Kaia: Always full of questions now

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“MAMA! Did you know that hyenas can eat babies?” Kaia asked as she came running to me this morning while I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom. She had her Lion King book in hand. I believe that was one of the books she read with Chris before bed last night.

“Yes, that’s right, Pooks,” I said to her. “That’s why we never want to get too close to the hyenas!”

“But, but, the big lions will kill them! Mufasa will protect us and kill them!” she exclaimed triumphantly. I’m not sure how much Kaia is aware that her dad is absolutely obsessed with Mufasa and all the power he stands for, but I am sure she will learn in due time.

Kaia is over 4.5 years old now. When I was her age, I still remember occasionally crying myself to sleep, thinking about the terrifying day when my mom would die. While I loved both my parents, I was always closer to my mom. I went to so many funerals by the age of four — more funerals than weddings. So after each funeral, I would ask my mom about what happened. She told me that no one lives forever, that everyone has to die. And I asked her, does this mean you will die, too? And she said, yes, everyone including me. And that made me so, so sad, and I had no idea how soon that day would come. Because as she explained to me then, none of us really know when we will die. I kept wondering, how could I possibly live without my mommy?

Kaia has actually been asking about death lately. I tell her what a lucky life we live, how lucky she is, and how very, very lucky she is to have two sets of living grandparents. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a Suma, Topa, Popo, AND Gonggong! And then she says, where are your Sumi and Topi and Popo and Gonggong? And I explain to her that I actually never met my Yeye (Topa), Popo, or Gonggong. I only ever met my Nainai (Suma). The other three passed away before I was born. She asks what that means. I tell her that passing away means that you are no longer living like she and I are; they are no longer of this world, and we will never see them again in this life.

Then she asks, where is your Nainai? And I said, she passed away, too. She does her usual Kaia-esque side head tilt and looks up, thinking.

“She isn’t in this world anymore?” Kaia looks at me with her thinking face. “So we can’t see her now?”

“Yes,” I say lightly. “That is right.”

I’ve also tried to tell her about Ed. She knows who her Jiujiu is and can point him out in many photos. I tell her that he has also passed away, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still out there in a different world, watching over us.

“Do you know that Jiujiu loves you?” I asked her. “He might not be here on earth anymore, but he loves you and watches over us.”

She looks up at me, smiles, and vigorously nods her head.

I wonder if she feels a connection to this person, this Jiujiu, who she has never met before. He is a person I reference in photos and speech quite a bit, but one of very few people she has never, and will never, meet. Little does she know that she shares the same nose as her Jiujiu. He is within her.

My right side’s baby tooth: any day now

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So it appears the last time I wrote about my loose baby tooth on my right side was September 2024. That was almost two years ago, and somehow I have managed to keep it in place this whole time… Somehow. While on our Caribbean trip, I could feel the tooth getting looser and looser. I’m sure I ate a few things on my right side while abroad that loosened it even more. There was even a point when I thought I heard a tiny little crack. There’s really no more bone underneath keeping it in place anymore; it’s just hanging onto a bed of my gums.

In the two weeks we’ve been back from our summer trip, it’s gotten more and more uncomfortable to eat. Even when I am de-pitting a cherry in my mouth, it’s uncomfortable. When I gargle water in my mouth, the baby tooth rattles. And even sometimes when I spit water out, I can feel the force of the water almost pushing at the baby tooth. Oftentimes when I am eating or brushing my teeth, I will need to push the baby tooth back into “its place,” otherwise it’s really uncomfortable and weird for me. Even though I’ve looked at my mouth closed from the outside, sometimes it feels like it wants to stick out of my cheek to tell the world, “Oh hey! Look at me! I’m 40 years old and a teeny weeny baby tooth is about to fall out of my MOUTH!”

Well, at least I can say now that I’ve made it to age FORTY AND A HALF with both baby teeth still in tact. And my left baby tooth — well, it’s quite solid and not even remotely loose. So I might even get to keep it until the day I die, which makes me thrilled!

Parent buddy play date

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Once we accepted the offer for Kaia’s new school, we got paired up with another family who also has a child who will be entering kindergarten, the same class as Kaia. The couple reached out to us, and we set up a Whatsapp group and a play date at a nearby playground to meet today. The couple also invited a few other families and their kids to the playground so not only could all the kids play together, but Chris and I could also meet the parents.

On my calendar, I allocated about 1.5 hours for the meetup/play date. But we ended up going for close to three hours. It was a pretty good time — the parents all seemed like kind, friendly, genuine people. We were all united in our mission to ensure not only rigorous academics for our children, but also true Chinese language immersion. Though the school does have a Spanish track, none of those families were at this organized play date.

Once we got back home, Chris said to me, “See, you finally got what you wanted: a parent community. It’s just going to cost us over $50,000 a year!”

Yeah, well…

Playing games with Kaia

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Growing up, the only person I ever regularly played games with at home was Ed. Occasionally my much older cousins who lived upstairs would play with me, but that would be quite limited. Ed taught me (okay, attempted to teach me in some cases) how to do things like play basic card games, checkers, board games, throw and catch, dribble a basketball (okay, so I never got the last one between the legs, but it is what it is…). Our parents never played any games with us. My mom was always busy cooking, cleaning, doing some kind of housework, or was just simply too tired and wanted to lie down and rest. My dad… who knows where he was. He was either working at an apartment or just avoiding us kids.

I never realized that parents actually played games with their kids until one day years ago, Chris’s dad mentioned being on a family holiday and playing card games with Chris and his brother. And I sat there in total shock, thinking… Wait, you played with your two sons? Really? I am not even sure why that shocked me so much, but it was the very first time I actually thought about parents and their children engaging in play together. I knew I wanted to be the kind of parent who plays with her child.

Since Kaia was born, we’ve done all kinds of “play” together. We’ve played with cars, trucks, and transformers. We’ve played play cooking and baking. We’ve built blocks. We’ve played catch and kicked a ball together. She has many other toys that we’ve played with together. But in just the last couple weeks, we’ve all started playing a memory game that was gifted from a friend. The memory game is quite age appropriate given Kaia is now 4.5. Kaia’s memory is very good — despite being new to the game and having played only two or three times, she’s done far better than I could have imagined!

I love seeing her engage in play, and I love that Chris and I can play together with her. It’s the kind of thing I always wanted for my little family — to be engaged in a fun activity, real play — together, and to have that be a way we can bond.

A cancer diagnosis

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Chris, Kaia, and I were originally planning to meet two friends, a couple, this Saturday for lunch. But as the date was approaching, one of the friends seemed a bit non-committal when it came to picking a place. She was evading suggestions and not really saying she wanted or didn’t want anything. It was confusing because her tone wasn’t normally like this over text, so I could tell something was wrong that she didn’t want to share. Finally two days ago, she admitted to me that her head wasn’t in a great place because she just had a biopsy on a breast the other day that could mean she had breast cancer. So I suggested that we meet to catch up in person today, as maybe a 1:1 conversation would be easier for her to stomach than a group outing. And she agreed.

Yesterday, she got the biopsy results. They confirmed that she did, in fact, have a very early stage of ductal carcinoma, essentially stage zero breast cancer that had started developing in her milk ducts. Her doctor went over potential treatment options as a move-forward plan. She has another biopsy scheduled next week. She was very lucky that this was caught, as she had been avoiding mammograms for the last five years because her first mammogram was a miserable experience. Her doctor urged her to get the mammogram done, and then had the radiology department call her repeatedly to harass her into finally making an appointment. I told her she was very lucky to have such an involved, caring doctor. In my case, I am not sure I have any doctor who would be that insistent and make sure to follow up with me repeatedly… on anything. When it comes to breast cancer or any cancer for that matter, catching it this early is the best news you could possibly have.

My friend recently lost one of her best friends to an aggressive brain cancer. And previous to that, she lost her aunt to lung cancer (this is someone who had never smoked a day in her life). So cancer has unfortunately been top of mind for her in recent years. Now she has to go through treatments herself. She said this has forced her to think about death more, as unpleasant as it is…. and she sees all of this as a sign that she needs to go “full throttle” on all the things she wants to accomplish in life that will make her feel fulfilled before she dies… hopefully in another several decades.

I told her I think it’s really healthy for us to think more often about death. When you think about death, it forces you to come to terms with the fact that you will not live forever. And therefore, life is precious, and you need to focus on what’s truly important and meaningful to you. Stop obsessing over stupid shit. Stop spending time with people who deplete you and take from you but never give. Stop obsessing what “other people” will think. Stop putting off reading that book you’ve “been meaning “to read, or delaying that vacation you’ve been dreaming of taking. Quit your awful, toxic job and find something else where you’ll be treated better and like a real human. I realize all this is easier said than done, but all of this can be accomplished with little baby steps every single day. The baby steps become bigger steps, and then we start letting go of all the crap that doesn’t matter in life.

So, maybe this is life’s way of telling her that she’s meant to do great things, and she still has time. Plus, just get the freaking mammogram every year.

Canadian wildfires’ smoke come down to the Northeast of the US

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While this isn’t the first time we’ve experienced this, for the last two days, our skies have been grey, hazy, and smoky because of the numerous Canadian wildfires that are happening further north of us. The fact that it is causing air pollution here in New York City just shows how widespread and massive the wildfires are. Today, our building sent a mass email notification to let us know they would be shutting off the fans in all public hallways to prevent the wildfire smoke from further entering the building. Many people outside are wearing masks. Those who have respiratory issues have been asked to stay indoors. When I stepped outside today to go pick Kaia up from summer camp, I could immediately smell a burning smell.

All of this makes me sad. It’s a reality of living in a time of climate change. But it makes me even sadder that we have an administration that denies climate change is even a thing. And it’s even more terrifying that many people believe climate change is a hoax. How do you then look at the hazy skyline of New York City that is barely visible right now due to wildfires all the way up in Canada…?!

Hosting a customer dinner tonight

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Last week, I got asked if I could help co-host a customer/prospect dinner in Midtown tonight. Nowadays, I don’t travel very much for customer visits or do many customer events, so I happily agreed to go. The bonus was that the restaurant was just a 20-minute walk from our place, so it was very easy to get to. I actually hadn’t heard of the restaurant before, but I was pleasantly surprised that not only was the food very good, but the service was excellent. Our server was a drink whiz; he managed to make a mental note of the flavor profiles every attendee wanted, then kept the drinks coming!

I did not know any of the customers or prospects present tonight personally, but it was a really good event with lots of interesting conversations, both work and non-work related. I generally don’t like networking events very much, but this one managed to be fun. Despite not going to these events often anymore, I really enjoyed my time tonight meeting with new, very different people, and also being reunited in person with a handful of my colleagues who I rarely see in person. It’s funny to think that pre-pandemic, I was in an office five days a week unless I was traveling for work or on vacation. And now, seeing colleagues and customers, as well as being in an office, are more like novelties.

At the end of the evening, I exchanged contact details with some attendees. My colleagues and I had a nightcap before all going home. Overall, it was a fun, productive evening. I wonder how many more of these events I will go to in the future?

When a fancy cake store opens along the way home, and someone doesn’t get the cake she wants

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A new location of Lady M Cake Boutique has opened just a block away from where we live, and it’s along our walk back home from the subway. As we anticipated the cake shop opening for a while, Kaia kept asking when they would open so we could go in and have some cake. I told her that when they opened, I would take her and we could get some cake.

Well, the day finally came the week before we left for our Caribbean trip. I did stay true to my word, and we did end up going in. Kaia chose a slice she wanted, and we left with a very expensive slice of cake. Unfortunately, she never ended up having cake that evening because she was already full from dinner, so Chris and I ended up having to eat the cake ourselves. She remembered she never got any cake. So for the last two days when we pass this cake shop, she has raised hell with me and tantrummed like there’s no tomorrow to try to get her way.

And… well, it’s been pretty miserable for me. She knows I am softer than Chris, which is why she always asks me for these types of treats and not him. And she also lashes out a lot more when I say no.

“I WANT CAKE! YOU WILL BUY ME CAKE!” she screamed twice this week on the sidewalk as I nearly had to drag her along the way home.

I probably need to have a long chat with ChatGPT to see how I can calm a screaming 4-year-old down when she doesn’t get what she wants because my patience is really wearing with all these public outbursts. I’m *that* mother trying to control her child, who apparently thinks she can have whatever she wants when she wants it.

Another day, another layoff

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I’ve been working full time for over 18 years now. And at every single company I’ve ever been at, I’ve seen layoffs happen. At my first company, there was a layoff just four months after I started. Then five months later, layoff round 2 happened, and I got cut. Fast forward 18 years later, and layoffs are pretty much the normal thing that I expect will happen. The question, though, is, whether I will get laid off.

I’ve been at my current company for almost six years now. I’ve seen two rounds of layoffs here before today. The first was unexpected. The second was planned, announced, and very much expected. And then today’s was also expected given my company merged (or really, got acquired) by another company, so of course there were duplicities and restructuring that needed to happen. I guess at this point of my career, I have just become numb to all the madness, the constant change, the constant “reductions in force.” It’s tiring, exhausting, demoralizing. When you work in tech, your job is never, ever “safe.” Job stability is a joke here. The default expectation is that there will be layoffs.

Luckily for me this time, after layoff round 3, I am still employed. My job is safe — at least for the next few months. Who knows what will happen and what decisions will be made? I remember when I got laid off the first time in 2009, even though I had a big feeling I would be impacted, when it finally happened, I felt so sad, angry, and confused all at the same time. I felt a lot of insecurity and uncertainty about my place in life (it also didn’t help that my mom equated employment with self worth, but that’s another stupid story for another day). What I wish I could have told myself then was that — everything always works out in the end. “You will be more than okay.” Leaving a job not on your own terms is never a fun thing. But there’s always something better out there — the time just has to be right.

Impromptu friend catch-up and play date turns family dysfunction contemplation time

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The weather was so nice today that I wanted to make sure that Kaia and I got some outdoors time this afternoon. So I took her to Little Engine Playground at Riverside Park and let her blow bubbles and get wet in the sprinklers. While there, my building friend texted to let me know she was going to join us with her son (Chris told her we’d be there). So I had an unexpected friend catch-up this afternoon at the park and at Pier I after. I really enjoyed getting this spontaneous message because I almost never have any impromptu meetups with anyone — ever. In New York, I’ve just never made friends who are that spontaneous. Everything always feels like it needs to be planned in advance. And while I am a planner and do like having meetups on the calendar to look forward to, I also love just randomly deciding to meet someone with zero plans out of nowhere. It seems to be harder to do as people get older, as sad as that is.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know this friend over the last year. In the last several months, she’s definitely become more open in sharing more personal details and opinions she’s had, and I’ve done the same with her. One area we’ve never really talked much about is regarding our parents. I know a lot about her sister, and she knows about Ed and how he passed. But just today, we started talking about my parents because she knows about our upcoming trip to San Francisco to see them. She asked me if I looked at going home as a “vacation.” I probably paused for too long of a time as she immediately knew what the answer was.

As a 40-year-old adult child to my parents, I am clearly no longer a little kid. I have since grown up, had a career, gotten married, and given birth and am raising my own child, and so I’ve had enough life experience of my own to formulate my own world view — and also see exactly how different it is versus my parents’. I recognize they both had hard lives, and the life I have is extremely luxurious compared to anything they had. Their hard lives inform their world views. They both experienced varying degrees of trauma that shaped how they raised Ed and me. I recognize all of that. But my hope and goal is that I do not continue their intergenerational trauma, that it stops with them. I want Kaia to have a very different relationship with me than the one I have with my own mother. I can acknowledge all those things are true, that I love them, but that I have no intention of ever trying harder than I already have to have a better relationship with them. As I learned over the course of multiple years of therapy, it is not my job to fix my parents, to change their disposition, or even to make them happy. They will not change; they are who they are. If they want to wallow in their own misery and legitimate mess of their house, they can do that. I told my friend I go and stay with them for about two weekends and stay at a hotel the rest of the time because their house just is not livable, not enjoyable, not comfortable; this is all done out of obligation. It’s worse than the clutter; it’s just flat out dirty. And they are perfectly fine with that and think that I am the problem when I come.

I still remember the first time I was in therapy, from 2013-2016, and my then-therapist asked me a really simple question: “Do you like your parents?”

I wrinkled my brow. “What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s very clear that you love your parents,” she explained. “But do you like them? Like if they were not your parents, could you see yourself willingly going out to have dinner with them and chat? Hang out together? Do you share the same interests, hobbies? Do you enjoy their company?”

This, I did not hesitate to answer. “Oh god, no!” I exclaimed. “Not at all! They are not even remotely fun to be around! We have nothing to talk about! We share none of the same views about anything!”

I didn’t want to freak out my friend and start going on about my parents; it’s probably too much information, too much negativity. I also don’t like going into detail about this sort of thing with Kaia around because she seems to be understanding way more than I want her to at this age now.

“I don’t want to sound terrible,” I said to my friend. “But they’re just… very unpleasant to be around. I hate to say it, but it’s the truth. I just go out of obligation, because I want Kaia to know her maternal grandparents at least a little.”

She looked back at me with sad eyes. “You sound like you try really hard,” she said softly.

Little does she know that as time has gone on, I definitely know I am trying less and less. As I get older, I honestly just care less and less. My patience in dealing with them has worn so thin — after Ed’s death, then after Kaia’s birth and the stupid ways they acted after she was born, and especially when we visited in 2022. I tolerate them in tiny bursts, and then I let them go and lead their own separate abysmal lives. It’s the only way we can feasibly coexist. I’ve made peace with the fact that I will never have the relationship I want with either of them, and it’s definitely not due to lack of previous effort on my part. We can’t always control everything or have every part of our life be the way we want it to be. And growing older makes you come to terms with all of that.