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.

I just finished shower and walked out of the bedroom. Nina heard me walking out and started walking to the room. I decided to play and hid myself in the second bedroom. She went to our bedroom and kept calling “Daddy” and finally went out again to the living room to look for me.

Nina: “Daddy?”
Mommy: “Yah?” (her mommy was in the kitchen and thought Nina was calling her)
Nina: “Aku lagi calling Daddy”
Nina: “Mana Daddy?”
Mommy: “Daddy lagi mandi”

Nina turned around and finally saw me behind her and said :

Nina: “Daddy udah mandi”

And as expected, she said

Nina: “Nina wants to play farm”

referring to our usual play on the bed with her truck and the animal toys she has like the sheep, pig, elephant, kangaroo, monkey, etc .. as if she is in the farm.

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 told me, “Daddy, you ride the shuttle bus. Wait for the driver.” She was referring to herself as the shuttle bus driver.

Nina commented just now “my goodness”, when her hands were dirty because of her painting ink. Don’t know where she learned that.

Nina asked for a banana and I gave her one and the conversation:

Daddy: “Can Daddy peel the banana for you?”.

Nina: “No, I peel”

Nina: “I can peel the banana”

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 …”

Nina said these sentences today. All written in her original way of saying them including the grammatical error and mixing Indonesian and English words (bubur is Indonesian, meaning porridge).

“Daddy, you already finish take a bath?”"Daddy, You are smell so good.”

“Daddy, I want to eat bubur and chicken nugget.”

“Daddy, I have to eat first. Later I will feel better.”

Nina likes salak (Indonesian’s snake fruit). Something she got from me I think as I like salak very much.I peeled for her just now and gave her one first while I continued to peel the rest. Then I gave her another one and she said:

“No. One is enough”

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.