Bing Bing 3y4m: 3 YEARS IN NZ

This post is long overdue and that’s why it is going to be a little bit longer than usual. My mother visited us for three months and I was glad to see that Bing Bing and her grandmother bonded really well. Before grandma arrived, we told Bing Bing that her grandmother could only speak Vietnamese and Bing did promise not to speak English at home, so that grandma could understand her.

Tracing the origin of Deeda’s name

People asked me why Margaret is called Bing Bing all the times. This was fairly easy because I named her myself. Things were getting more difficult with Deeda because Bing Bing called him so from the very first day, and we were not sure whether it was Teeda or Deeda at times. After a lot of researches, I was very confident that we had been able to trace the origin of Deeda’s name. It was not related to our friend’s car make of (Nissan) Tiida as she hoped. It was not at all a random choice. In fact, it gotta be some smart act of spoonerism I believed (!). I came to realize this listening to the conversation between Bing Bing and her grandmother:

-     - Bing Bing ơi, Bing Bing dạy bà nội tiếng Anh nào?

-     - Bà nội ơi, Mommy, Daddy, Deeda…Daddy, Deeda… hihi J

I thought Bing Bing did play with the word Daddy and shuffled it a bit to get her brother’s nickname. Two most important men in her life so far - like what Alex said. Well, at this stage, she did not confirm my thinking just yet, but I hoped I was getting this right.

Kill the Bad, not the Ugly

Bing Bing had a little book named Hipposite with a lot funny pictures explaining two opposite concepts, for example ‘night vs. day’, ‘pretty  vs. ugly’ and ‘soft vs. rough’ etc. We also tried to teach her about all the good vs. bad behaviors in daily life so that she could form her own boundary.

-     - Bing Bing, what do you think about crossing the street when red light is on? Is this good or bad? – asked Alex

-     - Bad – Bing Bing rolled her eyes and answered

-     - What about not putting your rubbish in the bin? Is that good or bad?

-     - Bad – now she answered while jumping up and down   

-     - What about tidy up your own toys honey?

-     - Good, it’s good Mommy :)

‘Good or Bad’ concept was also extended to the likes of fly and mosquito as well. Bing Bing obviously didn’t like flies and mosquitoes because they were bad enough, and she tried to smash them all using her little green pad. On a rainy day, she was walking out of the garage and she saw an earthworm on the ground.

-     
-     - Daddy, look! What is it? Ba ơi xử lý nó đi, it is ugly – said Bing Bing

Though I was not a big fan of either worms, snakes or any creepy crawlies, I thought it should be useful to talk a bit more about them for Bing Bing. I explained that it was actually an earthworm and it helped cultivate the soil. Lastly, I told her “Well you don’t just kill it because it is ugly OK?”. Bing Bing nodded her head and repeated “Only kill the bad ones, not the ugly ones”. Yeah, that’s right!

Frozen Obsession 

One of the things that I really wanted to find out was what source of viewer research Disney conducted before producing Frozen. Why every little girl was obsessed with Elsa (though in my opinion she was not pretty) and her blue dress was still a big question to be answered. Of course, if there was ever an Elsa Fan Club in Auckland, Bing Bing would certainly become its president or something. She loved Elsa's long hair, she loved Elsa's long dress and she even introduced herself as Queen Elsa of Arendale sometimes. I did some Google search and found out that they sold Elsa's dress at Farmers. Quite an investment yet the look on Bing Bing's face (after she fell asleep for 2 hours on the way to Farmers) made it all worthwhile. Bing Bing now pretended to be Elsa all the time wearing her blue dress and singing 'Let it go'. 

Deeda 

There would be another long post about Bing Bing and Deeda of course. Deeda was born on 21 July 2016 and he gotta spend a few days in NICU afterwards. Bing Bing got to see her little brother a few days