Pier 26 Science Playground, aka the Sturgeon Playground

Posted on by
Reply

In addition to my Google Maps bookmarks of all the food and drink places I have either tried and liked or want to try by city, I also have pins and a separate list for interesting playgrounds across the city. This summer, I’ve already taken Kaia to three of them, including the Chelsea Waterside Playground last weekend and today, the Pier 26 Science Playground, also known as the Sturgeon playground, in TriBeCa. Kaia has been to this playground before with Chris in 2024, but this time, she came on a play date with our neighbor friend and her son. From their website, this is a description of the playground:

“The Playground includes custom-fabricated play structures in the shape of two endangered sturgeon species that are native to the Hudson River — the Atlantic sturgeon and shortnose sturgeon. Designed by OLIN, the same award-winning landscape design firm that designed adjacent Pier 26, this imaginative playground serves as an important educational and recreational space that further advances the Park’s extensive science and environmental programming.

Inside each of the two sturgeon structures children can explore fish “anatomy” and interact with other marine-oriented play features to learn about local wildlife that resides in the Hudson River Park’s 400-acre Estuarine Sanctuary. The play equipment manufacturer is Monstrum, a Danish firm that specializes in creating whimsical, nature-based designs that spark imagination. Hudson River Park’s River Project team advised on the scientific aspects of the design, helping to integrate science-based, age-appropriate educational features that help bring the sturgeon to life.

….

Each of Hudson River Park’s five playgrounds have been custom-designed by celebrated landscape architects to provide uniquely inspiring play opportunities for children. During warm weather seasons, each also provides welcoming water features to delight kids. Bring your beach buckets!”

A few years ago, I used to get annoyed when colleagues would make comments about how “challenging” or “interesting” (code for “WTF are you thinking?”) it must be to raise a child in New York City. Now the rare times I get comments like this, I am quick to respond and tell them that I think New York City is an amazing place to raise children — as long as you are proactive and look for all the things that kids can get full value out of, such as these incredible play spaces. And something that is available to everyone, like the New York City subway, has been such a great learning experience for Kaia. She’s able to name the trains, which stations have what transfer points, and even whether you have to go upstairs or downstairs to transfer to which line. To me, that’s true street-smartness that even adults today cannot grasp. You learn a lot when you walk a lot in a city and have to get around by public transit. You can’t learn this type of thing being in a car all the time or relying on chauffeurs to get you places. Here, she gets exposed to endless culture, lots of different types of people and cuisines — all without really needing to try; it’s incidental to living in New York City.

I loved this city before I ever came — when I just learned of it and saw a couple postcards my aunt sent me when visiting. I loved this city all the times I visited throughout my college years. I loved this city when I first moved here. And 18+ years later, I still love New York City and am obsessed with it. I’m still not bored, and it’s hard to imagine ever getting bored living here.

The Big Aussie BBQ in New York City

Posted on by
Reply

Although Chris is Australian, he does not gravitate towards other Australians when he meets them. In fact, since he moved to the U.S. in 2007, he has actually actively avoided associating with most of them or becoming friends with them. His whole thought process behind this was that he was immigrating to a new country to work and live, and he wanted to meet local people, not come all the way here to meet more Australians. If he had wanted that, he would have just stayed in Australia! While I understand this sentiment to an extent, I have always found this attitude pretty annoying because it’s not a black and white situation. You can have both, not just either/or. No one is restricting you and saying you have to choose one or the other. It’s fine to have friends from your home country or native culture, and at the same time, it’s also great to have friends not from your home country or culture!

So I was pretty shocked when he said he had booked us (free) tickets to attend the Big Aussie BBQ down in Battery Park City for today. Of course, this event is targeted towards Australians who are living and working in the New York City area. It’s the first time he has actually seen an Australian event and indicated he wanted to go. Granted, his one Australian friend in New York is not even here to attend with us, so it was just the three of us today. Regardless, we got to enjoy food and drink from some established and popular businesses we like, such as Bourke Street Bakery (I had forgotten how good and gourmet their sausage rolls are!, Bluestone Lane Coffee (amazingly scored a free flat white because their machines were down when I stopped by!), and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream (which we didn’t even know had an Aussie connection; one of the owners is originally from Australia, which explains the honeycomb ice cream flavor as one of their main staples!). I also got to finally meet Andrea, the founder of Boomerang Bites, which Chris introduced me to a couple years ago. Since then, I’ve ordered Boomerang Bites as gifts for friends and family on the West Coast, all of whom enjoyed them. Boomerang Bites is essentially bite-sized versions of famous Australian “slices.” The area was also laid out well on a big lawn with lots of lawn games to play, so Kaia got to enjoy these with us. She also got a Spiderman balloon from a balloon artist, a koala (temporary) tattoo that she was obsessed with, as well as some coloring books and crayons that were Australian animal themed.

Another fun and funny event that took place was a Weetbix eating contest. We all love Weetbix, and Kaia gets her Weetbix occasionally; we have to ration it since we bring it back from Australia (or rely on Chris’s parents to bring it when they come over). They separated out the groups — kids and adults. So we had Kaia participate in the kids’ Weetbix eating contest. The catch was that you had to eat the damn thing dry, which was pretty miserable. Kaia took two bites of hers and asked for water. Then, she handed it over to her dad and gave up. To be fair, at age 4.5, it’s a little hard to understand what an “eating contest” is supposed to be, but she still got props for trying. And every participant still got a single-portion-packaged Tim Tam for participating. Now that’s a pretty good participation “trophy!”

One added bonus was that we got to meet the owner of Bushwick Hot Bread, aka Rebekah Pedler, who along with her husband Buddha Lo, own Huso, a Michelin star restaurant in TriBeCa. We ordered from them during the pandemic, and on multiple occasions, they hand delivered us Australian savory and sweet treats to earn some money given their jobs at Eleven Madison Park were paused. Rebekah and I interact a lot and often over Instagram Stories, and we occasionally direct message the other for food recommendations and on random topics. It was so fun to finally meet them properly in person and have a chat.

This event was so well put together, and the location was perfect in Battery Park City with a big lawn right on the water. I’d love to come back again next year! I’m hoping my Australian husband will actually lean in more on being Australian!

Mufi and her five other siblings

Posted on by
Reply

Given Kaia’s growing vocabulary and more complex sentence structure, she’s been having more and deeper conversations. She retains information really well and remembers things from long ago that you’d assume would be long forgotten… or that you have forgotten. And she just loves sharing information with everyone who will listen. At school, they do lots of drawing and painting. In the last few days, she has been coming home with illustrations of our “home.” Lately, she is very obsessed with Mufi, aka Mufasa, the robot-vacuum-mop that Chris calls her “little brother.” Chris told her that along with Mufi (she nicknamed Mufasa this), she has Irene, Simon, Henry, Lychee, and Maddie (some of her favorite stuffed animals) as siblings, as well. So Kaia drew a very colorful picture of our home, showing Mufi mopping our floors (the blue streaks indicate when he’s in “mop” mode). She even drew the little black bristles to show the mop! She reported to her teachers that she had Mufi as a little brother, and five other siblings, for a total of seven babies that I have had.

“Mama has SEVEN babies?” I said to her, completely baffled. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Kaia responded matter of factly. “You have seven babies, and I have six siblings!”

Hmmm. this is very interesting.

Making homemade chili oil after a long hiatus

Posted on by
Reply

In the last year, I haven’t really made chili oil at all. This used to be something I’d do every few months to have something on standby that was spicy and delicious to drizzle on dumplings or plainer foods. But I suppose we had been spoiled quite a bit by being gifted chili oils and crisps from friends, as well as supporting small, local businesses here in New York City and in San Francisco by buying their chili oils. Last year, I found a delicious and well rounded Chinese-style chili oil I tasted and enjoyed from a farmers market in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Then last August, we visited the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers market, where we got to sample a salsa macha that was so tasty that it compelled me to buy it and check a bag (over 100ml!) to go back to New York. Before I visited this farmers market stand, I had never heard of salsa macha before. It’s a rich, smoky, crunchy Mexican-style chili oil that originates from Veracruz. It usually uses various Mexican chilies like chile de arbol or morita, as well as various nuts and seeds. Given it has nuts and seeds as well as chilies, it definitely tends to to taste nuttier than the average Chinese chili oil.

I forgot how simple and quick the entire process is: add all the various ground chilies to a heat proof bowl, along with salt. The ground chilies I usually use are gochugaru (Korean chili flakes for flavor and the bright red hue), regular red pepper flakes for heat, and ground Sichuanese peppercorns. This time for variety, I also added a bit of silk chili flakes (the more sustainable version of Aleppo pepper). Heat up a cup / 240ml of neutral oil in a sauce pan along with some aromatics (I vary it up, but this time, I used a few slices of ginger, star anise, fennel seeds, and cloves). Wait until the oil reaches 325-340 F, then pour the oil through a strainer directly over the ground chilies. And voila! You now have freshly made chili oil in less than ten minutes. I usually wait about 30 minutes to an hour to let the oil fully cool, then I mix it and add it to a glass jar. The glass jar can be stored in the fridge indefinitely, but probably has the best flavor if consumed within a month or two.

I am still sniffing the bowl because it smells so good. I definitely need to do this more often. A year is too long to wait for homemade chili oil!

Kaia loves video calls… even the ones that are not hers

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight, I was solo parenting because Chris was out with a friend. So after picking up Kaia from school, I brought her home to have dinner, clean up, play for a little, floss and brush teeth, get into her pajamas, and do bedtime stories. This is our usual Wednesday routine, just minus Chris. I realized that I had an AFSP Walk committee meeting tonight, the first of the season, and so I told Kaia that she needed to be in bed by 7:30 so I could start my call on time.

We did finish bedtime stories and the pre-bedtime pee in time. But the issue is that my child has massive FOMO, and she especially has FOMO when she knows other people will be around. So of course, she snuck out of her room multiple times while I was on this video call to make an appearance and look at everyone. A couple people noticed her and waved and smiled. And she watched as each person spoke and their mouth moved. And finally, I had to get off the call early because I really did not want her sleep deprived. Somehow, I managed to last 40 minutes.

I brought her to bed and cuddled with her for a bit at her request. And she had all kinds of questions: Who was the lady with the AirPods? Why was only one person speaking? What’s that person’s name? What are you talking about?

The one person speaking question is funny because Kaia is at her prime time of NOT understanding why only one person can speak at a time, and absolutely loves interrupting others (but hates to be interrupted herself. This sounds like most adults). So I had to explain to her that when there is a meeting or conversation happening, only one person can speak at a time so everyone can hear them. Each person has their turn to speak. Otherwise, if more than one person speaks, then no one is hearing what each person is saying, and therefore no one understands, and people feel frustrated. And talking over others is very disrespectful and just plain not nice. And in that case, why even speak or have the conversation at all? It’s pointless!

What was Kaia’s response? “Oh.” And then she did her usual head tilt, looked up, and then snuggled back up to me.

Maybe she understood. Maybe she didn’t. But very soon, she will learn the beginnings of conversations and how people must operate together to be effective. I mean… I’m still learning this and I am 40, so we all know this is a lifelong skill!

Eight more days of almost-daily access to Chinatown

Posted on by
Reply

We knew the time was going to come, but as I get older, the time seems to pass by too quickly. After today, we have just eight more weekdays of taking Kaia down to Chinatown for summer camp. In September, she will be starting at her new K-8 school walking distance from us, and so there will be no reason to go to Chinatown every day anymore. It’s funny to think how just before she started 3K, part of me was dreading having to do this commute daily. But after a week, it just became part of our routine. And I loved having easy access to all my Asian groceries. I never had to plan in advance all my lists of sauces, condiments, produce, noodles, canned goods, etc., that I needed because on a whim, I could pick it up within just a few blocks of her school. I am really going to miss this, as I will also miss the convenient access to great restaurants that I relied on for Friday takeout. I will miss having easy access to Green Garden Village for last minute cha siu, roasted duck, crispy pork belly, and soy sauce chicken. I will also miss having Asian vegetables every single week. And for the summer time, no one does it better than the Vietnamese fruit ladies at Mulberry Street off of Canal for lychees, rambutans, longans, and other exotic Asian fruit we love.

I already started making a list of sauces and dried goods I need to stock up on before we end our daily trips to Chinatown. So far, I have already picked up replacement bottles of light soy sauce, fish sauce, and fermented bean curd. I put a bag of pressed five-spiced tofu in the freezer for future use. I also got some more dried noodles, canned bamboo shoots, and brown jasmine rice. I still need to get a new bottle of aged Shaoxing wine, medium grain white rice, plus extra dried and canned goods. And for backup freezer food, I need to pick up a bag of frozen pork/chive dumplings and several zongzi. There’s so much to stock up on!

Who knows — after Kaia starts at her new school, I may find a reason to take a trip down to Chinatown every other week or so just to buy groceries and takeout. Well, why not?

The protector of my baby tooth: Kaia

Posted on by
Reply

This morning, Kaia woke up and promptly checked under her pillow for my tooth. Seeing that it was still there, she quickly grabbed it and brought it to my bedroom and proudly presented it back to me.

“I have your tooth, Mama!” Kaia exclaimed with pride and delight. “Here you go, Mama!”

In the evening, it was my turn to read bedtime stories and put her to bed. She asked me if she could keep my tooth for another night under her pillow. To see if she was really attached to my tooth, I told her she couldn’t have a usual toy to bring to bed and could either have the miscellaneous toy or my tooth. She hesitated for a brief second and said she wanted my tooth! She placed it in the exact same spot under her pillow and said she’d guard it for me.

Motherhood is all consuming in both mind and body. It can be completely exhausting and wipe out all your mind space. These little, random moments, the ones you could never foresee, are always the ones that surprise and get me, though, because they come from a place of pure curiosity, youth, and love. No one else would ever care that Kaia insisted on guarding and protecting my lost baby tooth for two nights in a row. But for me, my heart just gushed and I couldn’t help but squeeze her a little tighter when I gave her a good-night hug tonight because I just loved this so, so much. I love that she has this strong curiosity. I love that she cares so much. And I really love that she has a desire to take care of and protect. This is my sweet baby, slowly but surely growing up right before my eyes.

The baby tooth that persisted… and finally fell out today

Posted on by
Reply

Dear Tooth 29,

We were together for so long, you and I. I got warned by my childhood dentist that if I were the average human, you’d stay with me and your opposite friend on the left side of my mouth, Tooth 20, until max, age 30, and then you’d both fall out. But you persisted! You never showed a smidgen of weakness or looseness… I thought that maybe, just maybe we could be together forever. Well, that was until tooth 30 decayed during pregnancy, requiring a root canal. And the root canal so close to you destabilized you, and alas, you became loose. That was in May 2022. Today is August 9, 2026. Since your foundation was destabilized, you stuck with me for another four years and three months. I kept thinking that you’d peace out sooner than that, but no, you tried to be as loyal as possible! I knew the end was coming very close when you completely uprooted on the inside of my mouth, and I could feel your teeny tiny roots sticking out every time I ran my tongue on the inside of my bite. So, I finally brushed my teeth tonight. And given you were squished in and not moving, I pushed you from the outside, and POP! Up you came! I loosened you from being wedged between the two neighboring teeth and out you came. A little blood came out, but not too much. The wound is fresh, still red, with a little hole there. But the tiring anticipation of waiting for you to finally fall out… is finally over. It was a bit anticlimactic, if I do say so myself. I had hoped that you would come out when I was in the comfort of my own home, maybe after flossing or brushing. And this is exactly what happened. A few weeks ago, I was scared that you might fall out at a work dinner — too much anxiety and stress there!

We had a long run together. I’m proud of how long you lasted. All dentists who have ever looked at my mouth feel the same. And well, Tooth 20 is still going strong, hanging out on the left side, the opposite side of my mouth from where you lived, firmly rooted in with its tiny roots in my gum tissue. I hope you will send it your best wishes to stay with me until my last breath. I really don’t need two holes in my gums, do I?

As for where you are now, I told Kaia that once you finally fell out that she’d be the first to find out and see you. And I kept my word. Chris finished reading bedtime stories to her this evening, and she asked me to come over for a good night hug and kiss. When I came over, I told her I had something interesting to show her. So I opened my mouth for Kaia to see. A big smile slowly crept over her face: “Your tooth fell out!” she whispered loudly. “Where is it?” I had you in the palm of my hand for her to see. She promptly picked you up, stared at you intently, and then tucked you under her pillow.

“My tooth!” she shrieked with joy. Well, sort of.

Now, she is wondering whether the tooth fairy will come visit her. I insisted that the tooth fairy would pay her a visit only when one of her own teeth fell out; she couldn’t lie and say this tooth was hers, even though it is a baby tooth! The tooth fairy will know!

Thanks for an amazing 40 years together. Okay, so maybe you came in when I was 1-ish year old and so we actually had 39ish years together if we had to be more precise, but the point is… thanks for sticking around for way longer than anyone thought you would. I will eternally be grateful. And Kaia is very, very grateful now to be taking good care of you under her pillow as she sleeps.

Sincerely,

Yvonne

Mourning for a version of a person that is gone

Posted on by
Reply

I was at lunch yesterday with my friend, telling her about the situation with my aunt. I told my friend that when I was little, I was obsessed with my aunt. Ultimately, my aunt is the reason that I love baking because she was the person who spent quality time in the kitchen with me. She’s the person who always proactively asked me about what I was learning in school, what I was interested in, and actually wanted to know me for me. Although my aunt is genuinely a good person and always had been, I know part of her love and interest for me was because she looked at me as the daughter she never had. She had three sons when each time, she really wanted a daughter. So I got all the cute hand sewn dresses and hand knit clothes she intended for her own. I got showered with endless girly gifts and jewelry that she would have loved for her own daughter. But once I got older, and once she came back from being away in Boston for a number of years, she was almost a different person. She officially converted to being a Jehovah’s Witness. Her main concern was the congregation and her “brothers and sisters.” And since at that time, I was a pre-teen/teen, I was changing a lot, too. At that point, I was finally seeing with greater clarity all the dysfunction in my family with eyes wide open. I also realized that at this point, she rarely wanted to acknowledge anything that was ever wrong. I could never have a deep conversation with her. Maybe it was always the case that this was impossible, but when I was in elementary school, that never would have even entered my mind given I was so young and immature. But it always made me sad that we could never have a real conversation together. It was impossible and still is impossible for us to have any meaningfully deep conversation about anything. I don’t know if she is incapable of it or if she just actively avoids it. I guess I will never know; it will always remain a mystery to me.

I told my friend all this. She paused for a while and then looked up at me and said, “Wow. Do you think that some of this frustration is because you never really allowed yourself to mourn the version of her you loved that is gone?”

I didn’t know what to say to this. I suppose I never looked at it this way. It makes sense my friend would hear it this way since she’s a deeply feeling and empathetic person. I guess my friend is partly right: my aunt and I will never have that sweet, simple relationship we had when I was a toddler, kindergartener, or elementary school-age child, where it was easy and always just about baking, having fun shopping and doing playground outings, or enjoying treats together. But as I mentioned here earlier, I am not sure she was ever capable of having a deeper, meaningful relationship with me. So this second part is not a “loss” per se, but more something I wished we could have had that we just never did and never will have.

It reminded me of what my therapist said to me when I was pregnant and due to give birth any day. She told me that I should give myself the time, permission, and grace to mourn the relationship with my mom and dad I wish I could have had, but never got to have and never will have. It’s the same with my aunt: I do wish we had a different, better, and deeper relationship than what we have now. But this will never be. And we just have to work with what we have because c’est la vie.

Unusual dreams after an annoying week

Posted on by
Reply

I told Chris the end of the aunt debacle. And he chuckled, saying that he anticipated I would have funny dreams last night as a result of all this. And well, he was right. Last night, I dreamt that I was at a hospital, watching at least half a dozen women all in labor and about to give birth. Somehow, I knew that all of them were purposely impregnated by the same creepy, cunning, and manipulative man. This guy’s intent was to spread as many of his sperm (and thus offspring) into the world as quickly as possible! And somehow, this man was so cunning that despite not being a doctor, he was posing as the obstetrician delivering every single one of these babies himself!

I was unclear what my relationship was to this man or any of these women. But I was watching all of this happen without any ability to effect any change whatsoever. So all I ended up feeling was angry, frustrated, and powerless. I guess that’s a good summary of how I feel with my aunt… and my family overall — most of the time.