The warrior princess diaries - XI

My last post in the warrior princess diaries series was last year! To catch up, I have compiled the last three months of Xena's antics in this one.

Let me start with a video from early January, where she shows off her Nemo-drawing prowess!



Over the last few months, have been telling me that she's now starting to look more like me. Yahooo! But I wonder if it's because her hair has gotten more and more junglee... Oh, did I mention that I have been asked at least three times by complete strangers, "Your baby has such nice curls! Are they natural?" HUH?! No, I took my baby to a salon and got a colour+perm.

Anyway, junglee hair aside, she still has a lot of Viv's virgo traits even though she's not one. For example, she is very particular that the windows be closed when it rains heavily. Check this out.



She had a vocabulary explosion in the last few months. She attempts to say long words, and the results are hilarious. I actually miss the way she used to mispronounce some words, and Viv and I actually pronounce them the way she does. E.g. lubbindand (rubber band), codykyle (crocodile), tammyter (thermometer), mycocove (microwave), afantant (elephant) and coolinform (school uniform).

Cliched as it may sound, it is indeed amazing to see the world through a kid's eyes. Like the time she pointed to a tree and loudly exclaimed, "BLOCCOLI!!" Or how she thinks it's perfectly normal to try and high-five a cat. I kid you not. She actually walked up to a cat, fearlessly looked it in the eye, raised her hand and said, "High five?" We pass by a bird shop on the way back from her school, and every time, she exclaims, "Parrot! Hug parrot!" She has never once hugged any of her soft toys (including a parrot) but she wants to hug live animals. Great.

Then there was the time she questioned the lack of eyebrows on a fish. Seriously. She handed me her drawing board and asked me to draw Nemo. I drew it and pointed out its various body parts to her - eyes, mouth, fins, tail, etc. She looked at it for a while and then asked, "Eyeblouse??"

I am still keeping her totally away from TV and maximising one-to-one interactions with her. She is off to school in the morning and I use that time to catch up on my freelance writing deadlines. In the afternoon, we read books, play with blocks, make random things with play doh and have lately started on some fingerpainting too! Recently, she had a project at school (yes, apparently 2-year-olds also have school projects!) to make a crab using anything and with some help from google and mommy, this is what she came up with. 'Hand'-made by Xena.



I think I get too excited about her projects and toys than she does. I'm also getting good at this play doh stuff. Check out my Angry Birds!



I'm also trying to get her to be more independent, such as letting her take her shoes and diapers off, and making sure she cleans up after playing. She knows she can only go out in the evening (we alternate between going to the beach and the playground in the evenings) if she has cleaned up after playing. She even says "Tablap!" as she cleans. Tablap being 'tidy up'. Oh, the other day, she pointed to the mess on my drawing table and commanded, "Tablap!"

In January, we went on a short vacation to Phuket. We chose Mai Khao beach, far away from the crowds, and it was heavenly.







For Chinese New Year, I had bought her a traditional cheongsam which she wore to school. To our surprise, her teacher was wearing the exact same pattern, in an adult size!



Speaking of outfits, I have dusted my very old sewing machine and started a bit of sewing. And who better than Xena to be my guinea pig. I had zero confidence about sewing anything for her so I started off slow. We don't use bolsters so I always have new bolster cases that are just lying around. So I took one of them, cut it in half and made two dresses for her! The response from family and friends has been good so I might actually buy fabric and make something with it.



School is going great, and she is having fun. Wednesdays are her favourite because it's water play day and she gets to "pla-pla" ("splash splash") to her heart's content. Even her teachers say that the moment they take her swimsuit out of her bag, she exclaims, "Pla-pla!!!" The school takes photos of all daily activities and uploads them for parents to see.



On 7th March, they had sports day at school! Her class was asked to scoop water in a mug from a tub kept at one end of the field, run to the other end and empty it into the tub kept there. She was having so much fun pouring the water out, she poured it out three times midway, and almost splashed the parents at one point. It was great fun. Of course, they didn't take my suggestion of putting some food at the start line, otherwise she'd have won all the races.

Her teachers have taught her how to make the "happy face" and now she does it on demand (see below).



They are also very patient in trying to feed her because I have told them that that is the most important reason why we have enrolled her in school -- to make eat. They write me a daily note on what she ate and what she rejected. Her Mandarin teacher who speaks only a little English told me, "She no chew!" The main issue aside, I think it's a great Chinese nickname for her - She No Chew! What do you think?

I think school has definitely helped her eating. She still doesn't eat much or willingly, but she does take some interest in having a few grains of rice or a few strands of noodles, and a teaspoon of her current favourite -- aloo bhujia! I'm waiting to see the day when she willingly eats normal portions, and climbs up the height and weight chart. She is still below the 3rd percentile for weight, and painfully reminds me of it at times. Such as last week, when we were out shirt-shopping for Viv. She peeled off a sticker from a stack of T-shirts and stuck it on herself. And guess what the sticker said? It said, very accurately, 'XXS'.

During one of our beach walks, we spotted a sleeping cat. As usual, she wanted to hug and high-five it. I told her, "The cat is sleeping, baby. Don't disturb it." She repeated, "Don dittub." and we moved on. On the way back, we saw the cat again and it was now wide awake. Xena looked up at me and asked, "Dittub?" I didn't know what to say except laugh. She makes me laugh a lot. Like the time she was watching me eat lunch. As I ate the last spoonful, she peered into my bowl and asked, "Fingdish?" Then she clapped her hands and said, "Good baby!"

Well, now she has graduated from referring to every human being as "baby". She can now tell who's a baby (can't walk), who's a boy or a girl (can walk and talk), and who's a grown-up ("uncle" or "aunty", depending solely on length of hair I believe). Once, she saw a lady with very short hair, pointed straight to her and loudly said, "UNCLE! AUNTY?? UNCLE?? UNCLE!!!" *mommyfacepalm*

Well, this was not the first time I had a *mommyfacepalm* moment. At home, I involve her when I fold washed laundry, and have along the way taught her the names of different kinds of clothes. When we were in Phuket, she saw this lady stepping out of the sea wearing a bikini, pointed straight at her chest and loudly exclaimed, "BRAAAAA!"

And it continues. We were at the road crossing yesterday and I was giving her a refresher on the red man, green man and the flashing green man. We had crossed half-way (along with other people) when she looked up, saw the flashing green man, pointed and yelled at the top of her voice, "FLASHING UNCLE!!!!" *mommyfacepalmagain* Let there be no flashing uncles on the roads, please! :O

I'll end with this video, as it's one of her latest. She's pointing out, "Dhoop aa gayi!" and that it's time for mommy to perform her daily shadow play.