Category Archives: Contemplations on New York Life

Parenthood: the ultimate test of patience and perseverance

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As I sat there with Kaia yesterday evening, struggling through getting her to complete a single page of Chinese strokes, specifically, the “na” (捺) stroke—the sweeping downward-right stroke, I thought about my mom and all the work she put in for me before I even got to kindergarten. Before I entered kindergarten and during my preschool years, my mom had taught me the entire English alphabet. She taught me all the letters, both lower and upper case. She made me write them over and over and over again. Before kindergarten began, I knew how to write all of them on my own, and in relatively good form. In addition to that, she taught me all the numbers and had me do basic addition and subtraction in hopes that I’d be more advanced than my peers. While I was initially more advanced than the majority of them, that quickly ended by the time I reached third grade. Multiplication and division did not come naturally to me; it was a painful and miserable process before I finally understood it. I do not think I was the slowest of the pack, but I was most certainly not the quickest in that realm. The concept of “carrying over” numbers was a true struggle. To this day, my mom can do quicker and better mental math than I could even dream of.

When Kaia started 3K, I did momentarily think that maybe I could model my mom and proactively teach Kaia these things in her 3-4K years. But I thought to myself: she has a real curriculum she is following in her two years of preschool. She’ll be fine! They’re going to teach all of that to her, right?

Wrong. They taught her recognition and sounds. We all know that recognition is not the same thing as applying and writing it all yourself.

We are still struggling with writing the date on each page of homework. I wonder when we will get over this hump. She still does her “9” and “6” backwards. She doesn’t do a real “8” that has two circles on top of each other. She also does not like to do the same thing more than three times, apparently, and then has a total melt down. I have to let her cry it out. Then, I myself have to take a deep breath and try not to yell.

I wonder how much whining, screaming, and crying I did when my mom started the alphabet and numbers with me when I was just three years old. I suppose next time I can ask. But whenever I ask her questions about my childhood, she has only vague recollections and does not remember the details. I cannot blame her for that; that would be 37 years ago now. So maybe through this blog, I can preserve some of these “fun” and truthfully painful memories so that one day when Kaia gets older and she asks me, I can simply reference this blog and tell her what a total brat she was and give very clear, concrete examples. I can also share how many times we had to insist to her that she did not have the option of giving up, that she “can do hard things” about a million times.

Massive kudos to my mom, though, for getting me through all that before formal schooling kicked in for me. I just knew I wouldn’t have the patience to do it with my own kid even though my mom did it with me.

Homemade soybean milk: a bit of labor, a lot of love, and an unexpected crap ton of cleanup

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I wasn’t really that thorough when researching how to make soy milk. I gave ChatGPT and Claude a few general prompts and decided I’d make the soy milk with the Instant Pot method. For traditional Chinese (or Asian) style soy milk, the process goes like this: soak the dried soybeans overnight, strain and rinse the beans the next day; then add the beans to a blender and grind with water until smooth. Then, you add this mixture into a big pot with some additional water, bring to a boil, then simmer for about 15-20 minutes. You strain it again, and voila! You have fresh soy milk. At this stage, you can choose to add some sugar to it if you’d like, but it’s pretty much done.

What is not written in this general instruction set is that during the boiling and simmering process, you have to stir the pot constantly. If you do not do this, the bean solids will stick to the bottom of the pan and burn. This could cause your soy milk to have an off or burnt flavor, which you don’t want. I thought I could avoid the need to stir constantly if I did this process in the Instant Pot. Well, I was wrong: I got the dreaded “burn” error, so I ended up having to boil it in the Instant Pot on the “saute” setting and let it simmer there. Sadly, no AI tool warned me that soy milk foams and boils over even quicker and more vigorously than cow milk. When I thought the soy milk was just heating up in the Instant Pot, it actually started bubbling over and onto my kitchen counter! It got everywhere, even inside the inner pot of my Instant Pot. This worried me because if too much liquid gets into the inner pot, it could actually malfunction. So I spent over an hour cleaning up this whole beany mess all over the inside and outside of my poor Instant Pot after the soy milk was finished cooking. I had to whip out sponges, towels of various sizes, chopsticks, brushes, Q-tips, and even toothpicks to get it all out! That was a lot more manual work than I had originally planned for. The Instant Pot base is now air drying, sitting on its side. This will remain until I am definitely in the clear two days from now.

I am quite proud of my final product, though: I ended up with about 5.5 cups of super fresh, thick, luscious, beany soy milk. I added a pinch of sea salt during the boiling process and a little less than 4 teaspoons of sugar at the end. The flavor was even beanier than I had imagined! The entire kitchen was so fragrant of fresh, hot soybean milk when it was cooking; I really enjoyed that smell and found it so comforting. When I smelled the milk, I knew it was successful. But I had another visible sign of success: when I let the hot soy milk sit after straining, it created this beautiful, thick layer of yuba on the top, the “skin” of the soy milk. This is a positive sign that the heat has caused the proteins and fats in the milk to rise to the surface and bind together into that delicious, cohesive layer of what is essentially paper-thin tofu!

There’s so much magic in just soybeans, water, and a pinch of salt. I have also learned my lessons for next time: use the steamer basket to hold the soybean solids during pressure cooking and keep them from the bottom of the pot. If this works, this will mean there will be no reason to worry about anything boiling over since the “saute” function would not be used.

I am looking forward to making this again and again. The process was so satisfying. I still have over 4.5 lb. of dried soybeans left!

Buy-Nothing strikes again with non-GMO dried soybeans!

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I haven’t been very active on Buy-Nothing this year. Earlier in the year, I gave away a bunch of things on it. A handful of things I posted shockingly had zero interest, so I ended gathering a bunch of things to donate to some charity who was willing to pick up. But in terms of finding things to take, I haven’t seen much that would be relevant for us. Well, that was until two days ago, when a neighbor posted that she mistakenly got sent a 5-lb. bag of dried soybeans, though the label said “soybean seeds.” She said that if there was no interest by the end of the weekend, she would toss them.

I balked at this: she was planning to throw these out?! I could make quite a number of batches of fresh soy milk or tofu out of this! I raised my hand immediately! Only one other person was interested (also Asian), but she wasn’t able to pick up this weekend. So, I was the winner! Within hours, the original poster messaged me to say I could come pick it up on Sunday. So I walked out Sunday morning during this “Nor’easter” aka light drizzle and picked up my free dried soy bean haul. I was so, so excited. I have thought about making my own soy milk because I love it so much, but I wasn’t really sure if it would really be that cost effective if I bought organic / non-GMO dried soybeans. These beans are not organic, but they’re non-GMO, and that’s good enough for me for now. While I have settled on some western store-bought brands like the Trader Joe’s carton version (the ingredients are pure, just soybeans, water, and a little sea salt), I use them only for morning protein smoothies, not for their flavor or pure drinking. If I am drinking a soy milk straight, I want it to be Chinese style: luscious, smooth, creamy, a little thick, and beany. I strongly dislike that the western palate thinks “beany” is bad for soy milk. Soy is a bean, guys!! Plus, it’s a delicious one! Get with the program!

So, on my list of things to do this week is to make real, fresh, soybean milk from scratch in my Instant Pot. The first step is to soak the beans overnight. This will be my first time, and I’m really looking forward to it!

Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) Mid-Autumn Moon Festival family event

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Chris and I visited the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) once many years ago pre-Kaia. back then, it was still a pretty new museum, but it was quite extensive in its story telling and artifacts from Chinese people all over the world making a path into the U.S. I follow MOCA on social media, and I started thinking about visiting them again after Kaia was born, as they hold a number of family/kid-centered events throughout the year for holidays like Mid-Autumn Moon Festival and Lunar New Year. This year, I finally took Kaia to MOCA for their Mid-Autumn Moon Festival family event; it helped that a handful of her classmates from kindergarten and their families were also there. All the adults tag-teamed on watching the kids to make sure we knew where they were and were playing nicely and safely. I got to meet some new parents for the first time there, so it was a great mix of socializing, cultural immersion, and pure kid fun.

I was really happy with how the event turned out: it helps that MOCA had a lot of corporate sponsors, so on top of having their own staff, they had a whole army of corporate volunteers helping out with everything from ticketing to manning all the various kids’ activities. I lost track of the number of hands-on activities there were: it spanned from fake “play” clay mooncake making, real snow mooncake making (fillings included red bean, lotus paste, and green bean paste), Chinese calligraphy, drawing, painting, Chinese potion making (out of different colored sand), card making, and glitter wand making. They also had a well-known Chinese kids’ book author come and do a reading while marketing and selling her books, generous samples of (uncaffeinated) Asian-inspired tisanes/teas and mooncakes, several professional musicians play traditional Chinese instruments like the guzheng, and even a very well done shadow puppet show depicting the story behind the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in China, which was run by a Chinese shadow puppet company that hand makes all their puppets. I am honestly not sure what Kaia loved more: all the endless activities and things to touch and see, or the together-time with some of her very favorite school friends.

While the parents all tag-teamed with watching over the kids to ensure everyone was looked after, one of the parents told me she’d proactively save us all seats for the much-awaited shadow puppet show — in the front row, no less. So as she did this and I kept track of time, I was watching Kaia and her two kids interact and play. One of them was curious about another library section that had lots of toys, so she proactively came up to me to ask my permission if she could go check out the books. I was shocked: she barely knew me, but she was already asking me for my permission. Then when all three went to the library area, they studiously read the books until I told them (in Chinese) that it was time to get ready to clean up and go to the performance. As if on cue, they all cleaned up, neatly put the books back on the shelf, and then walked with me, in a straight line across, into the little theater; there wasn’t a peep of objection or protest. I thought to myself; this is freaking amazing. WHO ARE THESE KIDS?!

They say that once school starts, peers play a huge influence on a child, far more than a parent does. As someone who was obviously once a kid, I am very, very aware of this. So, it’s important for us as parents to be aware of who our kids are spending time with and considering their friends. All I have to say is: these are the types of friends I need Kaia to have!

Kaia and her bed full of stuffies, aka her “siblings”

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Since Kaia was very little, I could tell she was very nurturing. She’s always shown care and concern for others. When she was just over two years old, there was a new little girl in her 2s class at daycare. This girl was terrified and scared of everyone, actively avoiding interaction with anyone. But Kaia managed to take this kid under her wing and make her feel welcome, doing activities with her and making her feel included. Kaia’s vocabulary was quite limited, then; she never told me what she did. She simply mentioned the name of her new friend in class. I found out via this girl’s mom when we ran into each other at pickup. The mom shared that her daughter kept mentioning Kaia’s name and how much she liked her. In the mornings, drop offs became less painful because she said she was going to see Kaia again, and that made her excited for the day at school.

Kaia is now the youngest kid in her kindergarten class. She doesn’t get much interaction time with the 2s, 3s, or 4s classes at this school. So I suppose her only time to “take care” of others is with her “siblings” at home. She claimed my work chair the other day, insisting I couldn’t use it for work anymore because she needed it to push all her little brothers and sisters around. Then tonight when I tucked her in for bed, she gave me a disapproving look and said, “I also need to tuck Irene and Maddie and Flora and (keep naming the 10 other “siblings”) so that they are super comfy, too, Mama!” So we gave each of these siblings a little spot on the bed beside her, tucked each of them in together, and then I kissed her good night.

This doesn’t sound like a truly significant moment, does it? It sounds like an everyday thing with a child of Kaia’s age. But that’s the thing, though: the things that are seemingly everyday to us now will eventually fade from the front of our minds to the back of our minds…. into a distant memory, and then potentially be long forgotten. And then we’ll move on to the next thing that will occupy our minds and follow the same process of disappearance. So I thought about this as I closed her door to a crack and thought to myself: this is such a beautiful little moment of my little kindergartener, wanting to care for and nurture her “little siblings,” also known as her endless collection of stuffies. And I should write it down now so that in the event that I do forget, when this becomes the past, that I can always look back to this and remember.

First Back to School Night

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When I got out of bed two mornings ago, I knew that autumn had really come: it was the first time I felt the need to put another layer on upon waking. The temperatures felt like they declined sharply in the last few days, or maybe it’s just me. And what perfect timing since the autumn equinox was also on Tuesday, the actual official start of autumn in the northern hemisphere!

Lots of things happen in pretty quick succession once fall starts: school begins, Back to School Night is scheduled, lots of kid/school events, Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (that’s tomorrow!), and Halloween. For me personally, there’s the AFSP Out of the Darkness walk and fundraising, which I usually begin pushing at the end of the summer. End of summer is also when our committee meets more regularly to plan the walk day down to the T. Tonight marked our first official Back to School night at Kaia’s new school, another reminder that she really is in formal school days, in kindergarten. As one of my gym friends says, it’s a “marker that you’re getting ready to let her go.”

Since we don’t have a nanny or family for easy childcare, Chris stayed home with Kaia while I attended the Back to School Night event. The schedule was a bit too packed and condensed: the presentations were too long, and there wasn’t enough open time to breathe and let people ask questions freely. They said they would take questions “after” the presentation was done, but the hard part about that was after each session, we were being motioned to move onto the next talk. At least this was a good way to see what the kids are actually learning week by week, unit by unit, and how the target language themes align with the English Language Arts themes. A bunch of the parents were grumbling in our kindergarten class, saying that when they ask their kids what they learned in school today, they usually respond with something like, “Nothing! We didn’t do anything! We talked about nothing! We didn’t read! We just sat!” I can related to this: more than two or three times in the last two weeks of school, Kaia has responded in exactly this way.

After Back to School Night, there was a casual after-party at the wine bar across the street from the school. I originally intended to just stay for a bit and get one drink, but I ended up staying until the very end along with two other fellow moms (I still stuck with one drink, though). This wasn’t too long, though. In total we were there for about two hours. I’ll be honest and say that no, not every single parent here is warm, friendly, and welcoming, but I would expect that, otherwise they might be some crazy cult. For the most part, people seem friendly, genuine, like they want to be open to others. There’s definitely a good sense of community overall here that I enjoy. Parents mostly do want to get to know other parents, and it doesn’t seem forced or competitive.

When I was walking to the school before the event started, I did start feeling a little sad and wistful once again, thinking about my sweet baby, growing up and slowly spreading her wings and flying away. But then I remembered one of the books we’ve read a lot called “The Wonderful Things You Will Be.” Then I think about how every stage of her development has brought so much curiosity and joy and love to our family, and how with every new thing she says and does, I am more and more amazed by her development, her growth, her depth of thought. She will always be my baby, but she has to be set free to learn, explore, and love. It’s a beautiful but sad thing at the same time. I suppose this is what a mother’s love feels like. I am still reckoning with the fact that my baby is in kindergarten. It is still sinking in.

When your kids’ classmates’ parents think about food like you do

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When I went to pick up Kaia yesterday at school, one of the moms was there picking up her daughter, who is a year older than Kaia. They also attended the birthday party this last Saturday, where I got to talk to this mom for a bit. We made some small talk on our walk back home (she lives just two blocks from us). She mentioned that she was still thinking about how good the Nigerian food was from Saturday. So on Monday, she actually did an Uber Eats order from a local Nigerian restaurant and ordered everything that was served at the party. I don’t know who was more excited: this mom in ordering and eating all this food, or me simply hearing this story.

“There’s a Nigerian restaurant on Uber Eats that delivers to this area?!” I asked her incredulously.

I figured it had to be somewhere in Harlem, and I was right. The only Nigerian restaurants I was aware of were in Queens and Brooklyn. This restaurant she ordered from was actually Ghanaian, which while Ghanaian food certainly has overlaps, was not exactly the same. But, if you have a craving, I suppose this will satiate that. I had to give her credit for giving into her craving and ordering a very different cuisine than she might normally order — all because she had it at this birthday party. Her husband was not as enthused by the food and passed after a couple bites. She said she ended up ordering so much of this food (which her husband wouldn’t eat) that she had to end up sharing it with her doorman, who gobbled it all up!

Like her, I’ve been thinking about the Nigerian food we enjoyed at the party ever since Saturday. I even spent some time looking up new (at least, for me) Nigerian restaurants to add to my New York City food map and wondering when I can enjoy egusi stew and fufu again. It’s in moments like this when I really do believe, truly, that I live in the greatest city in the world. Where the hell else am I going to live when I can get easy access to Nigerian food and probably any other cuisine that will roll off my tongue?!

Kaia gets the day off, and I do not; what “work” means

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Today is Yom Kippur, which means that schools in New York City are closed for the High Holiday. While the schools get off, very few employers give it off, including mine. So Chris was mostly occupied with watching Kaia today, bringing her to the playground to play with classmates, taking her to another marital arts class, while I was at home, noodling over Claude skills and artifacts while also grumbling over my day job. There came a period later in the day when Chris had to take a call, and Kaia had parked herself in a chair by my work desk and agreed to “work quietly” next to me. Amazingly, she actually was pretty quiet the whole time; occasionally she would think out loud while doodling and writing letters, but for the most part, this time, she didn’t sing or try to jump on me or demand that I get out of my work chair the way she normally does. She did, however, keep pushing up against my right arm as she insisted she needed more space (definitely her dad’s child), so that was immensely distracting, but I could actually think a bit and get some work done with her that close to me.

Usually if I am doing any work on my computer at my desk, she will come over to me to find every which way to distract me: she will press on my keyboard (both of them!), push and click my mouse, attempt (and fail) to use my Macbook Pro screen as a touch screen. She will say that my work chair is actually hers, and I need to get out of it so she can get her work done. But who knows; maybe she is actually understanding more about what “work” means and that I shouldn’t have her singing directly into my ear, and she shouldn’t be pushing me out of my work station when I am attempting to work. Or, maybe that will come in a couple years when she realizes that money is not overflowing everywhere for everyone all the time.

Kaia’s first birthday party at the new school

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Another new kid in Kaia’s kindergarten class had her birthday this last week, and her parents invited us to the birthday party today at a martial arts studio on the Upper West Side. I figured we should attend since we’re here, and because it’s the first birthday party of the year; it would be a good opportunity to get to know other parents who would inevitably be there and build a relationship with this new family. I think of this kindergarten class, it’s just Kaia and this kid Z who are new; all the other kids and their families are existing families to the school, as this school starts at 2s.

One thing that got me personally excited when I got the Paperless Post invite was that there was a mention of food I wasn’t expecting: Nigerian food. Ummmm, yes, please sign me up? We’ve enjoyed a little Nigerian food here and there in New York City, but it’s not a cuisine I am very familiar with and would love to learn more about. I subsequently found out that Z’s mom is Nigerian; her parents immigrated from Nigeria to Dallas before she was born. So they’re very connected to their roots, and I am excited for that connection because it means I get to enjoy amazing dishes as a guest at this event!

While the kids had an intense obstacle course and jumped, swung, and danced to their hearts’ content, the parents were jammed into the small front area with all the bags, gifts, shoes, and tables of food and drink laid out. But somehow we made it work; it almost forced all of us to talk more, which I was happy to do as it gave me time to get to know not just other parents at the new school, but also some parent friends of Z’s parents, who were all very kind and fun to be around. As for the food, I got to get a small fix of jollof rice, fried plantains, egusi stew (ahhhh, this was a huge highlight. The texture and flavor were so unique to me!), and fufu (such fun to eat and squish in my hands to wrap up the stew!).

The event went by quickly, in just an hour and 45 minutes. Before we knew it, we had to empty out. The kids got their goodie bags, and we had to drag them out of the place because they never want the fun to end. As predicted by Z’s parents, Kaia slept very, very well tonight.

I definitely feel a sense of community at this new school, one that was severely lacking at Kaia’s last two schools. So far, it does feel like a good place to be.

Parents Association involvement

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Parent Teacher Association (PTA) involvement has always been something that I was aware I’d do at some point, but when and to what extent, I was not sure. At Kaia’s current school, by default all parents are considered part of the Parent Association (I guess no teachers are involved in this). Since we are a new family, we were asked to fill out a survey before the school year began to indicate how we’d like to be involved. I said I’d be interested in volunteering time for events and also co-chairing a committee or two. I committed to co-chairing the Parent Coffee/Breakfast meetups that happen once per semester. The first one is tomorrow morning, and the second one will be in January.

This level of commitment to co-chair the Parent Coffees/Breakfasts seemed like a small commitment: it would be enough so that I’d show I was interested in some level of leadership/organization and also give me exposure to more social events. What I ended up finding out was that it was an even lower lift than I expected: all I really did was send out a few emails about volunteers to help set up, staff, and clean up the event. The second co-chair ordered the food and confirmed an admin at the school would be available to pick up and store the food order at the right temperatures. She’s also picking up bagels on her way to school tomorrow. Then, I ordered Starbucks coffee travelers and accompaniments today and will be picking them up tomorrow morning and carting them over to the party room space. I requested a reimbursement with my receipt.

Maybe next year, I will be more inclined to do something that is more involved. But this year, this seems fairly easy and straightforward to get involved with our new school community!