Early childhood development: the universal stages

Toddlers are a fun and exhausting group of tiny humans. I always loved learning about child development as soon as I got pregnant because I found every step of the way fascinating, especially as I was watching my own tiny human get bigger and bigger each day. While Kaia has been developing more of her own unique personality and traits, there are some things that just seem to be universal to all toddlers:

*Babies and toddlers tend to learn and say “no” and negative phrases (“don’t want/don’t like” or “don’t wanna!”) before they learn “yes” and positive phrases.

*Toddlers can go through a day of eating all of X food, then be completely repulsed by it the next day and refuse it, even throwing it off their table.

*Babies and toddlers absolutely love repetition, whether that’s of the game “Peekaboo” a hundred times or the same book read 10 times.

*When toddlers go through their tantrum phase, it’s like something innately goes off in them that forces them all to lay on the floor, face down, and just kick and scream.

I would love to hear the scientific or data-based reasons for why all the above tends to be universal?

Taiwanese popcorn chicken “oven fried” at home

At the beginning of this year, I started reading more about Taiwanese cooking. Taiwan has a complicated identity, not just because of its connection to (and arguably, ownership by) China, but also because of its history of colonization by multiple countries. While a lot in Taiwanese and Chinese cuisine overlap, some argue that Taiwanese cuisine is a completely distinct cuisine all in itself because of its native people, plus previous colonizers. Whatever you believe is certainly debatable, but what I think is most definitely true and not debatable is that the cuisine of Taiwan is extremely tasty. And that in itself is enough to appreciate Taiwan and its food.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed various iterations of Taiwanese fried chicken. Sometimes, they were deep fried cutlets, while other times, they were in the form of bite-sized, “popcorn” pieces that were fried to perfection. The chicken always had a hint of five-spice mix, but it also had an interesting “je ne sais quoi” umami flavor to it that I couldn’t pin down. I’d never had it in all the other variations of fried chicken I’d had previously, whether it was American, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, or Southern American. I just couldn’t figure out what gave it that distinct Taiwanese flavor that popped.

And then I stumbled across the journalist Clarissa Wei, an American with Taiwanese heritage who now lives in Taiwan. She has co-written a Taiwanese cookbook called Made in Taiwan and also wrote several food pieces for Serious Eats, including a Taiwanese popcorn chicken recipe with a description that explained that umami pop that was distinct to Taiwan’s version of fried chicken. The secret ingredient was furu, or Chinese/Taiwanese fermented bean curd! I never would have guessed it, but after reading her article, it completely made sense. Furu, for those who are not familiar, is a fermented bean curd that has a very, very distinct smell/taste that some might call stinky or funky. It is usually found stir-fried in vegetable dishes like water spinach or Buddha’s Delight / luo han zhai. It gives a strong umami flavor, like a more peculiar version of miso. I used this in the chicken marinade and marinated overnight. Then, I coated the chicken in a flour-baking powder mixture, then in a sweet potato flour mixture, which is supposed to give a lighter “crust” to the fried chicken.

Clarissa’s recipe calls for deep frying, which is traditional for Taiwanese popcorn chicken, but I didn’t want to do this given the mess and oil waste. Instead, I used an “oven fry” method I learned from Amanda Hesser of Food 52, who published her mom’s recipe for oven fried chicken. Instead of deep frying, she would add two tablespoons of butter/oil to a bake pan, put it in the oven at 400 F until it was fully melted and coated on the pan. Then, she would add her coated chicken, skin-faced-down, onto the super hot pan, put it back in the oven, “oven fry” (time depends on your chicken cut type, whether it’s bone-in, size of pieces), then flip over once that face-down side was super brown and crispy. She’d put it back in the oven, roast until fully cooked and the second side was brown. Finally, it would be pulled out of the oven and ready to serve. This merging of two recipes/methods really worked! I was so impressed by the results and kept marveling over how tasty the chicken was. It really did have that nice underlying “funk” to it, and the crispiness was very, very satisfying. While enjoying this chicken, I couldn’t remember the last time I was more impressed with something new I had made. This recipe was most definitely a keeper, and so was the oven frying method for pieces this small!

I guess this just means I’m going to have to read more of her book and maybe even buy it. I’ve always loved Taiwanese food, just never really explored it in depth.

Another personal item gets lost at daycare

There’s no perfect childcare solution that exists. People always debate nanny vs. daycare. There’s also the idea that children are best at home with their mother (or father, if we’re choosing not to be sexist). But every option has its pros and cons. While I do prefer the higher level of accountability and levels of escalation with daycare vs. nanny, what is definitely true of both situations is that the end caregiver, whether it’s the teacher or nanny, doesn’t always want to take ownership for things that can go wrong.

In Kaia’s last classroom in her first week, I sent her to school with a metal fork in her lunch box. That fork never came back home. I asked the teacher at the time where it was. She got defensive, asked if I even packed a fork that day (that was a really fun response, especially since the photos from lunch that day clearly show Kaia using her fork), and said that she had no idea. She took no responsibility and didn’t even apologize. It’s clear that some careless teacher just cleared the lunch table and threw out the fork. Since then, I’ve never sent any eating utensil to school; there’s too much of a risk of it getting thrown away again, especially because of its small size.

Yesterday at pickup when I was gathering Kaia’s belongings, I realized that one of her two Stasher snack bags was missing. I went through her cubby, around the sink area, and into the fridge and freezer to see if someone had placed it in there. It was not anywhere to be seen. I asked the teachers in the multi-purpose room, who confirmed they never took the snack bag into that room. The manager tried looking for it and never found it. I sent a separate note in the daycare app to the teacher about it, who leaves each day before I pick up. She never replied to my message.

When Chris went to drop off this morning, he asked the teacher about the missing Stasher bag. She was nonchalant, saying she didn’t know where it was, and that maybe one of the kids took it and threw it out. Again, no big deal to her, and no apology or sense of accountability. Chris came home to tell me that we were unlikely to ever see it again.

Now, I have to spend more time and money replacing these items that these teachers take no responsibility over. I don’t even get an apology. Instead, what’s worse is that this teacher had the nerve to blame one of the other toddlers in the class! Every time they lose something, it’s more money that we have to spend, and since it’s not their money, they clearly don’t care at all. That was the same terrible attitude our ex-nanny had: every time she lost something, she would just say flippantly, “Just buy another one,” as though we had endless funds and could just spend on everything, any time!

Supercommunicators: laughter to connect with others

Endless books have been written about how to “make friends and influence people,” create solid, lasting relationships, and ultimately to communicate better with others. I was recently listening to a podcast where the journalist Charles Duhigg was being interviewed, and he was discussing some stories he shared in his latest book called Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Power of Connection. He talked about some personal stories, like the types of arguments he and his wife have had and how they’ve improved on their arguing as a result of techniques he talks about in this book. But the part that really got me was when he discussed the simple act of laughter. Most of the time at a superficial level, when people see others laughing, they think they’re laughing because something is funny. But the majority of the time, people actually are not laughing because something is literally funny. They’re really laughing to build a connection with another person or to in some way “match” the emotions or sentiments of the person they are with. People who can “match” emotions (and there’s various definitions/principles around this) tend to be better communicators; those who don’t do this tend to be poorer communicators.

This reminded me of a very painful dinner that I sat through about 12 years ago. My good friend, who I was maid of honor for, wanted two of her bridesmaids and me to establish better rapport. My friend was temporarily living in New York for a year, and these two bridesmaids came to visit. She arranged for all four of us to have dinner together. We all went to high school together, yet I never clicked with her other bridesmaids. In high school, I found them boring, generic, drab, opinion-less, and humorless. I’m sure they had their judgments of me, but my “DGAF” attitude was already apparent back then. But I figured — so much time had passed since then, so why not try to give them another chance?

Well, that second chance was probably one of the most painful dinners I’ve ever had to sit through. We talked about a whole lot of meaningless nothing in between periods of extremely awkward silences, and while it may have lasted an hour or two, it felt like 10 hours of torture. Every time I shared any kind of opinion or anecdote, I was met with blank stares or straight faces. The many times I told dumb jokes or laughed, I was met with silence or shy chuckles with their hands covering their mouths. They didn’t share any interesting or insightful opinion about anything; they were exactly as boring as I remembered them to be in high school. I suppose time does not always change people.

I was triggered to remember this awful dinner because of what Duhigg was trying to say: laughter can connect people, and even if you laugh out of nowhere and the person next to you gives a little chuckle, they’re in some way communicating with you and “matching” your sentiments to build a rapport with you. Back then, it was hard to properly express why their lack of laughter bothered me so much, but after listening to this podcast about this “matching” principle, it completely makes more sense to me and how to convey why this was frustrating. Laughter isn’t just some empty thing that people do; we laugh to connect with each other. And when we don’t laugh, not only are we not connecting with those around us, but well, as Chris puts it, we’re probably just boring as fuck.

Toddlers learn that everyone and everything has its place: “You be here!”

On Kaia’s floor bed, she has a regular pillow she sleeps on, two smaller pillows that Chris or I will put our heads on while getting her to fall asleep, plus a cushiony bed bumper between the two sets of pillows. Each night, she knows her side of the bed, though she will usually insist on snuggling up next to or on top of me as she falls asleep. Tonight, when I tried to move so that my body was actually on her side of the bed, she clearly was not a fan. She immediately yelled, sat up, pointed at the two smaller pillows, and said emphatically, “You be here!” She wouldn’t calm down until a few seconds later, when I obediently moved to “my” side of the bed and rested my head on the pillows. At that point, she smiled and lied down next to me, snuggling her head against my neck, stomach down, and eventually drifted to sleep.

Pronouns are a bit tricky for babies and toddlers. They tend to learn these later on, so instead of saying “you” or “I” when I talk to her, I usually say, “Kaia brushes her teeth now, or, “Mummy goes to shower now.” When Kaia says she wants something, she will say “Want” or “wanna” or “wanna wanna.” To date, she has not said “I….” anything. So it was actually pretty cute when instead of saying “mummy,” she said “you” in “You be here!”

The other thing that Kaia is quickly realizing is that everyone or thing has its place or place to be. And well, according to her, my place to be at bedtime is on my two pillows, not on top of her pillow.

Ear piercing and children’s autonomy

I was two years old when I got my ears pierced. My mom took me to the doctor’s office, where they pierced my ears, and my mom took care of my ear piercings until they fully healed. There are many photos of me when I was 2 where you can see little shiny gold dots that are on each of my ears as proof of my piercing. At some point, my mom switched my earrings to small 24K gold hoops, which stayed in until I was about 3rd grade. This was when I started getting curious about other types of earrings and wore other ones (and immediately got infected because of the cheap metal on those earrings).

I looked back on my mom’s decision and actually liked it; I have zero memory of feeling any pain at the piercing or dealing with the healing of the piercings. My mom completely took care of it and remembers it. So I thought that eventually one day, I’d do that for Kaia and get her ears pierced at a similar age so she wouldn’t have to remember the pain of the piercing, or deal with the healing and treatment of the piercings after; this seemed so logical to me, as I’d be sparing her of the memory of the pain. The problem with this approach, as many people say today, is that this removes the child’s decision making from consideration; maybe she doesn’t want her ears pierced? If she doesn’t, then why are you as her parent putting her through the pain of going through this? Extremists compare ear piercing before an age of consent to things like genital mutilation or child marriage. I’ve always thought those comparisons were insane and senseless, as ear piercing is hardly in the category of either of those atrocities.

But now that Kaia is 2, I’ve had second thoughts about this. I don’t know if I want to do this to her and watch her go through the pain, even if it is brief, not knowing for sure whether she even wants it. Sure, I’d love for her to get her ears pierced and (like me) have no recollection of the pain or the healing of the piercings. I would love to buy her earrings to wear when she gets older and even go earring shopping together. But now, I think I’d be more comfortable doing it when she’s actually says she wants to have it done, and ultimately consents. And caring for the healing — this could just be part of her process of growing up and “taking care” of something of hers herself, with my supervision. And that’s not such a bad thing now, is it?

Every family has their decisions to make, whether it’s on big things like vaccinations, circumcision, and the smaller things, like ear piercing. I totally respect their choices (okay, minus the vaccination piece; if you aren’t getting your child vaccinated on a typical AAP schedule if you’re in the US, you’re just being selfish and sick), and to each their own. But I think I’ll wait until Kaia says she wants her ears pierced before we proceed with it. I’m happy that my mom got my ears pierced before I could remember. It’s like a bit of blissful ignorance in my childhood for me, especially since as a teen and an adult, I’ve loved having pierced ears, as earrings are my favorite type of jewelry. But I don’t want to look back one day and have Kaia begrudgingly remind me that I pierced her ears “without her consent” and that she’s traumatized that I subjected this to her before she could agree to it.

And this is why I’m not close with my mother

Every day, I try my best to be patient with Kaia, to explain things to her as I had never experienced as a child growing up. I try to spend quality time with her and talk to her, sing and play with her, and play games to make her laugh and smile. I hope that I can be the mother that I never had — one who loves unconditionally and always makes that clear, and never compares or constantly criticizes. I want her to trust me and know that she can tell me anything. I want her to always believe I have her best interests at heart, even when we disagree.

A lot of these thoughts go through my mind every day, even just for seconds at a time, because I don’t want to replicate the relationship I have with my own mother. My mom has gone through her own tumultuous upbringing and surviving the Vietnam / American War. She had a mother who rejected her because she was a girl, denied her an education, and gave her scraps off her older brothers’ plates for food. She dealt with a nasty mother-in-law who treated her like a slave, and a husband who mirrored his mother’s attitude towards her, his own wife. She rarely had it easy in her younger years. And unfortunately, she’s held a lot of that resentment and anger in her forever, which meant that she took a lot of her frustration out on Ed and me. She deeply distrusts pretty much everyone, and sadly, that even includes me, her only living child. And so, to keep herself going, she likes to concoct false narratives in her head of what must be true and run with them; they are the “facts” of her life that apparently only Jehovah knows and has shared with her (it’s always fun when people weaponize religion, isn’t it?).

It had been a couple weeks since I last called, though I text her almost every day with photos and videos of Kaia (which never get a response; it’s like texting and sending files into a black hole). I called a couple times the last several days, yet no one answered; most of the time, it would ring once or twice and go straight to voice mail. I texted her to let her know I called a few times; no response. I called on Wednesday evening while I went to pick up Kaia, and she was NOT happy with me when she answered.

Mom: What’s going on?

Me: What? What do you mean?

Mom: You know what I mean.

Me: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Mom: You haven’t called in a long time (I tried to interject and tell her I called multiples times and even texted to tell her in the last several days; she responds by insinuating I’m lying even though her phone is crap, and she doesn’t really know how to use it). You know, I haven’t worked since 2001. I don’t have much money, just enough. I know you don’t say it, but I know the reason you don’t call is because you’re angry that I don’t send money to Kaia. I haven’t worked; what money do I have to give?

I could immediately feel my blood start to boil. It’s always fun when the people who are supposed to be closest to you, your parents, know exactly how to blurt out complete bullshit and lies to spike your blood pressure.

I genuinely don’t know what makes her think, based on anything I’ve ever said or done in my entire life, that I’m some money-obsessed gold digger who just wants her or anyone else in my life simply for their money. I have never asked for money, nor have I ever said anything about wanting it from her. I’m sure part of the reason she thinks this is that she’s still bitter that my parents paid for my college education, but you know what — what else were they going to spend their money on? They live like paupers now, in a house that’s completely falling apart, and always have; she clearly thinks she’s poor and is barely scraping by, even though she and my dad each collect a pension and a Social Security check each month, have rental income actively coming in, many investments, and are sitting on multiple pieces of Bay Area property that they could easily sell if they wanted to.

“It really hurts me that you would think that all I think about is money, and that’s the reason I don’t call that often,” I said to her. “If you truly believe that, your mind is disgusting! DISGUSTING!”

“I don’t want to fight!” she responded curtly. “I don’t have the energy! I have to take care of myself. My health not too good. Jehovah knows what is true. Maybe I am wrong. But Jehovah knows and sees all.”

My mom has been saying her health “not too good” for the last twelve years, since the year before Ed died to guilt trip us constantly. She’s always saying she could die tomorrow. She also loves to say that I want her to die. She said it quite a number of times the last time I was home in August 2022 while I was tied to a breast pump, and Kaia was playing on the floor alongside me (talk about positive energy). I genuinely believe that my mom is so sadistic that she probably wishes she had a terminal illness just so that she could loom that over me and manipulate everyone around her to do what she wants.

I told her I didn’t have time for this stupid conversation and had go to, and hung up before I got into the daycare to get Kaia. The funny thing was – just hours earlier, I was working on a collection of framed and canvas photos of Kaia to send to her.

“I don’t know why you bother sending her these things,” Chris grumbled when I told him about the order. “She’s never grateful for anything you do.”

He’s right. And while I’ve completely come to terms that I am not responsible for my parents’ unhappiness, a part of me still wants to give them forms of temporary joy, whether that’s true a video or photo of Kaia, or food or flowers delivered. They always find a way to criticize all those, too, and sometimes, they don’t even say a simple “thank you.” But at the end of the day, it’s all futile. We are all adults who have a roof over our heads, financial security, and no worries of being in a war-torn country (anymore, at least, for my mom). Given these privileges, it’s our choice to be happy. And if they choose not to be happy, then that is 100 percent on them, and I don’t have to participate in their sick mess.

My ma la 麻辣 baby

Earlier in the week, Chris had requested that I make dan dan mian. Well, when one asks, ye shall receive. I got all the different components for the noodles ready. Dan dan noodles have quiet a number of parts to it: a complex sauce (all ingredients I actually had on hand – I was so proud of my pantry / fridge in that moment of checking!) that needs to be mixed, a dry stir-fried minced meat mixture (I used ground turkey from Butcherbox for this), stir fried ya cai (Sichuanese pickled vegetable, which some argue *makes* dan dan mian), a leafy green (like spinach, bok choy, pea shoots, or yu choy), crushed toasted peanuts and scallions, and of course, wheat noodles. Once you have all the ingredients ready, you mix it all together, and voila! Your little meal is ready.

We were conservative giving Kaia the dan dan noodles since we’re always unsure if she will be in the mood for something spicy. So we gave her plain noodles and the minced meat mixture and let her pick at that for a bit. But when she saw the bowl of the sauce, she immediately indicated that she wanted to dunk her plain noodles in the sauce, so we let her. And she ate the noodles, slurped air in to indicate it was spicy, and then as I said, “Ma la? Ma la!”, she repeated “ma la (麻辣 hot and numbing in Chinese)” multiple times before demanding water. And after a big gulp, she went back to her spicy noodles. She took breaks with plain noodles, and then kept going back and forth between spicy and plain noodles.

Kaia is my ma la 麻辣 baby, always interested in big, bold flavors and spicy heat. She should really be the Solid Starts poster child.

Tang yuan – a sweet labor of love for Lantern Festival

Well, Lunar New Year has come and gone. Although my tang yuan were late, at least I had made them close to the end of Chinese New Year, which is tradition. Tang yuan 湯圓 are small glutinous rice balls usually filled with a sweet, crushed black sesame, peanut, peanut coconut, or red bean paste mixture. They are served steaming hot, usually in a sweet milky broth or brown-sugar ginger soup. They are typically eaten at the end of Lunar New Year during what is called Lantern Festival to symbolize the unity of family and loved ones. The round shape of tang yuan is associated with the full moon, which symbolizes the wholeness of family and a brighter future.

I grew up eating both the sweet and savory versions of tang yuan. Though with my sweet tooth growing up, the black sesame or crushed peanut dessert version was always what I got excited about; this is the version that most people eat and are aware of. You can even find them premade and frozen in most Asian supermarkets; they are easy to prepare, as all you have to do is plop the frozen balls in boiling water, and they’ll be done once they float up to the top. The downside of these, though, is there is often artificial flavors and ingredients in them, and who really wants that?

But what I have more vivid memories of is the savory version of tang yuan, either eaten during Lantern Festival or during the winter solstice. The Cantonese savory tang yuan version is plain glutinous rice balls dunked and cooked in a chicken, pork, and daikon fragrant broth, along with dried shrimp, sliced Chinese sausages, daikon, and sliced Napa cabbage. It was a comforting, soothing bowl of soup, and the umami-rich scent is unmistakable. It always reminded me of home every time my grandma or mom would make it; it’s a very home-style dish, one that you would never see on a restaurant menu. In my adult years, I’ve found out there’s an even more complex version of the savory tang yuan where the savory glutinous rice balls are stuffed with a meat filling – this sounds like even more intense work!

I think the sweet version of tang yuan is easier for those who don’t understand tang yuan or its meaning to get used to. And I love making them, even though they are a total pain given that manipulating glutinous rice flour dough is very challenging. It takes some practice to get the dough just right. Using cold water won’t do; you actually need a mix of boiling hot water and cold water to make the dough workable and pliable enough to form into a firm dough. I remember this from the days when I would make them with my grandma. She would always use boiling hot water to mix the glutinous rice flour dough, and somehow, her hands, which were very tough, could always handle the steaming heat. Once the dough cooled down enough, she’d let me help and cut small pieces of dough and roll them into nice, round balls. Once you have that part right, the next part is not allowing the dough to dry up too much to get crackly. And after THAT part has cleared, you need to make sure that the filling, whether it’s crushed peanut or black sesame, will be solid enough to not fly all over the place and actually properly get inserted into each dough ball, then seal them firmly shut. It’s a lot of finicky steps and finesse that’s required to get these things just right. But when you do get it right, it’s so satisfying: to take a bite into a sweet tang yuan is very luxurious. You know it’s right when you take your first bite into the ball, and the black sesame sugar filling oozes out like hot lava. It’s creamy, buttery, and nutty lusciousness. I made a second batch of tang yuan two days ago given my first dough batch from a couple weeks ago was a total mess, and I would say that the second time was a charm. I hadn’t made this in a few years, so I had gotten a bit rusty.

Tang yuan is a treasured dish, one that I hope Kaia will be able to appreciate soon. I tried to give her one I made the other day, and she kind of pushed the ball around her dinner tray and just thought the texture was fun and squishy. Only time will tell!

“Mummy, poop!”

When you have a baby or toddler crawling/running around, there’s really no such thing as “boundaries.” Your space is their space, and their space is your space. Literally everything is shared, whether it’s your breasts (assuming you’re breastfeeding) or your time on the toilet.

In the last couple of months, Kaia has been expressing intrigue over the toilet, especially when she sees me go. To encourage her curiosity, I always let her come into the bathroom with me when I have to use the toilet, and I explain the steps of using the toilet. The other day, though, she suddenly insisted that I go poop. She dragged me over to the toilet, lifted the toilet lid, pointed into the toilet, and demanded, “Mummy, poop! Poop!”

I told her that that’s not how it works; I didn’t actually have to go. Kaia got really upset and kept insisting that I go poop. I told her “no” repeatedly. Finally, when she realized that I definitely wasn’t going to poop in the toilet, she once again splayed her body all over the bathroom floor and cried.

Welp, I wasn’t expecting that — a tantrum because mommy refused to go poop on demand. Interesting toddler moments, and another one to remind her of when she’s older.