Monthly Archives: December 2022

Mexican food in Melbourne

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In all previous trips to Australia, we had actively avoided eating any Mexican food. The logic was: why would we eat Mexican food here when we can have great Mexican food (for obvious reasons, like proximity to Mexico) back in the U.S.? But in recent years, there’s been a huge surge in Mexican restaurants in Australia. Each time we’d come back, I’d notice more and more. I never seriously looked at the menus, but it was clear that the interest and trend were growing here.

Chris’s cousins organized a cousins dinner nearby for us, as they were being considerate and thoughtful that we had a baby, so they wanted to pick a restaurant that would be a quick drive back in case Kaia got too fussy with Chris’s parents on their own with her. I knew it was Mexican and didn’t really think much of it until we got to the restaurant. It was certainly outfitted the way you’d stereotypically imagine, with sombreros, brightly colored paintings, and cactus everywhere. When I opened the menu, I thought… oh great. There’s lots of things I’d expect on the menu, so I stuck with what seemed safe — two tacos, shrimp and fish, plus a nonalcoholic coconut/lime/pineapple drink.

Chris got jackfruit tacos, so we sort of shared our food. The tacos were absolutely horrendous – at least, the jackfruit ones were. They were mushy, the sauce was disgusting, and they were clearly canned jackfruit pieces. The shrimp and fish ones were decent, but considering how much they cost, I feel l like I could have made better Mexican food as a child than this. And the service was even worse than the food: they took our orders but warned us that the kitchen AND the bar were closing in the next 15 minutes (at 8pm?! We had just arrived at around 7:15!), so we had to make up our mind on regular food, drink, AND desserts then and there. The food took ages to arrive, and they arrived with our drinks and jugs of water. We had nothing to drink, not even basic water, until all the food arrived. I couldn’t even remember experiencing service so awful at a restaurant until that evening.

I normally never say anything about restaurants when it comes to Chris’s family’s gatherings because the main focus is not really the food — it’s about all of us getting together and catching up. Plus, I’m not technically a cousin, so why should my opinion overrule anyone? But after that experience… the next time someone tries to suggest Mexican here, I’m definitely going to have to chime in and veto it.

Neighborhood exploration in Melbourne

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Most afternoons during our stays in Melbourne, we’ve still been exploring different neighborhoods this time around, just with the baby with us. While it is always enjoyable to see family and friends here, it’s also fun to be able to revisit old favorites, like Lamb on Chapel and Shandong Mama, and also try new restaurants and bakeries that have opened. It’s basically like an extension of what we do in New York — seeing new and different neighborhoods and trying new cuisines and restaurants. Most people don’t really know their own backyards, and so we actively try to do the opposite and know where we are traveling to as well as our own home base.

We’ve been telling Chris’s parents about all these new places we have visited, and they have laughed a bit, saying this is their own home but they haven’t been to these areas much. The ironic thing there is that they are quite adventurous and have literally spent their lives traveling the world, seeing new places, eating new foods, diving into totally different cultures. But when it comes to their own home base, they don’t really see much of it and say they don’t have much time to do it. In that sense, they’re not that different to the average person who doesn’t go outside of their own neighborhood or surrounding neighborhoods. But when we do bring the foods back home for them to try, maybe that will entice them to go back?

“Vacation”

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I was asked a few times if I felt relaxed during this trip to Australia, and my immediate answer every single time has been “no.” It’s not that I don’t like being here. I love being here in the Southern hemisphere summer. I love exploring new areas, going to new places, eating different things. I like spending time with Chris’s parents and the rest of his family (at least, most of the rest of his family). But given I have still been working East Coast US hours and am also in full-time childcare mode, it hasn’t been that relaxing. Back in New York, I used to rely on the nanny five days a week to do Kaia’s solid feeds 3 times per day, most of her diaper changes, and her baths two out of three times a week. Now, I do all her baths, a lot of her diaper changes, and the majority of her solid feeds. And while the nanny had the controlled environment of a high chair in our own home, I’ve had to deal with her solid food eating in the company of many family members, plus at endless restaurants, which means… distraction, distraction, distraction.

Chris’s brother commented on the amount of food she was eating and said, “That’s going to take at least 45 minutes to an hour for her to get through!” He was in shock.

And I said, “Um, yes. She usually eats for 45 to an hour at home. And that doesn’t include the time to prepare the food and warm it up, set her up in the high chair, clean her up after, and then clean all the dishes, the tray, and everything she got all over the splat mat and floor after.”

“No wonder you say you don’t have any time to yourself on the weekends at home!” his brother lamented. “Once you finish feeding her and cleaning her up, she’s ready to eat AGAIN!”

She can’t self feed as much outside because Chris doesn’t approve of the mess that she makes (well, she’s a baby? She doesn’t know how to eat cleanly or with cutlery yet!). And while eating out is occasionally fun with her, after a while, it gets a bit wearing, and it makes me empathize with parents who just kind of give up and eat at home most of the time and don’t go anywhere. Do I agree with their choice to be boring and not go anywhere or let their young children experience new places and things? No. But I get why they would be totally exhausted and just avoid it as much as possible because I’m exhausted.

“There is no such thing as a real vacation if your baby is with you,” said one of my mom friends.

She isn’t totally wrong.

Pumping: the end grows nearer

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In the days leading up to Kaia’s first birthday, my milk supply suddenly decreased quite drastically without any warning. It had already plummeted a little in October once I had my first postpartum period, and then again in November when I went down to three pumps a day. Around her 1st birthday was when I planned to drop to two pumps per day, but when I realized the Thursday before that my body had its own plans for my milk supply, I decided to do it the day before her 1st birthday. What’s an extra day? I thought.

The drop was over 200ml, nearly overnight. When it happened one day, I thought it was just a fluke. But in reality, it was real… because it kept happening every single day after that. Now, I am lucky if I pump even 300ml in a day, and even that seems a bit of a stretch. I originally thought I would keep going until 15 months, so the 10th of March, but at this rate, if my supply keeps dwindling, I may just need to fully wean and hang up the pumps sooner than that. I can’t continue to pump for two hours a day and not even get eight ounces of breast milk total per day. I know she loves my milk, though. So that also is another reason I want to keep going. But if the numbers keep going down, it’s just too much time for too little return at this point, especially since she does not really need my milk anymore now that she’s over 1 year old.

Dropping down to two pumps per day is quite bittersweet. I worked so hard to get my supply up, and now to see it dropping so drastically in a short space of time really hurt. It’s like I could almost feel the pain in my boobs and my heart when I saw the numbers consistently stay so low, day after day. Granted, it was my choice to drop pumping sessions when I did, but that’s the issue with exclusive pumping: it feels like a constant love/hate relationship where you are really battling with just yourself. The emotional roller coaster continues, even at the end of the journey. Can’t I just keep going? Why can’t I be one of those mothers who breastfeeds until 2 years? Chris keeps trying to make fun of me, saying that the “udder isn’t working anymore” and “the cow isn’t keeping up.” It’s easy for him to make fun; he never put in the blood, sweat, and tears into this maddening process. He’s never pumped milk; no man really has. And even those women who nurse and have never pumped… they don’t get the sweat and toil that goes into this. Chris’s cousin’s wife, who breastfed (nursed) all three of her babies and pumped occasionally for overnight bottles — she told me that what I did was the most intense work of all forms of baby feeding. And her husband said, “Pumping — it’s so many bottles to wash, so many pump parts to clean all the time!” Yep. He sees it, at least as an observer.

I love knowing that my body had given my baby so much sustenance and more in the last year plus of her life. I am grateful for what my body allowed me to do and the food it provided my baby. But I also look forward to the day when I no longer need to pump any milk at all and have my body fully back to myself. I will admit, though: two pumps per day is so liberating compared to 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 pumps per day at the insane beginning. I may not even know what to do with myself and all this newfound free time as my nanny keeps making fun of me about. I may even put my Spectra breast pump on display in the apartment to remember my long, hard-fought journey to feeding my baby via exclusive pumping.

Water pressure in the bathroom down under

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Chris’s brother is now back in Melbourne for Christmas from Sydney. He got back on Thursday night, so the family house is packed with all six of us now for the very first time. The family house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, so all of us comfortably have our own bathrooms to use. Chris’s dad told us that they had recently had the water pressure reduced across the house, which was most notable in the shower heads. The reason they did this was that they were advised by their plumber to reduce it, otherwise it may cause future problems for all their machines that use water (washing machine, dishwasher, etc.). Everyone in the family loves their water pressure in the shower; in fact, Chris says that one of his absolute favorite things to do when he gets back to Melbourne each year is to simply turn on the shower head in his bathroom and let the water stream down on him… because the water pressure is optimal, and he loves that feeling on his skin. When their dad mentioned the water pressure had been reduced, I hadn’t noticed it at all in the shower we used; it still seemed quite strong to me, other than the fact that the shower head is different in this bathroom given we switched bathrooms with his brother, as his brother’s bathroom has a full bathtub, which makes it easier to bathe Kaia.

Well, Ben noticed the shower pressure had changed immediately. He asked his parents what happened, and they explained. Yet somehow, oddly enough, the shower pressure in their parents’ master bathroom had not changed much, if at all. So now, instead of using his own shower, Ben is now going to continue using his parents’ shower while he is here! His dad had asked me if I had noticed a difference, and I said no.

The reason this is even a topic for me is that all it reminds me of is exactly how weak and terrible my parents’ water pressure is in their shower. In fact, I know, for a FACT, that it’s gotten weaker by design over the last 10-15 years, as my dad has not only changed the shower head multiple times, but he’s actually reduced the water pressure. He did not do that because it was too strong, but rather because a) he wanted to save money on water, b) there was a drought which advised all residents of California to reduce water usage… but hey, it ended!, and c) he insisted it was just better for the environment. It was never a discussion. He just did it and didn’t even tell my mom. No one else’s opinion or comfort mattered. It was his executive decision, and it was never going to get reversed no matter what.

The water pressure is so weak in that shower that my showers likely take a longer time there because the water feels like it’s just dripping out — slowly, painfully, meekly. Yet the few nights I actually do spend at my parents’ house nowadays, because my dad is so cheap, he occasionally will try to lightly ask me to shorten my showers. My showers are actually quite short when I am not washing my hair, and given I am only there for at max three days at a time now, it’s truly amazing that he would even ask me to do this.

The other reason this is so triggering for me is that it doesn’t seem to matter what it is, whether it is day to day living, traveling, once in a blue moon events… my dad’s cheapness seems to apply to everything. In some way, it’s almost like he wants to prevent himself from truly enjoying the experience of anything… at seemingly all costs, not just financial. He cannot even learn to enjoy the simplicity of a good shower head and water pressure. Part of me wonders if it’s just because of his upbringing, because his parents had so little and thus he had so little, and so he really grasps at every last penny he has as a result of that childhood in fear it will all disappear into thin air suddenly, despite the fact that he has more than enough now. But there are plenty of immigrant stories of families who had nothing, yet when those kids grew into adults, they managed their finances well and were able to enjoy. So the more I think about it, the more I think he just has a mental block that prevents him from enjoying or liking anything.

“Do you think your parents are capable of being happy?” my therapist once asked me.

“I suppose that depends on how you define ‘happy,'” I responded back.

It seems the older I get, the less I can give a straight “yes” or “no” answer to ANYTHING, which is so aggravating sometimes.

Because perhaps for some people, “happy” means always complaining about the most minute things; maybe it means doing the exact same things in the exact same routine every single day and not veering away from it. It can be sameness all the time. Maybe it means always comparing your kids to other kids; maybe it means always looking at people who have far, far less than you (read: are truly living in poverty) and using that as a reason to not make your own life a fraction more comfortable. And if that is the case, then there’s not much else you can say or do for them. But then… if I really wanted to know, maybe I could just flat out ask my dad the simple but very loaded question: “Are you happy?”

Well, to be honest, I am not sure I want to hear the response to that.

Family / baby friendly environment in Australia

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At most places we have visited across three states, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the number of family friendly bathrooms that have been available. In Byron Bay and in Gold Coast, there have been family bathrooms where there was not just one changing station, but three or four; where the place where you would lay your baby to change their diaper even had cushions underneath to ensure their comfort. Some had big rollers to roll out paper towels to keep the area clean. Others had nappie/diaper-specific rubbish bins to toss soiled diapers. A few even had convenient pockets and pouches to place your diaper/wipes/diaper balm. One even had wipes (I wasn’t sure what they were made out of and whose hands had touched them, so I refrained from even looking at them to seriously consider using). Lots of stores even had ramps where you could easily roll a wheelchair or stroller. It kind of made me annoyed to think about exactly how unfriendly it is pretty much everywhere in the U.S. where we’ve gone. Granted, the diaper changing stage only lasts for a few years for kids, but still; no parent or caregiver wants to feel like they are unwelcome in a place simply because they have their diaper-wearing child with them.

Eating out with baby

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Like most new, first-time moms who breastfeed, whether nursing or pumping, with our near-sightedness, we think that life will get easier when babies are less reliant on breast milk and start eating solid foods. What we seem to forget is that eating solids is a TASK; teaching your child to eat regular food, and eat it independently, literally takes years and years of work. And that work requires an insane amount of patience. And when they are in public or in the presence of others outside of their home environment, the amount of energy and time it takes increases exponentially because they are easily distracted and want to know everything that’s going on around them. That also means… YOUR eating as a parent/caregiver takes the backseat. So it’s no wonder why most of the time now, when I am watching her eat or feeding her in public, I end up eating most of my own food nearly cold. I also don’t get to savor and enjoy my food as much. But hey, everything has its time, its beginning and its end, and so this will just be a phase…. one that will take time. It is definitely a test to my patience, though, and can be wearing, especially since when I eat, it’s because I really like to eat, not because I’m simply eating for sustenance. But this is an investment of my time into my baby’s growth and character, and so I hope this all pays off eventually.

Blowout all over me, the car, and in the trunk in Gold Coast

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Yesterday, on our first full day in the Gold Coast, Chris wanted us to go up to the mountains for a mini hike. That plan got dampened a bit, literally, when it started raining. And before that, it got dampened because Kaia was being especially fussy. I initially thought it was just teething because I already see two more teeth popping out on the top, plus she had been drooling a lot that morning. But after a while in the car seat in the car, I noticed she started straining. I figured she had a big poop to get out, but even after she finished straining, she started yelping even more than she normally does when fussing. So I did the unsafe caregiver task of taking her out of her car seat in a moving car and trying to soothe her. That worked for about five minutes, after which she started fussing even louder. And that was when the real excitement began: the unmistakable stench of human poop overtook our noses. And it got stronger and stronger… until I realized that the poop was so large that it had spilled out of her diaper, into her clothes, and then onto MY lap, and even all over the rental car seat belt!

Chris eventually found a safe spot to stop the car, which happened to be right next to a hotel, and he quickly got out, helped me clean up what parts he could on me and the car before making a bigger poop mess, and I got her cleaned up as much as I could in the trunk of the car, changing her diaper, giving her a new backup outfit, and cleaning my pants up as much as I could. In the process, we smeared poop in the trunk, which also had to be cleaned up, and I also got poop all over my shirt. And NO, I did NOT pack a backup outfit for MYSELF. They always say that when traveling with a baby, caregivers should always also pack a backup outfit for themselves for these exact reasons (or vomit), but… I didn’t, and I never had before. And this was the one time it could have come in handy.

So after doing a mediocre job cleaning up myself, I took Kaia in her stroller and myself into the hotel bathroom to clean up. I used an ungodly amount of wet paper towels and soap to clean her dress, my shirt, and pants as much as I could. I left that bathroom looking like I wet my own pants. But I had to do it, otherwise I would literally have been walking around in poop all day long. And it worked out.

Yes, it was a mess. Yes, it was unpleasant. But at the same time, it was also an adventure and a lesson to be learned. Always pack backup clothes for you and baby. You can never have enough backup wipes or hand sanitizer. and always pack a bag to store wet (dirty, poopy) clothes.

Email lists and pushing consumers to buy, buy, buy

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Around November or December of every year, my gift purchasing spikes given that Christmas and a slew of birthdays of those close to me are around the corner. Plus, Black Friday/Cyber Monday is a great time to buy since most companies will be having their biggest sales of the year. The annoying thing that happens? When you buy a bunch of products from whatever company, they think it’s okay to start inundating you pretty much every single day after that initial purchase that you should keep buying constantly. And the emails just don’t stop unless you fully unsubscribe or limit email outreaches from them to once a week or once a month! From my perspective, I am thinking.. seriously? I literally JUST bought from you yesterday. Why are you pushing me to buy yet again, every single day from here on out?! Is that even a realistic expectation? How much do you genuinely think a single person can purchase, and for whom?? These companies really need to get their ducks in a row and realize that they shouldn’t be so freaking aggressive about their email marketing, especially to people who have just purchased for the very first time, and it may be prudent of them to tone it down a bit and pull back on this incessant outreach.

Going up to the Gold Coast and Byron Bay for the week

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The first time I went on an airplane was when I was 13. My mom picked some fight with my dad about how he never takes us anywhere, and so he randomly decided to book a trip for the three of us to go to Las Vegas. That was also my first time leaving the state of California. Ed never wanted to go anywhere with our parents, so that’s why he stayed behind. My daughter is just over 1 year old, and the flight she took this morning from Melbourne to Gold Coast was her 9th flight, plus her first flight traveling in economy class. Her first eight flights were all in First or Business class. She’s having quite the jet-setting life already.

We arrived in Gold Coast, Queensland, this afternoon, and decided to spend the rest of the day on the resort property. Kaia enjoyed her very first Moreton Bay Bugs during our lunch at the hotel restaurant. These little crustaceans go by many names, including flathead lobsters, bay lobsters, and Moreton bugs. Moreton bay bugs live in deep water and most species can be found all along the Australian coast. The first time I’d ever seen them was when we were in Cairns in 2014 and had them at a restaurant. The second time I saw them was in Sydney at the fish market in 2015. They are cooked and prepared just like lobsters, and they’re a very expensive delicacy, one I had never seen or heard of outside of Australia. Similar to how she was with lobster, Kaia loved the bay bugs. Our plate had five of them, and she had one bay bug almost all to herself and gobbled it up! She seems to love all seafood she’s had so far — my sweet little foodie baby.