Category Archives: Love

How long are we allowed to be kids?

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When we were getting ready to go to Kaia’s friend’s 4th birthday party in our building yesterday, out of nowhere, Kaia decided that she wanted to wear her cow costume (from Halloween two years ago, as it was oversized!) to the party. Originally, Chris was not a fan of this and insisted that she just wear regular clothes. But Kaia is stubborn (just like both of her parents), and she continued persisting that she really wanted to wear it. I thought about it for a minute and just told Chris that we should relent.

“We should just let her wear it,” I said to him. “She only has so much time when she can wear a costume like this when it will be considered ‘acceptable.'” Plus, she’s already slowly getting too long for this oversized costume, and she won’t be able to wear it soon anymore. So we should just let her get more wears and fun out of it as long as we can.

Of course, Kaia was thrilled. She insisted that the cow be fully zipped up, and that she even wear the cow “head” (the hood part). Knowing her, I had a feeling she’d last only a short time at the party with the outfit since it would get quite hot and stuffy, especially with so many people in the apartment. So predictably, the cow costume eventually came off. But of course, all the adults marveled at her cow costume initially. One of them even asked me, “So, is this her weekend outfit of choice?”

Kids can get away with so many things that adults could never get away with: making beelines and cutting people off for seats on public transportation; constantly angling for freebies at stories and restaurants; simply smiling and getting free candy from doormen in buildings; wearing single-piece full length costumes on just any average day. I love that about childhood, and I wish we could all learn to embrace it more. Childhood is finite — it will all come to an end, and then we will no longer be given grace on so many things. Well, I can’t really personally embrace it since I’m quite far from my childhood years, but I want to let Kaia embrace it for as long as possible. I want her to enjoy her childhood and not have her rush to become an adult. There’s so much fun and magic in childhood that gets lost when we focus too much on the future and “getting big.”

A 4-year-old’s birthday party

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Even though I am a parent to a four-year-old, in the grand scheme of early child parenting, I really haven’t attended or taken Kaia to that many birthday parties. Most of the “birthday parties” she has been to have been held at her school within classrooms, and the kids get some version of a cupcake or cake/ice cream, along with a goodie bag of toys/treats to take home. A friend in our building, whose son turned 4 today, told me that she really hated kids’ birthday party setups here, such as the ones at places like kids’ gyms and play spaces because it was really all about the kids playing and goofing around, along with some crappy “included” food like cheap, greasy pizza and soda — none of which grown parents would enjoy and would just suck up since it was part of the overall fee. And the fees are quite expensive: they are not something to sneeze at, especially when your kid is so young and will barely remember most of these things — other than through photos.

So she said that she preferred intimate gatherings with local friends and their kids. If they were traveling, they’d have dinners and cake cuttings with family. Today, she hosted us at her place just several floors down, where along with some local friends and their kids, we ate Popup Bagels (today, I learned these are for dipping, not for slicing and filling!), drank champagne, and also enjoyed two delicious, very “adult” cakes from Delice Macarons, a local French bakery on the Upper West Side. One was chocolate mousse cake (gluten free!) shaped like a mini chateau, while the second was another chocolate mousse with a very delicious and refined raspberry gelee. While I chatted with the other parents and kept a casual eye on Kaia to ensure she didn’t break anything, I thought to myself — this is such a refined birthday cake for a four-year-old child. Most kids of his age would never appreciate or even know how good they had it to have a cake this meticulously made — and probably very, very pricey! What a little dream to have a chocolate chateau as your birthday cake!

But that’s also what I think of Kaia Pookie: she has no idea how wide and refined of a palate she actually has. She doesn’t realize that she has such a breadth of cuisines, and has really only been exposed to fancy, gourmet chocolate — with the exception of that Twix she ate last October. ‘Tis the life of little kids who have food-appreciating parents as their mamas and daddies.

Proof that my child will become an omnivore (or stated differently, will not become a vegan)

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I’ve been clearing out most of the meat-based proteins in the freezer ahead of our upcoming Costco trip, and I found that I still had two packs of bone-in chicken thighs from Butcher Box. So I marinated them last night and roasted them, Vietnamese garlicky-style. I pulled all the meat off the bones and assembled what my mom would call a “cuon cuon” station: a shallow bowl-plate for dipping rice paper, a stack of rice paper, bowls with various herbs, lettuce, sliced cucumbers, pickled daikon/carrot, cooked rice noodles, crushed toasted peanuts, scallion oil sauce, a plate of just roasted garlicky chicken, bowls of nuoc cham for dipping. And because I had a random single egg remaining from the carton I just threw out, I also ribboned an egg omelet into strips to add to the cuon (rolls).

Kaia had her own vegetables and chicken on her plate at dinner time, but she was watching as I rolled chicken cuon for Chris and me. For the first time watching me do this, she was actually very fascinated. First, she asked if she could do it. Then, she realized quickly how finicky it was (these rice papers are very sticky and pliable for a 4-year-old!), so she asked me to make some cuon for her. And then, she happily tore into them and chewed them vigorously. She was very excited to finally “participate” in her cuon cuon station that her mama made. She instructed me on exactly how much of each filling she wanted in her cuon. I was so proud that she was embracing this for the first time, at age 4. There’s a first for everything!

Then at bedtime, we read a book together that included a unicorn and lots of food. And as per usual, Kaia likes to “pretend eat” all the food by “grabbing” all the food on the pages and pretending to chomp on and eat them. For the first time, she “grabbed” the unicorn and pretended to eat it.

“Pooks!” I exclaimed, a bit confused. “You can’t eat the unicorn!”

She smiled mischievously at me in response, then her face went blank. “Why not?” And then she paused and giggled. “I’m just pretending, mama!”

Unicorns are mythical animals. But my Pookie insists that she wants to “eat” them. I guess this may be a sign she has zero desire to become vegan anytime soon.

All relationships are work

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The Oxford English dictionary defines work as, “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.” If you know the strict definition of work, I think most would agree that all relationships are work. It doesn’t matter if it’s the relationship you have with your spouse, child, mother, friend, or colleague: all require a certain level of effort in order to sustain the relationship — at least, in some semi healthy way.

Chris and I just hit our 10-year wedding anniversary last month. His parents sent well wishes on our family Whatsapp group. Then his brother wished us a happy anniversary, also saying, “Good work on reaching 10 years of marriage!”

I looked at his message and smirked. “Thanks!” I responded back. “Ummm, yes. It is most definitely work!”

I told my friend, who is uncoupled, that we had reached our 10-year wedding anniversary and had been together for over 14 years now. She was flabbergasted.

“Shit, I don’t know how you do it!” she said to me after wishing us a happy anniversary. “How can you stand someone for that long, constantly in your space and not doing things the way you want them done?”

This friend knows I am anal-retentive with cleaning. She knows I like everything done in a very certain way in the kitchen. She also knows that I have very strong opinions. And on top of all that, she’s met Chris a number of times now and has had the chance to speak with him a decent amount, so she said she could already imagine how ridiculous and intense our disagreements and arguments would be.

I always wanted to get married. Ever since I learned what marriage was, I wanted to get married and live “happily ever after.” But I don’t think Disney fairy tales or the example of what “marriage” is supposed to be like based on my parents’ relationship were ever the best examples that set me up for success. I’ve spent decades reading psychology and sociology articles and studies, and took a number of classes on these topics. Hell, I even took a sociology course on sociology of marriage and family in college. And when I did therapy two different periods of my life, I spent a good amount of time talking about my relationships with my parents, friends, and Chris, and what I want and do not want to be or become. All of this has been really hard work and required a lot of thinking and introspection. Sometimes, getting to a state of self-awareness can be quite painful. Yet despite all that hard work, I still mess up and do and say stupid things I don’t really mean to say or do in the way it comes out. It’s like every day, I am trying to break out of inherited intergenerational trauma and redefine what I want to be in my relationships with Chris and others I love. I guess everyone is a little bit like that: we only know what we know — until we try to break unhealthy cycles — again, assuming we have a certain level of self awareness, or someone helps point it out to us.

But the work we put into relationships with those we love most is important. It’s probably the most important work of your life. It’s hard for me to imagine a life without those who are closest to me who I love the most. Frankly, I don’t want to be my dad in that sense: I don’t want to be a total loner with zero friends. I also don’t want to be in a marriage where I feel emotionally estranged from my spouse. So while many reject close friendships or serious romantic partnerships, I guess at the end of the day, I am still a romantic and want all these things to be a part of my daily reality.

So, the work continues.

Friends for all different reasons

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Last night, Chris and I went out with our two friends for dinner and a comedy show (Jo Koy!) at Radio City Music Hall. We were talking about how I recently came back from my 40th birthday girls trip with two of my best friends, and they asked me how it went. And I answered it the way I’ve been answering it with everyone I’ve talked about it with since coming back.

“I had a lot of fun,” I said. “I loved the cave spa at the hotel. We caught up on a lot of things. But my main takeaway from the trip was that it served as a reminder to me that they’re my childhood friends.”

We have friends that come out of lots of different periods of our lives — growing up through our parents’ friends’ kids, relatives’ friends’ kids, classmates, friends through common interest extracurriculars; then, as you get older, you meet friends at college, through friends of friends, social events you attend, work, and the list goes on. But the friends you make during childhood and may be lucky enough to take into adulthood and beyond — they are your friends because you happened to be together at a certain time and place out of circumstances out of your control. So, in many ways, you were all kind of forced to be together. With that, you carry and share history together, and given this, they become more like your family rather than friends you chose because of aligned values or life perspectives.

In this trio, we fall into the same familiar and oftentimes annoying familial patterns that are almost sibling like. I tend to be the leader, making all travel arrangements and setting up itineraries, restaurant reservations, and coordinating times for what activities happen when. I also tend to be the one who has to push for things to happen… like certain activities at set times given flow of day, or for inane things like trash to be put in the trash bin. A second friend tends to be the “peacemaker” for better or worse: she will actually put the third person’s trash into the garbage can even when it’s not hers because she doesn’t want to “cause trouble,” but then this ends up enabling our third friend, who is a bit of mess. This friend always wants to stay neutral and gets frustrated when opinions are shared that she perceives as too strong — which are likely the vast majority of mine. Oftentimes my opinions are met with a response along the lines of, “Well, everyone is entitled to live where they want to.” Which is obviously true, but I wasn’t really saying my opinion as if it was the only right one, more that this was what I thought…? And our third friend is living life without thinking past tomorrow. She contributed zero to this trip other than paying for her share and showing up; she even admitted to never reviewing my itineraries in detail. It’s a good thing ChatGPT and Perplexity AI did most of the “work” for me. And as noted earlier, she’s sloppy and doesn’t really take responsibility for a lot of the way she is, or her life’s circumstances. I am sure to them, I can seem stubborn, pushy, too opinionated, and too quick to challenge. To a degree to certain personalities, I can see how I am all those things. But the truth is — as I am getting older, I am embracing these qualities even more because I am just getting even more and more comfortable in my own skin, living my life the way I want to.

As I’ve gotten older, I have really enjoyed meeting people who have lived very different lives from me. I ask more questions because I want to know what’s different and what I don’t know. At this point, I really don’t feel a need to meet more people from the Bay Area or people who have had similar life experiences to me unless it’s convenient. And I actually really enjoy it when people challenge my opinions or stances on specific topics. I don’t see it as a put-down or an attack; I actually see it as fun. I think it makes me think more. But not everyone believes this.

I feel very lucky all the time that I’ve maintained friends since age 11. They are like family to me and always will be. But I also feel very, very fortunate and privileged to have made some really great adult friends, even as recently as in the last two years, who have really added more fun, challenge, and perspective to my life. They align with the way I look at the world and the meaning I am trying to get out of my time on earth. And it’s been very refreshing. All friends serve different purposes in our lives, and so that’s why it’s important to have multiple friends to fill our cups in different ways. I am so, so lucky.

Priorities in the ‘hood, according to my 4-year-old

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A school activity this week was to discuss what makes up the school community and the area around it. The kids were asked to name parts they notice and like, and to draw them. One kid mentioned the bank across the street. Another drew the bubble tea shop across the other street. And my Kaia Pookie called out the bakery next door and drew a picture of it.

Chris showed me the photos uploaded to her class site for the activity this week, as he knew I’d be excited to see that Kaia mentioned the bakery first. I immediately started beaming when I saw the photos of the kids’ illustrations and the class topic. But his commentary was not as pleased.

“I would’ve preferred that she did the bank,” Chris said. “Everyone needs money. Money buys the stuff at the bakery.”

“She’s our kid,” I insisted to him. “Of course she’s going to point out the bakery first! She loves bakeries (just like us)!”

“No money, no pastries!” Chris retorted back at me.

I don’t care what Chris says. Yes, his logic is correct that there would, in fact, be no pastries without money. But bakeries make Kaia Pookie happy like they make us happy, and it’s yet another sign that she is most definitely our child — or at least, mine.

Thumbs up, thumbs down

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When Kaia was learning different gestures, including sign language as a baby/toddler, she got most of them pretty quickly. She understood the meaning of them and embraced them. She especially loved signing “more” (isn’t that everyone’s favorite?). But one gesture that she absolutely refused to do for the longest time was “thumbs up.” Every time I tried to get her to do this, she’d shake her head rigorously and yell, “No!” She’d even cover up my thumb(s) and even refuse to see me doing the gesture.

It wasn’t until the last year or so when she finally gave in and started doing it. And when she does it, she especially loves to do a double thumbs up, and then do a “thumb hug,” which means that we tap our thumbs together and then try to wrap our thumbs around each other in a bit of a thumb embrace. For Kaia, “thumbs up” is not complete without this last shared step.

I explained to her at dinner this evening in Chinese that tomorrow, her mama would be leaving again to get on a plane to go to Raleigh. So tomorrow morning, I’d wake up earlier than usual to go work out, then Daddy would get her ready. And I would take her to school, but Daddy would pick her up that late afternoon and have dinner, shower her, read, and put her to bed. I let her know I’d be coming home later that evening.

Every time I tell Kaia multiple things at once, you can tell that she’s processing all the new information and trying to decide how she feels about it. She gives the “side up” look. Then in this instance, she started frowning.

“Hao ba? (Okay?)” I said to her.

Her frown became even more intense.

“No!” she yelled. “Bu hao! (NOT GOOD!)”

Then, as if on cue, she did a double thumbs down, and then motioned to me to match her two thumbs down.

Oh, well. At least she gets how to use thumbs up, thumbs down now!

When your kid ends up in urgent care while you’re on a flight home

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I came home today, ready to give my sweet Kaia Pookie a big hug when I got through the door. But coming home this afternoon wasn’t quite what I envisioned. It was weirdly quiet when I entered the apartment. Chris turned over to look at me, barely greeting me. Instead, the first words out of his mouth were, “She had an accident.”

I looked over his shoulder at my Kaia Pookie, sitting quietly on the living room rug amidst a bunch of her toys. Her arms were sprawled out as though she was just leaning back on the couch, but the entire center of her face was bloody and mucusy. I slowly walked up to talk to her. While she looked straight up at me, she didn’t respond or smile; she basically had no reaction. She was lethargic and seemingly in pain and/or shock. I took her in my arms to hold her, while also occasionally pressing an ice compress to her nose and wiping away more blood and snot. She was eager to come into my embrace and clearly needed the cuddles.

Chris explained that while they were at the Transit Museum earlier today, Kaia was running around on an old bus when suddenly, she tripped on something and fell down very hard, face first. He actually didn’t see this happen, but some bystanders in the museum told him that his child had fallen. As soon as he got to her and lifted her face up, all he could see was blood everywhere. He immediately took her to the bathroom to get cleaned up, but the blood just kept coming out. A museum worker waited outside to see if she was okay, and kindly offered an ice pack. Chris wasn’t sure if she was okay or if something more serious could be wrong, so he took her to the closest Urgent Care, where they checked her out, did a few tests to ensure she didn’t have any major head injury, and then said that we just needed to monitor her to ensure she was “still herself” and that she didn’t lose consciousness.

We spent the rest of the early evening intermittently icing her nose and wiping away her runny nose snot and blood. I knew she was quite herself, though, because I kept talking to her in Chinese, and she responded logically and with expected answers. When I asked her if she wanted a surprise gift I brought back for her, she immediately nodded. Then minutes later, she kept asking for her surprise gift. I took it out for her: a deluxe princess coloring book. She looked at it and was clearly in love. I asked her if she wanted to color with it now, and she nodded and ran to get her markers. Chris teased her and said it was actually his gift; I had already presented him with dark chocolate covered sour cherries from a popular local Asheville chocolate shop when she was sitting down. My Kaia Pookie was clearly lucid and understanding every single thing that was happening. Her face turned down, and she yelled, “No, that’s mine! You already got a present!”

Phew. So fingers crossed, it doesn’t look like she suffered any major head injury. But what crappy luck that this happened when I wasn’t home. I asked Chris if he missed me while I was gone. He responded in his usual in-character Chris way: “Well, you would have been really useful here today.”

And that is what a “romantic” response sounds like when you’ve been together for 14-plus years, and married (at least, celebration-wise) for ten years — just in case you weren’t already familiar with it.

Omni Grove Park Inn and Spa, Asheville – the incredible cave spa

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When I told a few friends and colleagues that I was going on a 40th birthday girls trip to Asheville, a few people thought it was a joke, or when messaged via text, that I had done a typo and meant to write “Nashville.” No one understood why I had chosen Asheville, but when I explained, they quickly understood.

One of the many beauties of having access to AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, or Claude is that I can be very specific about what I want, what I am looking for, general geography, and price point, and it will give me a number of potential options without my having to scour multiple travel sites and blogs to find what might pique my interest manually. Back in January, I asked multiple AI tools something like, “I want to go on a 40th birthday girls trip with two of my girlfriends. Find me a hotel that has great spa treatments and amenities, is located in AZ, NM, NC, SC, GA, or FL, is 15-20 minute drive from an urban area, and is no more than 30-40 minute drive from a major airport. The urban area has to have some interesting culture and good, eclectic restaurants.” I was given several interesting options in the Phoenix/Sedona and Santa Fe metro areas, along with the Omni Grove Park Inn and Spa in Asheville. And after further scrutinizing reviews, prices, and spa amenities and availability, we settled on this historic hotel that is just an eight-minute drive from downtown Asheville.

The Omni Grove Park Inn originally opened, built on the side of a mountain, just a short distance away from downtown Asheville in 1913. It was built to be a premier arts and crafts style resort, constructed from massive Sunset Mountain granite boulders in under a year. It has hosted many U.S. presidents, celebrities, and foreign dignitaries. All around the property, they have displayed photos of famous people who have stayed here. F. Scott Fitzgerald rented two blocks of suites to stay in while his wife was receiving psychiatric treatment nearby for two summers.

In 2001, The Spa at Omni Grove Park Inn opened, revealing a 43,000-square-foot subterranean sanctuary that has rock-walled soaking and lap pools, waterfalls, and mineral based treatments. It’s built into a mountain and reflects the hotel’s original opening purpose, which was to be a health-focused, artsy destination. It’s now featured in many domestic and global travel magazines as one of the top destination spas in the U.S. When you’re inside, you forget that you’re in Asheville, or even in the U.S. The spa itself is immaculate, a true cave spa experience, and one that you’d never guess was in Asheville.

Today was our girls’ spa day. We all received different types of massage treatments. I had an excellent full body salt-stone massage by a masseuse who was clearly skilled and experienced; he did these interesting stretch/pull/massage moves on my neck and shoulders that I’d never experienced before. And after my treatment, I showered and then enjoyed the spa pools, sauna, steam room, and amenities. It felt like a real calm and relaxing place. Everyone abided by the no-device policy, and given it was a weekday, the spa was fairly quiet. At times in the lap pools, it felt like it was just the three of us along with some people lounging on deck chairs quietly reading or napping. As I swam on my back in the lap pools, I kept staring at the cave rocks above me and the twinkle lights set up, all surrounding some well appointed skylights, and I thought: Wow. This is most definitely the most beautiful, unique, and relaxing spa and spa experience I’ve ever had in my life. This place is truly a treasure. We spent a luxurious five hours there – such a treat.

I left the spa feeling very refreshed and rejuvenated. I wish we could have a second day to relish in the spa amenities, but alas, they didn’t even have spa drop-in passes the next day or the rest of the weekend since that’s how popular they are. While there, I silently thanked the AI tools for leading us here, and felt very grateful for the privilege to be in such a beautiful and distinctive spa. I don’t even know why you would opt to stay at this hotel without experiencing the cave spa. While the property itself is gorgeous, unique, and historical, this cave spa is really its true differentiator!

Fragrance testing with my Kaia Pookie

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After last weekend when we had a social engagement Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we also had a bit going on this weekend given that I had a scavenger hunt Saturday afternoon, plus dinner and a show with Chris and friends after. But I got some quiet respite today on Sunday since we had zero plans, and that’s exactly what I wanted after last weekend. The only thing on my calendar was a Hep B booster shot at the pharmacy a couple blocks away in the afternoon. Other than that, it would be yoga in the morning for me, some light vegetable prep and cooking, and time with the Pookster.

Pookster really didn’t want me to go to get my vaccine by myself; she insisted that she come with me. So even before I grabbed my purse, she already had put her shoes on and was standing in the doorway waiting to go with me. So, we went to CVS together. She stood by and held me while she watched the pharmacist give me the HepB vaccine (it’s a tiny bit painful since the needle is thicker). I even saw her wince when the needle went in, and she had this clear look of pain/sadness that swept over her face after. Once the pharmacist cleaned up, put on a band-aid, and left, Kaia looked at my arm and squeezed me close.

“Mama, does it hurt?” she asked me, looking fearful.

“It’s okay, Pookie!” I insisted to her. “All done now. Want to do something special and fun you’ve never done before?”

Her eyes twinkled, and of course, I am sure she thought about candy or ice cream. But no, I had different plans.

I was reading about some different “natural” fragrances that were available at Sephora, but I hadn’t made the time to go test them out until today. I brought her into the store, and she immediately voiced her disappointment. “I don’t want to be here — there’s nothing special here!” she whined. I told her that she would be able to smell some special things, and she loves smelling things!

We got to the fragrance wall, and we tested out about 10-12 different fragrances. I made a game of it, asking her which one smelled like what. And Kaia got really into it. She said one smelled like roses. Another smelled like apple. Another perfume smelled like vanilla — “Oooh, yummy!” And one she really liked was like a peach scent!

“Can we eat this?” she looked at me, with a huge smile on her face.

“No, Pooks, this is just for smelling,” I told her, tapping her nose. “This is to put on your body to smell nice. Everyone wants to smell nice! You know how I always say you are ‘fragrant’? This could help Mama be fragrant!”

Sometimes, I look at her and I still cannot believe she’s growing up so quickly. This little Pookster is starting kindergarten in September, which is crazy to me how time flew. Doing these seemingly little but new experiences with her at every stage of her development always makes me happy because I love seeing how her face lights up and she realizes how fun something is that she wasn’t sure about. I knew she would like this even when she got mad — she always loves sniffing things. Smelling is adjacent to tasting, and she’s a taster!