Sister? Mother?

Well, it has been 3 days since I came back to Australia, and I am absolutely loving the weather!! It's sunny and hot everyday. It's also so laid back and relaxing. I am currently staying with my aunt, uncle, grandmother and 2 cousins. My cousins are 6 and 3 and half. They are soooo cute!! The last time I saw them was 3 years ago, and they have grown sooo much!!
It's a nice change being a big sister to two girls, as at home I'm a big sister to two boys. The boys always gang up on me and leave me out of things, so it's nice to have two girls. It is such a difference! They really look upto you! Not to mention copy whatever I do! Especially the baby. She now has multi-coloured nail polish on her fingers and toes. I insisted that they would look prettier if she kept to one colour, but she demanded the mermaid purple on her toes and pink and silver glitter on her fingernails. She's very proud of them.

I had forgotten how pure and observant little kids can be. They remember the littlest things, things you wouldn't believe! And they have the most fantastic biggest imagination ever!! They are so full of energy. Also, I knew that parenting and bringing kids up was hard with the discipline and just providing them education and other things, but what I really experienced this time was the difficulty of sibling rivalry. It is so difficult to be available for them all the time. They fight for my attention and want me to love them more than the other one.
I remember when my brother and I used to do this too. We'd fight for mum's attention and speak over the other one. But I didn't know how difficult and at times annoying it could be for the parent. Being a parent is really hard.

But they are so cute and so very special! The 6 year old is so talented and beautiful. She's smart and has talents in dancing, but doesn't boast about it and at times, shy about it. The baby has a complete different personality to her sister, and I could tell that she is going to be out-going, funny and bright, and probably very popular with the boys when she is older. I can tell she'd be breaking a lot of hearts haha. I really didn't expect a 3 and half year old to be able to speak so much! Her vocabulary might even be better than mine!! Kids pick up things so fast!! Her favourite word now is "ass". She comes and kicks my ass and says "I'm gonna kick your ass!!" She loves it cuz she thinks it's a rude word. She also loves calling out my name and when I reply "what?", she says "nothing~~!". She is such a giggly, bubbly girl.

They look upto me and see all my big-girl things like make up, my clothes and shoes and I could tell they wanna grow up quickly. I mean, the baby grabs my breasts all the time and says "You have big boobies!!, I have no boobies yet!". And she copies everything I do. They question everything I am doing, whether it's spritzing my hair with tsubaki oil, putting on nail polish, applying mascara, whatever! It is so cute!! I remember when I was a little girl (gosh I sound so old...) and I looked upto the big girls at school, and I couldn't wait till I was one of them. Well, now it's the opposite. I wish I was still a little girl again sometimes.....

I also love the way they call me. They add jeijei in front of my name (which means older sister in Chinese) and the the middle one is also a jeijei, and the baby is meimei. Back home, I had always and still want my brothers to call me お姉ちゃん onechan or ねぇーねぇー nene, but they never did, and never do. They just scream out my name. It is so annoying. So I am loving the way they call me now! When I have children, I am gonna make them call each other jeijei, meimei or gege, didi before their name too!

The baby has really come attached to me, that she wanted to come into the bathroom while I took a shower. I would close the door on her and she would cry and make me hold her in my arms and she would say "meimei love jeijei". And then I would feel guilty for trying to get her out of the room. But I managed to take her out of the room while I took a shower, I mean I really don't need a 3 year old watching me and her mum thinking I'm some kind of pervert or something lol. She wanted to go to sleep with me tonight as well. The older one would make me play games with her, whether it be games on the net, playing go-fish and snap with cards, watching kids tv shows, or playing school. I enjoyed some kids crosswords today. And I also did some colouring in. It's cool to be a kid again.

I would walk around the house and see things, whether it be toys, books or furniture that we had given them before I moved to Japan and they would bring back so much nostalgia. Like the Hello Kitty telephone which is a real phone. I used to love that phone when I was a kid. And the fan and heater we used to use at our house. I remember using that heater every morning during winter to get changed for school, and how I burnt my stocking on it, cus I was too close to it lol. Also the little pink plastic doggy seat. It still has the stickers I put on it when I was little. How I remembered how it was to be little and young again.

I am so happy and grateful I have the most beautiful and best little cousins in the world. Oh, I feel so loved :) Children are such a blessing.