Nina ate the whole apple including the skin by herself. She saw her teacher at the Little Gym did that and wanted to do it herself too. And she did.

Nina told me when I got home today, “Daddy, I have a haircut”. And then she said, “Nina cut Nina’s poni”. Poni is Indonesian word for fringes.

Her mom brought her to Rustan today at Glorietta to have her hair cut. She didn’t cry.

I asked where she had her hair cut, and she said “in the salon”.

Nina started her summer class at the Little Gym today. Her mom sent me a text message at 10am this morning:

Nina pinter di sekolah mau ditinggal di gym and gak pake pampers

Her mom didn’t join her at the gym and she didn’t wear diaper either.

8 children in the class, some were from her previous class, called “Superbeast” and some were new. Nina seemed to enjoy her new class after spending some time sitting and observing her new friends and playing by herself at the gym. She joined them playing together after that.

During her previous school term, Nina never wanted to join her friends lining up before entering the classroom after the gym session. And today, her mom was surprised to see Nina lining up together with her friends while entering the classroom. Good improvement.

She was cheerful when her mom picked her up. Nina proudly told her mom, “Nina pinter gak nangis”. And she also told her mom that she was able to tell her teacher when she wanted to go to the restroom. “Nina wee wee sama teacher”, she said.

Nina met her old friends from the previous class: Una, Kohsuke, Aaliya, Elki and she met some new ones, like Drew and Maria.

Nina asked me to play farm last night.

Nina: “Daddy, Nina wanna play farm”

And then she sang twinkle-twinkle little star, but she replaced all the words with only one word “please”.

Nina: “Please, please, please, please, please, please, please … please, please, please, please, please, please, please”

And then she asked me to say “Yes” by singing the same song too: “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes … yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes”

I was playing with Nina last night on the sofa and she suddenly asked to play Pok Ame Ame, an Indonesian’s children play. It goes like this :

1. we face each other
2. we both clap our hands once
3. we use our right hands to do the hi-five thing
4. we both clap our hands again
5. we use our left hands now to do the hi-five
6. repeat from no 2 above

and while doing this, we sing the song : Pok Ame Ame, Belalang Kupu-Kupu, Siang makan nasi, Kalau malam minum susu. I sang the song last night, but Nina could actually sing this song about a year ago but she sang it like this: Pok Ame Ame, Belalang Tupu-Tupu, Siang makan nasi, Kalau malam, mimi susu.

When I first taught her this about a year ago, she wasn’t able to do the clapping and hi-five things well yet. She wasn’t able to coordinate between using her right hand, left hand and do the clapping. She was always trying to use one hand only.

I video taped this while we were playing last night.

We stopped by at Starbuck after playing with Nina at the Salcedo park this afternoon. She wanted her favourite, chocolate doughnut, but unfortunately they had no more. So, we got her double chocolate walnut brownie. I had iced caramel machiato and her mommy has iced coffee americano. Her mommy’s drink was too bitter for Nina. She looked at mine and thought it was milk because of the color. She had a sip and she liked it because of the caramel taste I believe. She kept asking for it and I had to drink faster as we didn’t want her to drink too much coffee.

Nina came and told me proudly just now, “Daddy, look …” and she showed me that she could bounce a ball just like those basketball players. She could bounce the ball for about 3 - 4 times before she lost it.

She then went to the kitchen to show her mommy her new skill. “Mommy, look …”

I was updating her blog just now (the previous entry about the banana) and she came out of her room (our room ) and asked me this question:

“do you want to come to my room?”

while pulling my hand.
I told her, “OK, but wait first yah. Daddy needs to finish this one first, OK?”
And I asked her to sit on the parquet floor just next to me, but then she said to my surprise:

“No, I don’t want to sit. I want to sleep!” and gave me her pretending-to-be-angry look.

and ran back to the room.

I don’t hear her voice again now … probably she is really sleeping now. This is the moment her mommy has been waiting for.

It’s 11.25pm now and Nina is still very active.She asked for a banana just now. She was probably hungry. So, her mommy gave her one. 15 minutes later, she came to me and asked me to finish her banana. Half left.

“Daddy … finish my banana!”

And then when I finished it, she took the skin to her mommy who was in the bedroom already and told her:

“Mommy … Daddy abisin. Liat … liat”

Nina tends to speak English to me and Indonesian to her mommy. She is able to switch between the two languages depending on who she is talking to. Not always that way, but most of the time.

How time flies.
Nina is 3 today and two of her birthdays have been in Manila.

She celebrated her birthday at her school at the Little Gym, the Fort. Her mommy ordered that cute green birthday cake with a big number 3 on top of it. Green has been Nina’s favorite color. She was also wearing green today.

Here was when she was trying to blow the candles.