playing with her)

I brought her to the playground and she likes playing hide and seek

Happy girl

Having our brunch at a Makan Makan cafe. Ziyi tried everything served on the table, she likes the steamed glutinous rice and nasi lemak rice.

I was surprised to see her chowing down 2 slices of cucumber! 

Her current favourite, tomato sauce...

At 3yo 3mo, she has evolved from a fussy easter to a "wai sek" little girl... she is quite adventurous on food but won't eat much though. I still have to rely on the idiot box to distract her during her mealtime.

However, I'm pretty happy with her eating habit now, as compared to her younger days where I had to throw most of her food away coz this girl was not interested in eating anything at all! Hope this adventurous part of her will continue and not just a phase...

My daughter's favorites @ 3.2 yrs old

Food/Fruits:

She loves chocolates....milo drink, chocolate milk, chocolate flavored buns/cakes/pastries, all things chocs!

Fish/meatballs, sausages, hokkien mee, fried rice, fries, nuggets, ice-cream...

Berries, papaya, banana, mangoes, grapes...

Cartoon character:

No longer likes Dora, she's now into Thomas & Friends and occasionally Moya, one of the characters from Hutos Animation. And that obviously explains her love for anything in BLUE color too! She told everyone that only girls like Blue and the boys like Red, because her favorite color is BLUE!

of Manglish...etc

I have been speaking Manglish to Ziyi all this while, subconsciously of course. I never notice them until she repeats after what I said.

She has added the word "lor" at the end of her sentences. She sounds so cute but I am trying to correct her and keep reminding myself not to speak Manglish! 

Each time I tuck her to bed at night, I would greet her Goodnight & I love you, and I will tell her to close her eyes & no talking too.  Once, I caught her singing silently to herself, with some hand actions too. When she realised I was looking at her, this cheeky girl immediately hide herself underneath her blanket and smiled cheekily. 

The other day hubs was telling me about Amy Chua’s new book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”.  Has any of you read this book yet? I'm supposed to buy it but haven't done so. I read from The Star that there are few types of parenting styles, The Authoritarian, The Authoritative,  The Permissive, The Indulgent, & The Neglectful.  I'm starting to think that I may fall into The Authoritarian category! Oh no! I'm slowly trailing my mother's footsteps as she was very strict and fierce to me when I was young.  And now with my own daughter, I'm pretty strict with her too. Children of The Authoritarian parents may end up with low self-esteem and confidence in life. I will have to seriously re-look into my parenting style and buy some parenting books to read too. Gotta keep reminding myself to not be the control freak, lest Ziyi may start to dislike her own mother when she grew up.

Pets

this week ziyi's school is teaching the kids all about pet animals like puppies, rabbits, tortoise, fishes, etc. Yesterday when i picked her up from school, i saw a rabbit in a cage outside her school. the principal has loaned her daughter's rabbit for the school in kids to touch & feel the real thing.

ziyi was so excited to show me the rabbit and she was so brave! she touched and sayang the rabbit while her mummy just looked on and stood few feet away from the furry thing. i don't like animals and anything furry, except for soft toys!

don't disturb ziyi...

last night i tucked her to bed at 9+ pm. she asked me to off all the lights so that she could sleep and i usually stays in the room to accompany her till she falls asleep. as usual, i would use the laptop to check my emails and FB. after about 10mins, she called me.

ziyi: mummy, pull sleeves up. itchy (showing me her arms)

me: ok 

(and i stayed next to her)

ziyi: mummy don't disturb ziyi. mummy see computer 

(pointing at the computer and repeating her commands till i moved i butt!!)

she's so vocal now and likes giving commands to everyone at home. daddy said she can be a teacher/lecturer next time. haha.

however my baby girl likes to give me hugs and kisses all the time. hubby is a bit unlucky coz she sometimes refuse to kiss him no matter how her daddy pleads. poor daddy. 

ziyi, must remember your daddy loves you very much too!

cakes for ziyi

ziyi is not a cake person. she doesn't really like eating cakes. but she wouldn't mind eating chocolate cake because she likes chocolates. fyi, i am quite strict with her food intake so i always forbid her from eating junk food, candies and chocolates. however, i believe that we still have to let them try a bit of everything so i still let her try all the forbidden food in small amount once in a blue moon. so far she has eaten chocolates but not candies so that's how she was introduced to chocolates and that was where her interest for chocolate cake started.

last night i was browsing the internet for novelty/children cakes. i showed her some of the pictures and she would tell me which design she likes.

me: do you like the horse cake? (she's crazy over horses)

ziyi: yes (nodding)

i kept on showing her a few other designs and she just nodded or shook her head. she likes those with number designs too. so i told her she has to choose the #3 cake coz she's turning 3 yrs old soon. later when i showed her Barney designs...

ziyi: Barney!! i want Barney cake!!!

me: ok.

knowing she is a big Dora fan, i clicked on Dora's designs and....

ziyi: Dora, Dora, Dora!!!! i want Dora and Boots and Swiper!!!!! i want!! 

me: so you prefer Dora or Barney?

ziyi: i want Dora! 

hahaha, she's one crazy fan of Dora The Explorer. so now mummy is busy sourcing for a baker who is good at making those figurines. it would be perfect if the cake can be in the design of a number 3, with Dora, Boots, Swiper and a horse too. i think the cake has to be in chocolate flavor too. i just can't wait for ziyi to turn 3 years old in 3 months time. 

ziyi sleeps exactly like her daddy

this is my cili padi sleeping on our bed. she sleeps like her father, with her arm covering her eyes! 

like father like daughter. 

sending lil monster to Sunday School

3 Sundays ago, we sent ziyi to Sunday School in USJ. hubs made arrangement with his colleague, who is also a member of the church. the session starts from 10am to 12pm. she was very clingy and refused to join other kids, throwing her tantrums by lying on the floor, etc etc... 

we knew we have to leave the place in order for her to behave and listen to instructions. so we decided to leave her there at 11am so that she could join the class. we informed the "teachers" that she would cry for a while and i assured them she will be fine as she has been attending kindy since she was 2 years old.

true enough, she cried twice, for a very brief moment but she sat in the class and listen to "teachers" telling stories and singing. we will continue sending her so that she'll get used to it and, and, and, a break for mummy!!!

she received this as a welcome gift!

ziyi at 2 year 7 months old

my little monster's hep A 2nd dose jab was due yesterday. we brought her to the paedic at Columbia Asia Hospital as her regular paedic clinic was closed.

she weighed 13.5kg and her height was 91cm. i think it was not very accurate as ziyi refused to stand still when her measurement was being taken by the nurse. however, doc said her weight is now at the 80% on the graph, which means she has put on a lot of weight since her last check up at 2 years old. i'm very pleased to hear that :)
i had to carry her when she was given the jab on her buttock and my tough cookie did not cry a wee bit. i immediately promised her a sundae cone from McD.

she's doing very well in kindy now and does not cry in the morning when i send her to the kindy. she can speak very well and likes to give commands too. for instance when daddy is using the phone while lying down on the bed: "daddy, don't lie down, eyes will spoil. must sit up". she has become our little mama now!

our little mama feeding her dolly milk-milk

my little vain pot

ziyi saw me trying out my 2 pairs of new heels few weeks back and she immediately grabbed them from me, claiming it's hers!! "mommy, it's mine! no, it's mine!!"

she wore the heels and tried to walk in them!