I have been telling Nina to say good morning to us and others every time she wakes up in the morning, so I asked her just now:

Daddy: “Eh, Nina … do you remember what I told you before? What should you say to people every time you wake up in the morning?
Nina: “mommy?”
Daddy: “Nooo … ”
… thinking for a short while, she then said softly ..
Nina: “morning”

Sunrise Garden, second day of Chinese New Year 2011.

She woke up just now and started to call (read: to scream) for her mommy as usual.

“Mommmmmyyyyyy”

I came to the room instead.

Nina: “where is mommy?”
Daddy: “mommy is watching TV downstairs, Nina”
Nina: “I want to wee wee”
Daddy: “OK, go to the bathroom now”
Nina: “No, I want mommy”
Daddy: “It’s OK Nina, let me bring you to the bathroom”
Nina: “No, I want mommy”

Nina can swim now!!! She started swimming breaststroke without any floating device 3 weeks ago. Her breathing is almost perfect and she can float better now. She can swim the entire length of the width of the pool which is about 12 or 15 meters I think. She has started learning the freestyle now.

We swam together this afternoon after her lesson and she surprised me when she did backstroke by herself. OK, not quite backstroke style yet because what she did was just to float herself facing the sky and kicked her legs and moved. But she could move almost 10 meters by doing that. She was so excited that she kept doing it. She told her mum when we were back that she just tried it and suddenly she could do it.

Well done, Nina!

Nina wanted to play the barbie’s dressing up games on the internet when we were having dinner earlier. She had played that before. So, she turned on her mommy’s laptop and entered the Windows’ password of her mommy’s user ID. It usually takes few minutes for it to fully load. Her mommy then asked her:

Mommy: “Udah Nina?”
Nina: “Belon mommy. Masih Microwave”
Mommy: “Bukan Microwave Nina, Microsoft”

She meant that the laptop was still booting up and she saw that Microsoft Windows logo on the screen. 

Nina: “Christmas day is God’s birthday. I want to give God a gift. What gift should I give God?”
Daddy: “Just be a good girl, Nina. That will be a good gift for God.”
Nina: “No, daddy. I want to give something. Does God need a microwave?”
Daddy: “I don’t think so, Nina”
Nina: “How about clothes? Does God need clothes?”
Daddy: “God already has everything, Nina. He has everything because He is God”
Nina: “He has millions of clothes?”
Daddy: “Maybe. If you are a good girl, that’s already a good gift for God, Nina.”
Nina: “I want to give something. Does he want a drawing?”
Daddy: “You can always draw for God if you want, Nina”

We just finished putting up our Christmas tree together with Nina. It’s nicely decorated and lit and stand pretty in one corner of our living room when Nina suddenly said:

Nina: “I have been working a lot and now I want to poo-pooooo”

Nina: “Daddy, I have a tricky question for you”
Daddy: “Oh, OK Nina. What is it?”
Nina: “Where does the cow like to go?”
Daddy: “Grass field?”
Nina: “No, Daddy”
Daddy: “OK, I give up, Nina. What is it?”
Nina: “The cow likes to go to a Mooo-vie”

… not bad Nina.

Nina drew this last week. It’s a drawing of our family. Notice the slanted mouths? Her mommy just had a surgery that affected the nerves that control the facial expression. She can’t smile properly yet. One side is lower that the other. It will take up to 3 months for full recovery. So Nina decided to draw the mouth of the other family members that way too. 

Also note that she drew uncle Franky (second from left) with his tongue out because uncle Franky likes to tease Nina whenever we visit them in Jakarta. So, she drew him as if he was teasing her.

Nina: “Daddy, when you and mommy have not got married yet and are still friends, are you shy to take off your underpants in front of mommy?”

I was smiling and speechless in the beginning. I was caught off guard by this question, but then quickly answered:

Daddy: “No Nina, we cannot take off our underpants if we are not married yet”

I know that this answer is not really complete, but I hope to give her the idea and basic value around this topic. I know that more related questions may come soon and I’d better be prepared with good answers. Kids these days learn and hear so much that we as parents need to equip ourselves quickly with knowledge on how to handle these sensitive questions. Nina is only 5 now. At her age, I probably only thought of sweets.

Time to read more about this S . E . X education for children from the expert.

Nina has been sleeping without diapers with success for 6 consecutive days now. Hopefully this will continue. Her mommy would wake her up at around 2.30am and 6am to get her to the bathroom and then back to sleep. It has been successful so far, but poor her mommy that she had difficulty going back to sleep sometimes.

I have written before that Nina needs her mommy’s hair when sleeping. She needs to play and smell her mommy’s hair before she can finally sleep. Not sure how long this will continue. So I told her just now to learn to sleep without her mommy’s hair and she commented:

“Daddy, I need to learn new things one by one. Not two by two. I now learn not to wee wee on the bed. Later I will learn not to play with mommy’s hair. “

I got the point, Nina. 

We all know that time flies and things change, but many times, we don’t realize what we are missing until it’s too late. Am I making any sense here?

OK, what I am going to write is not that bad, but I have started to feel that I am going to “lose” my little girl very soon. Nina is growing up fast. She is capable of doing many things by herself now. Things that she probably never thought of when she was a baby or as a 1 year old girl. She has lost a lot of her toddler’s way of saying something or pronouncing words. There are still some words that she can’t pronounced correctly yet, such as the following Indonesian words:

• hudah instead of sudah
• yuga instead of juga
• and some more. I will update the list when I remember them

She is also still confused sometimes between “ask” (as in asking question) and “tell” (as in telling someone something). But, I am sure all these will change soon.

I went to her bedroom just now and saw her reading her book and we had this short conversation.

Daddy: “Nina, do you want Daddy to read for you?.”
Nina: “No, Daddy. I can read by myself now.”

I am happy that she is now able to read by herself. She is still making some mistakes when reading, but at least she wants to and can try reading by herself. The other day, her mommy told me that Nina read some children story books by herself. You know those children books with lots of pictures and some short sentences.

I have read for her many times before (not as frequent as her mommy did though), so when I saw reading by herself, I thought of asking if she wanted me to read for her.

Daddy: “But Daddy wants to read for you, Nina.”
Nina: “It’s okay, Daddy. I can ready by myself.”

Again, I am happy that she can now read. But, deep inside me, I have this fear of “loosing” her very soon. She may not want to play those “silly” things we used to play together anymore, even if I want to play with her. By the way, they are definitely not silly for her age. Remember what Walt Streightiff said, “There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million”. Things that we think are silly as an adult, are not that silly for them. They are fun and interesting things to play for them. The children probably don’t understand why we adults need to spend lots of time in front of our computer, trying to tell the world our status of the hour: “I never really learned the difference between what is right or wrong. That’s why I automatically assume that whatever I say MUST be right.”

That was never on my facebook status by the way .. … I just picked it up from internet.  

So, I know that I can’t keep her that small forever. I know that I can’t stop her educational growth, otherwise we won’t send her to school. But I know that I have to spend more time enjoying this very moment with her now. Tomorrow is not good enough.

We are happy she is growing up well and healthily.

And oh by the way, she may not understand all the words yet, but she can now say the prayers of “Our Father” or “The Lord’s Prayer” and “Hail Mary” everyday completely without looking at her small prayer book. We are so proud of you, Nina.

Love you pumpkin!

Nina just slept when I went into her room just now. She was woken up when I kissed her and she said:

“Nina dreaming sampai ngeces”

What did you dream about Nina?  

Good night, pumpkin ! Love you.

Nina arranged these flowers that we picked this morning for her mommy. I gave her a small vase that we bought from Ikea long time ago (used to be for cactus) and she arranged the flowers in it. It brightened her mommy’s day, I hope.

We went to the church early this morning. It was still early for Nina and we had to wake her up and didn’t get a chance to have breakfast before we left home. During the mass, she complained that she was hungry, but unfortunately we did not bring her food. She had to stay till the end. During the Communion, her mommy brought her to the front. Her mommy received the Communion and Nina was given the sign of the cross on her forehead as it’s not time yet for her to receive the Communion. She then complained to her mommy:

“Mommy, I want the bread too. I am hungry!”

Nina wanted to have her weekly planner written on paper for her to display on her bedroom wall. She asked her mommy for some help on how to do it. Her mommy drew a table that has days in the vertical columns and time in the horizontal rows. Nina then tried to follow that and the above was what she came up with. Not too bad for her first try.