Another Accomplishment

Today is the 19th April 2013, Ziyi is 4 years 10 months old and what is so special on this day, you may ask. My girl is never an adventurous person when it comes to drinks. She will only stick to the few drinks that she likes, basically plain milk, strawberry and chocolate flavored milk, milo and horlicks. Occasionally she likes to sip her daddy's iced coffee too. She does not like to drink coconut water, barley, juices, ribena, or any other flavored drinks. Not even soups, she will always make up stories (stomach ache, etc) when I force her to drink soup. 

But today she drank 10ml of cherry flavored fish oil on her own and also 1/2 cup of barley (slightly sweetened with candied winter melon). Both were never her favorite and I am so happy that she is willing to drink them with very little coaxing. It may not mean anything to others, but to me, it's a major accomplishment. Good job Ziyi! 

Ziyi And Her First Extracted Tooth

During Chinese New Year in Feb 2013, the clumsy girl fell flat on her face. She was running with her cousin Nathan and as usual, she was the one who tripped and fell. Seconds later she wailed and daddy immediately rushed over and carried her, checking her knees and hands. When I saw her knees were not bleeding, I knew it had to be her face as she did not stop crying. Opened up her lips and saw blood and it was swollen. We went into the house and cleaned her and dabbed it with an ice cube. Minutes later, I realised her front tooth was chipped. We were contemplating to bring her to the hospital or not since it was late night and this was her 5th time that she knocked on her lips! Lucky the first 4 times was nothing serious.

The chipped tooth looks so harmless, no one expected inflammation weeks later...

2 weeks later, this girl complaint of tooth pain, and I realised her upper lip was a lil bit swollen. With much persuasion, she obligingly followed me to the dentist and found out that it was her gum that was swollen due to the fall. She was given antibiotic and was told to return 2 weeks later.

On 13/3/2013, I brought her back to the dentist and they did a check on her gum, it was still red with signs of infection. Did an X-Ray, she was all good with instructions though I had to stay with her in the x-ray room as she tend to move. Although the x-ray did not suggest any signs of defects, but dentist suggested extraction of the chipped tooth. She said it might or might not affect her permanent tooth and it's better to sacrifice the milk tooth rather than the permanent one. The x-ray also showed that her permanent tooth is going to be a large one, larger than her other usual teeth! OMG!!

Doctor applied a gel on her gum for few minutes, she was lying there with her eyes shut. I was very proud of this girl as she was very well-behaved. Of course, she did not know what the next procedure going to be!
I saw the doctor holding the jab with a long fine needle, ready to inject some med into her gum.. I was trying to not look at it but I couldn't because I had to hold her and be near to her all the time. She was squirming a little and I could tell she felt the pain. Doctor said with the numbing gel she could still feel the pressure and a lil pain because her infected gum could be very sensitive. Poor baby...

Worst part was that the jab had to be done very slowly and she had to get up and gargle her mouth twice. So much of blood! In fact after gargling the first time, she obligingly lied down again and let the doctor continued, this time she couldn't hold it anymore and she burst! My heart broke when she cried and I even felt my tears welling up. The nurse had to hold her hands and I kept on comforting her. After gargling for the 2nd time, she refused to lie down again but with a lil bit of force by the nurse, she lied down, with her mouth wide open (because she was still wailing loud) the doctor extracted her tooth in less than 5secs! That was really quick. We kept on telling her it was done and she had to bite on to the gauze but she refused. I had to calm her down and held on to the gauze for her till we were out of the dentist room. I gave her the iPad to divert her attention and that worked! LOL... She was all okay after that, but I had to keep changing her gauze as she was not swallowing her saliva at all. After a few change, she did not need gauze anymore and all is good with her. I must say I am really very proud of her. She was very brave throughout the process. But I doubt she will want to go to the dentist again, hopefully many many months later she would have forgotten all about the pain she went through.

On a side note, the hubs was not agreeable to the extraction. He kept asking me to get 2nd opinion but hey..he was not doing anything except talking! I have a demanding work schedule and yet I had to bring Ziyi for checkup and follow-up checkup too! He could have brought her girl for a 2nd opinion if that's what he really wanted. What's with men???!!!

My sweetie pie waiting there with her over-sized bib :)

Getting ready for x-ray

My brave girl getting ready for jab

iPad did the job to calm her down

I took back the tooth and created a story of tooth fairy. I exchanged her tooth with a gold 50sen coin & a chocolate placed underneath her pillow. She was so happy to find her new treats! Kids are so innocent.

Tech-Savvy Kiddo

I downloaded Temple Run game on the iPad for myself, and the rest of the children games / educational apps for Ziyi. However, lately she's hooked on Temple Run after seeing me played for a few times. She could play and talk at the same time too. Whenever she plays, she will say out loud the action.. Jump.. Left.. Right.. There was once I heard her saying "I'm good at this" and I found out she was praising herself when playing the Temple Run game. Her daddy is now controlling her time spent on the iPad, allowing her to play only on weekends. I'm more worried for her eyesight. She is going to be another young child with spectacles.

- Ziyi at 4 yrs 8 months old -

Things that Ziyi says

We were at a shopping mall one day and as usual, I always carry a bottle of water for Ziyi and sometimes some snacks for her too (eg: banana, biscuits, etc). Throughout the day I kept on asking her to drink her water. There was once she answered me when I gave her the water bottle: "Mummy, why you always ask me to drink water, drink water, drink water??!" with the kind of tone I did not expect of her! LOL... My 4.5 years old girl never fail to amaze me with the things she says.

Challenges in Disciplining my 4yo

We attended the Parent Teacher meeting 2 Saturdays ago. As expected, Ziyi received lots of compliments from her class & daycare teachers on her academic performance. One new thing to note this round is that Ziyi is the only one in her class who can read her Bahasa books and she can read each and every word that was taught in her class. Well done Ziyi! Mummy and daddy are proud of you. 

Well, then we moved on to her character and behavior in school. This is the part that got me really worried. Her class teacher noticed some changes in her recently. She is so stubborn that she is always keeping quiet whenever someone is talking or questioning her, especially so when she's not in the mood. Sort of like having mood swing. Refusing to apologize to anyone even when the other party said sorry to her first. 

She is only afraid of me thus far. No one else can reprimand her except this tiger mummy. I hate to shout at her but she really leaves me no choice. My lil Ziyi, when will you change? I seriously do not know how to discipline you :(

Physical Development

Ziyi was at the pediatrician last week and the nurse took her measurement. At 4 years 4 months old, her weight is 16 kg and 105 cm in height. My skinny monkey is always so skinny, even when she was a baby, there's not much chubbiness in her. 

I googled and found a chart suggested as below for a 4 year old:

4 years

Boys Girls Weight 33.3 - 39.1 pounds 32.2 - 38.5 pounds Height 39.2 - 41.5 inches 38.6 - 41.0 inches

After conversion, she's at 35.2 pounds and 41.3 inches. Average for her weight and tall for her height at her age. Now I just wish she'd grow a lil bit more fats in her body. So much cuter with those baby fats!!

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!!!!

Off the bottles

At 4 years 1 month old, Ziyi is completely off the bottles. I started weaning her when she turned 4, but I was not doing it consistently though. During one of the long weekend holiday last month, I decided to hide her bottles away and told her I've thrown them away *evil grin*

As of now, she has been drinking her milk from a grown up cup for 1 month. She sometimes drink Anmum formula milk, fresh milk or Oatmilk, depending on her mood. However, getting her to down her milk quickly in the morning is still pretty difficult as she can be quite fussy early in the morning and wants me to feed her instead. 

I'm glad I've successfully weaned her and not having to go through the hassle of washing her bottles and teats and not forgetting changing the teats every 6 months. She was using Cherub's baby glass bottles though and it is quite a waste to keep them away as they are still pretty new. Perhaps these bottles can be passed down to her future sibling?? 

An Update from Ziyi's Class Teacher

When we met up with Ziyi's class teacher, Teacher Kim, last month, she commented that Ziyi is a very obedient girl. I'm very surprised that she's labelled as an obedient child. However, I'm pretty sure she is much much more obedient in school than at home, gosh, she drives me up the wall almost everyday. 

Academic wise, she is doing very well in her class. I did not even  know that she has been appointed as the class monitor since beginning of the year. She has to help teacher to distribute books to the children according to their names, carry out whatever duties assigned to her and also to assist Teacher Kim to guide the other children to read (Bahasa and English). She is a precocious child when it comes to languages. I'm pretty impressed with her reading skills.

In short, Teacher Kim likes Ziyi very much and is satisfied with her performance in class. How I wish she is just as obedient whenever she's with me.

At 4 years old

It's been very long since my last update. I have been so busy with my new job now, and I have neglected my blog. I shall just keep to my objective of updating Ziyi's progress, lest all these precious memories will be forgotten few years down the road.

She has just celebrated her 4 years birthday bash at KizSports & Gym, Empire Subang. She had a great time and I have no regrets for celebrating this for her at 4 and not when she was 3! She has grown up so much and appreciate it better. 

At 4, she can now dress herself up, including her own t-shirts/blouses. She was only capable of wearing her bottoms previously, but now she is so proud of showing off her skill at wearing her own tops!

She is so much more obedient now, compared to...hmm, when she was around 1+ to 3+ years old. Gosh, those days were terrible!

Every morning, she will pee, brush her teeth, gargle, wash her face and dress up all by herself! I only need to ensure she does it in a faster manner, else I will be late for work! 

Food wise, she is still a lil' bit fussy but overall, she eats almost everything, including vegetables and meat. Spaghetti has became her favorite food now, just like me! My Cinaman daughter is slowly becoming more angmoh. LOL! One not so good change about her is that she dislikes most fruits served to her, unlike her younger days. She doesn't mind banana, papaya, pineapple, watermelon and yellow kiwifruit. The rest will have to force-feed. 

My once clingy daughter is not so clingy anymore. With my hectic schedule, I don't have the luxury of picking her up from school in the evening anymore. She would play and eat her snacks at home without me around in the evening, and once in a while she would still bug me to bring her out to the park before dinner. Her dinner is served later in the evening after I reach home from work.

I shall update her performance in school in the next post. Stay tuned!

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. 

My Little Reader @ 3yr 9mo

Ziyi's definitely a person who memorizes well and learns everything by the book. She has been reading pretty well lately. Throw her a simple story book and she could read almost every word all by herself. I'm definitely proud of her but at the same time I'm worried too. She might not be very good at using her creativity mind.
Hmm, let's see how she will perform when she has to start anew in the land down under in 2013. Their education system is totally different from ours!

Learning New Words

Mixing and playing with other children has its pros and cons. They sometimes picked up good and bad habit along the way. As for Ziyi, she learns new words almost everyday. She sometimes surprised me with her new vocabulary.

Lately she learned to say "Alamak" whenever she trips and fall. She could say it very naturally too! She amused me more when she said "No, thanks" whenever I offered her something that she doesn't fancy.

She would also say "Ai yo yo" if she thinks it's troublesome to do certain things.

Up to date, she has been learning mandarin for about 4 months. She is still struggling with her mandarin but her teacher mentioned that she's a quick learner and I shouldn't worry too much. I sometimes regret for not speaking to her in mandarin from young. Learning English language is much easier than Mandarin language. The only Mandarin words she has mastered is "Bu Yao" means don't want. I will try harder to speak to her in mandarin more often, though it can be very tiring sometimes, because I feel like I'm talking to the wall. LOL

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...

Outgrowing Her Separation Anxiety

At 3.5 years old, my little Ziyi is slowly outgrowing her separation anxiety. She has followed my PIL out on 2 different occasions lately, without asking for mummy to follow. I also realized she is starting to get close and attach to daddy more as compared to her younger days, where she never really liked daddy to touch her, carry her, feed her, bathe her, etc.. 

Yesterday she allowed daddy to bring her out to the playground too, unlike few months ago, where she would cry murder when I didn't follow, or she'd rather stayed home than to go to the playground with daddy!

I feel more relief now that she's giving me a little space to breathe and not clinging onto me too much like before. 

Cutting her hair short, again

It wasn't easy coaxing this little girl to cut her hair. She never allowed anyone to cut her hair since she was a baby. She had phobia seeing hairs dropped on the floor or on her body.  As she grows, she outgrew her phobia too. Her very first hair cut at a salon was when she turned 4 months old where we shaved her hair off. Second time was somewhere mid this year and now this is the 3rd time. In between I tried trimming her hair at home every now and then but it was a really tough job to perform.

I was glad this time she allowed the stylist to cut her hair without making a fuss! She got a little impatient towards the end, kept asking me if it's done. I like her in short hair, she looks so much cuter now!

Reading skills

Ziyi's reading skills has improved tremendously. She can now reads most of the words in her simple story books and activity books. 

She is always reading from her Dora The Explorer  and Thomas & Friends story books. 

   

She can even read the instructions on all her activity books, like "Add up all the lambs on this page" and "Count the number of flowers and place the missing stickers" etc, etc. That's truly amazing for a soon to be 3.5 year old kid. Another plus point is that mummy gets a break while she does her reading all by herself. 

That being said, she may be the studious type but not the creative one. Maybe we should engage her into more art & craft activities and imaginative play to bring out her creativity rather than being a book worm all the time. I definitely don't want a nerdy daughter. >.<

Off diapers at 3y 4mths

I almost forgot to note this down. Ziyi was completely off the diapers at 3y 4mo, day and night. She has been off diapers during the day when she was almost 3yo. At times I wish she would wear her diapers when we are out and about especially at places where toilets are not easily available and as we know Malaysian toilets can be wet and foul smelling too.

For the past 1 month (she is now 3y 5mo when I typed this post), there was only 1 accident at night, which I think she was too tired to wake up to relieve herself. But I was glad she woke me up and told me she wet her pants!

I save a lot of $$ now that she doesn't use diapers and I still have 1 big unopened pack of diaper lying in my room. I shall keep it for another 6 months or so before giving it away.

Graduation Concert 2011

Ziyi's school graduation concert was held on the 16th Nov this year. It was also her very first performance on stage. The hubs and I were very excited and just could't wait to watch her performance. He took the day off as he needed to renew his passport in the morning. Apparently the renewing process was a speedy one, everything done through a machine kiosk and you get to collect your renewed passport 1 hour later. 

We fetched Ziyi from her school at 2pm and I got her prepared for her afternoon nap at home. It took her almost 2 hours to fall asleep, and by that time it was almost 3.30pm and I had to wake her at 4.30pm as we had to leave our home at 5pm. With just 1 hour of nap, she appeared cranky and restless. I made her some pancakes with cheese and cherry tomatoes, drizzled with honey. No time to feed her at home, lucky she liked it and whacked everything in the car. 

Bad day to leave the house at 5pm, it started raining and the traffic was really bad. Took us slightly more than an hour to reach Summit (only 15km from our place) and we were late. We had a hard time looking for the auditorium too and once we found the place, we realized there were many parents who were going to reach even later, no thanks to the massive traffic out there!

She was very happy when waiting inside the changing room. Running and playing with her friends. I sneaked in and took a few shots of her with her friends too. She kept telling me that she's going to dance and mummy & daddy must see her performing later. 

She has a bare back costume, she looks so cute in them.

her best friend in school

When it was her turn to perform, we waited anxiously and both hubs and I were ready with our cameras. We were shocked to see her crying when walking up the stage! My poor little girl had a stage fright I guess. This is her first performance in front of a big group of audiences after all. No rehearsal was done at the actual venue thus she did not know what to expect, I supposed. Ziyi was asking for mummy and I had to sit on the floor, near to the stage so that she could see me there.

The 3 & 4 years old performed a simple chinese dance. 

They sang Krista and Rasa Sayang song for the closing of the concert.

Overall, we were happy with her performances though she was lost for a little while when she first got onto the stage. A very good exposure and experience for her. Hope she would perform better in the future and not be like mummy....I have stage fright too!! 

Coloring competition

What do you think of the pic above? Nice work? I think so too, at least for a 3 year old girl. 

Ziyi's school organized a coloring competition recently and she won a prize for her piece of art! 

My lil sweetie pie, we are so proud of you!!