Coming “home” and the “why” behind it

“Are you looking forward to going back home… or, is that even an appropriate question?” my friend asked me over dinner on Wednesday.

“I’m… not really looking forward to it,” I said honestly. “It’s just something I do. There are parts I look forward to, but the idea of going home does not excite me at all.”

That sounds like a terrible thing to admit out loud, but it’s the truth. It’s like what a lot of people say about their family: they love their family, but they do not necessarily like them as people. Their bonds are due to blood, obligation, and history, as opposed to shared or aligned values or respect for each others’ respective lives. I want to see my parents in person, but for limited amounts of time to protect my sanity and mental health. I also want them to see Kaia, and for Kaia to know who they are and that they are her maternal grandparents. But I know the reality of them “spending” time together is very limited in terms of the type of interactions they will have — regardless of what age Kaia is.

After a bleary eyed 6am flight from JFK to SFO, we arrived in San Francisco just past 8:30am local time. After a car ride to my parents’ place, our driver stopped in front of the house, to which I looked up at and got really annoyed. “What the heck is all this scaffolding in front?!” The scaffolding looked precarious, as though it was so unstable that someone would fall to their death from it. Plus, there was this hideous sheer black tarp covering 80 percent of the house’s facade. And then when I opened the front gate… it would not open all the way because that wretched scaffolding was preventing me from doing so.

I hadn’t even entered my parents’ house yet, and I was already in a pissy mood.

Then we got into the house, and of course, it’s clutter central. There are so many rolls of toilet paper in the hallway that I cannot walk in a straight line to turn the corner and get to my bedroom. Frustrated, I took several bags of them and pushed them into the sun room. The door to the breakfast room is still removed, leaning against a large framed photograph of Hong Kong Harbour in the dining room. It’s been like that since pre-pandemic. All the cabinet doors are pulled out of the bathroom; the lighting has no covering, with the light bulbs exposed. There are over ten dozen eggs in the fridge. And then there is a bunch of rotting fruit on the dining room table. I looked out the window at my parents’ yard, and it looks like the same awful weed fest from last year. Nothing has changed. If anything, there is more garbage in the house and the backyard.

That’s not even the worst of it. At lunch, my dad barely says anything to us at the dining table. He’s mostly on his phone once again while Kaia attempts but mostly fails to get reactions out of him. My mom keeps telling my dad to talk to Kaia, as though my dad is a baby, but my dad doesn’t really listen and continues looking at his phone. Once he’s done eating, he gets up and leaves the table. Kaia then asks him why he’s not sitting with us. It’s funny and also tragic that Kaia not only notices this but calls it out. Children say things exactly as they are whether adults like it or not. My mom fusses around in the kitchen, sits for less than five minutes to eat, and then gets up and fusses around Kaia and the kitchen some more.

After some playground time and wandering along Clement Street this afternoon, we came back home. I had a shower after dinner, and it was, by far, the worst shower I can remember ever having. The water barely drips out of the low-flow shower head that my dad has installed; it’s no wonder Kaia hated her shower so much earlier in the evening. It was so atrocious that I ended up “showering” under the bathtub faucet. If that sounds awkward, it was, but it was necessary. Otherwise, I would have had a light drip down on me all night to get clean.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even go to the trouble of dealing with all this. I don’t really enjoy it. I hate the shower, the clutter, the broken things that will never get repaired, the garbage, the mouse traps everywhere. I even said this out loud to Chris this afternoon while Kaia was playing in the sandbox at my childhood playground. But the “why” is always a complicated, not-straightforward answer.

Kaia expects visitors at dinner now

Last week, Kaia got to be in the company of Chris’s cousin, her husband, and their baby for three days at dinner time. This week, she had Chris’s friend unexpectedly visit and have dinner with us on Tuesday. Then yesterday, our friend came over to see and play with her before she and I went out to dinner together. So, she’s been quite used to having company over. And Kaia being Kaia, she loves being around people and being social in her very toddler-esque ways. So when we came home today, she asked if “friends” would come over. I told her that tonight, we’d have no one coming over, that it would just be the three of us before we got ready for bed and got on a plane to go to San Francisco tomorrow. She gave me a very glum face and said, “I want friends to come,” and then demanded that my friend’s husband come visit (the friend who came yesterday).

I love watching Kaia interact with our friends and family. I love seeing her build bonds and attachments to them. And I also love seeing how she connects partners to partners and siblings to each other. This is my sweet Kaia Pookie making sense of the socially connected world we live in.

When is “regular” dinner time?

When I think of dinner time, I generally think of the hours between 5-7:30pm. Growing up, dinner time was always around 6:30pm, as my parents usually got home between 5:30-6pm to start preparing dinner for us. In college, I usually ate dinner between 6-7pm. And once I started living on my own, whenever I’d make dinner plans with friends, we’d typically meet between 6-7pm. This became earlier once Chris and I got together (he has stated multiple times that his preferred eating time would be… 4:30pm!), and then now with Kaia with us, we usually eat between 5:30-6pm.

All the above dinner windows assume that you wake up at a reasonable hour in the morning, so between 5-8:30am. If you are waking up later than that, it’s likely that a 5-6:30pm dinner will be far too early for you. So when I started hanging out with my very nocturnal friend who typically wakes up around 11am-12pm and works into the wee hours of the night, I realized that the way I define “dinner” time is not at all what she considers an actual dinner time. She typically has dinner between 9-11pm. And so when I had previously suggested a 6pm dinner, she said that was “like lunch” for her. Granted, we had never met for “dinner” before tonight, so when we went out for a 7:15pm dinner this evening, she did consider it not lunch, but yes, an “early dinner” for her.

It would be nearly impossible for me to operate on her dinner schedule, though, with a typical 9-5 job as well as a young child at home. And well, I also like to give my body time to digest food before I sleep. So given this, I am happy that we typically meet for her breakfast/my lunch or coffee/tea in the mid afternoon. This seems to be the most winning combination for both of us.

Indo-Java Groceries store lunch on a random summer Tuesday

Ever since we visited Indo-Java Groceries in Elmhurst earlier this year, which is just a short walk away from my former apartment in the neighborhood, I’ve been thinking about how I could come back on a Tuesday to have an authentic Indonesian lunch prepared by a very famous, local Indonesian auntie. The Tuesday auntie is the most famous for having home-style, regional Indonesian cooking readily available to locals in the ‘hood for the last 10-plus years. When I told my friend about this, she got really excited, as she used to live in Amsterdam for many years. In Amsterdam, given the history of Dutch colonization of Indonesia, she had easy access to Indonesian food everywhere. But she had forgotten about the mega Indonesian population right in her backyard of Elmhurst! So we decided that this summer, we’d go on a Tuesday and have lunch in the middle of workday… in the back of a tiny Indonesian grocery store.

The yellow folding table was teeny tiny, but enough for two plates and utensils to comfortably sit on top. We sat on blue and red plastic stools. My friend and I shared fish balado, beef rendang, curry egg and tofu, mixed kale, spicy green chili, spicy potatoes in chili sauce, and freshly fried shrimp crackers. The spice was not burn-your-mouth-hot like in Jakarta as I remember, but it was definitely enough to wake you up if you were sleepy! We chatted about work, travel, and our kids as we dug into our little Indonesian feast. This was such a New York city experience, an “if you know, you know” type situation. As we ate, we saw many other people coming in for their to-go lunch orders, as well as a few others who wanted to sit outside and eat. The grocery store owner graciously pulled out additional folding tables and chairs to allow the other diners to sit outside and eat, overlooking the traffic of Queens Boulevard at Grand Avenue. This was truly an authentic New York City experience right in my old neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens. I loved every second of it, and not just the eating and friends catch-up time. I also enjoyed watching all the in-the-know people coming and going, picking up their pre-ordered food, enjoying homemade Indonesian auntie cooking. This was a real locals experience.

As my friend and I wrapped up our delicious lunch and I had to run to the nearest cafe to take a work call, all I could think of was: I just LOVE New York City. I am thrilled that spaces like this exist, and I love that I have such easy access to it. And I also love that I have friends who can appreciate these types of experiences with,.

Building our family home with blocks

About two years ago during Prime Day, I saw that the Lovery wooden block set was on mega-sale on Amazon, so I decided that I’d buy it for Kaia. Two years ago, she was a bit young to use blocks, so I knew this was a “gift in advance” I’d get her so that when she was ready, the block set would be available immediately to her. In the last few weeks, the blocks have been a primary form of toy entertainment for her, as she’s been very into building us a house to live in. She’s built houses on her own. She wants me to help her build the same house, or build a house alongside the one she’s building. And when she’s done, she likes to tell us where each of our bedrooms is and where we will sleep. According to Kaia, “mumma, daddy, Kaia, Suma, and Topa will all live in this house!” We’re all going to live together!

I think we all know that this living situation she has outlined will never actually manifest itself in real life. But I find it really endearing to see her thinking of all of us when she builds these houses, as she wants all of us to have a comfortable, safe place to live… together.

Sunday pool and hot tub time with the Kaia Pookie

On Sundays when we’ve been in town and haven’t had Sunday plans, I will usually do yoga and cook in the morning while Chris takes Kaia to the playground. Then in the afternoon if she wants, I will either take her to ride her scooter at Lincoln Center, or more often than not, I’ll take her upstairs to our rooftop pool for some puddle jumper time. While she usually has Sunday swim classes, this summer, a wrench kind of got thrown into that schedule, as the pool where her swim classes are is closed for construction/maintenance. So while occasionally she has had double pool time at her lesson, which as we all know, is more “work” and learning, her afternoon time with me is all fun and play. Here, she gets to wear her puddle jumper, which is essentially a toddler “floatie” that has loops for her arms to go through and clips on the back. With this, she can be in the pool without anyone holding her, and she’s pretty self sufficient. We usually have her jump into the pool over and over. She also loves to be twirled and bounced in the water. And of course like all kids, she loves to splash and get water everywhere.

After about forty minutes in the pool, it looked like we were going to have a crowd. We already had two male friends in the pool just chatting and hanging out in one corner. A woman came complete with flippers for both her feet and hands, so she was clearly planning to swim some serious laps. Two other men came looking like they wanted to do laps, but the pool was getting too crowded. Eventually the two chatty guys left, and it was just the female swimmer plus Pookster and me. So after about another ten more minutes, I told Pookster that we had to get out of the pool and would go somewhere else fun.

Pookster wasn’t sure where I’d take her, and she was definitely suspicious, whining and saying she didn’t want to leave. But when I led her to the hot tub and turned on the bubbles, she got really excited. We stepped into the warmth together, and immediately I could see she was happy. She loved the warmth, the bubbles, and all the strong jets shooting water at her from different angles. Kaia giggled and shrieked with delight. And then out of nowhere, she declared, “Ooooh, this is so fun! I want to stay here forever!” She insisted on alternating between sitting in my lap and sitting on her own and trying to “catch” the water from the jets.

These are those moments when I see her experience something new, fun, and exciting that I just want to bottle up. The joy and excitement on her face was so palpable, so innocent and pure and untainted. I just love watching her experience her childhood — it’s almost like I am reliving mine — or rather, living the experiences I never even got to have.

Mosaics across the NYC subway stations – Avenue U at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn

It’s a bit hard to appreciate when you are in the daily grind of commuting to and from work on a tight schedule, but one of the things I love the most about the New York City subway, other than the fact that it runs 24/7 and allows me the privilege of not needing to drive or own a car here, is the gorgeous artwork across many of its stations. To be honest, I’ve really only taken more time to appreciate it once the pandemic hit, and ever since I started working remotely and never went back into an office. I remember thinking about it a bit during one of Chris’s parents’ visits pre-pandemic, when he set them up with a NYC walking tour that had them look at subway art across many stations. Since then, when we transit through stations I go to rarely, I take more time to look at the artwork inside. The subway stations in Manhattan that I’ve always enjoyed include the random brass-colored figurines placed in conspicuous (and semi-hidden!) spots at the 14th Street A/C/E subway station, the hat mosaics at 23rd Street N/R/W, the mosaic portholes of different New York City-specific scenes at 8th Street / NYU / N/R/W, the vibrant blue glass mosaic called “Queens of the Night” at the First Avenue subway station, and the many scenes of Harlem history, music, and people across the many uptown subway stops from 125th Street up to 145th Streets.

Today, we spent the day in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and the subway station from which we exited was Avenue U. As soon as we got out, I noticed the beautiful mosaic flowers that led up to the subway exit. There are multiple pink, red and yellow flowers all made up of glass mosaic pieces, and they are constructed in such a way that they actually look realistic. The flowers appear to be almost climbing up the wall of the subway station. The collection of flower mosaics is called Brooklyn Seeds. After further investigation, it looks like it even won awards for public art back in 2012. You could have fooled me quite easily that it was already 13 years old, as to me, the mosaics were in such pristine condition that I would have thought they were newly put up! This is the free public art across New York City that most people never take the time to appreciate or even notice, but I think it’s a great way to brighten up the stations and make it seem like a fun place to go through.

Family estrangement and how much more common it is than we think

An article I read years ago stated that in the U.S., family estrangement is actually more common than we think. It affects approximately 27 percent of adults in the U.S. It could mean you no longer have contact with a sibling, parent, uncle, aunt — anyone who is considered “family.” Since my wedding in March 2016 and after I sent a thank-you email to my dad’s younger sister for coming, I haven’t heard from her at all, nor do I have any desire to reach out to her. My aunt tried to bring her fuck-buddy to my wedding, and I blocked it. So she tried to “get back” at me by showing up to my wedding not only late, but also in jeans. It was clear what she was doing and what kind of message she was trying to send to me and my parents. She wasn’t deserving of an actual thank-you card, so I emailed her a brief thank-you note and decided that would be the end of our connection. I knew she wouldn’t respond, and she’s too stupid and proud to reach out herself. She’s already estranged from her only child, his wife, and their two children, so she was just furthering the family estrangement for herself. She has zero contact with either of her two living siblings, and pretty much all of her blood relatives.

While I was at lunch today with a friend, I found out that she is completely estranged from her biological father. She hasn’t had any contact with him since she was about five years old; the person she refers to as “dad” now is actually her mom’s second husband, who legally adopted her after they got married. She said she doesn’t think much of it since it was so long ago, and her dad now is essentially the only dad she’s ever known, and that’s all that mattered. What it made me realize is that the stat from that article is so true: far more of us have family estrangement than we’d believe to be true. I have a friend who was basically abandoned by both her biological parents as a baby and then again by her dad when she was a teen. Another friend of mine only sees her mom about twice a year even though they live within short driving distance of each other because “she really fucked me up when I was a kid,” my friend said. Her mom was physically and verbally abusive towards her and her brother, and they still have whiplash from this from violent dreams they wake up from to this day.

“Family” is being redefined by boundaries that we are all setting to protect our mental and physical health. It is definitely a step towards aiding in our own well-being.

Kaia Pookie’s caring side

When I picked Kaia up at school today, she immediately asked if “my cousin Harriet” would be at home waiting for her when we got back. I said yes, we’d all be eating dinner together. And then she said she wanted to run into the bakery next door to her school so that we could pick up something for Harriet to eat. Granted, Harriet is only four months old, so she would not be eating any solids yet, but I decided to humor Kaia and pick up a few baozi (including one pork floss bao for her) for Harriet’s parents’ breakfast the next (and their last) morning with us. And I guess indirectly, Harriet would be eating the bao since if her mom eats it, she would get it through the breast milk she is being fed. But we didn’t have to explain that to Kaia just yet!

I love seeing how caring and affectionate Kaia is with others. She’s always thinking about others, and she wants them to eat and be happy. Even though Chris used to joke and say that hypothetically, Kaia would be a very jealous older sibling, I always think quite the opposite: she has shown love, care, affection, and empathy from a very young age. I can imagine her doting on and being a very helpful older sibling if she ever had a younger sibling in her life. I love seeing this side of her come out when she’s in the presence of children younger than her; that’s my sweet baby growing up.

Cousins in town from New Zealand and Pookster’s love and affection for the baby

This week, Chris’s cousin, her husband, and their four-month-old baby are visiting from New Zealand. They are stopping here for a few days and staying with us before heading off to Paris for a quick stop, then taking a train down to Spain for a long walking journey along the Camino de Santiago.

It’s always fun to have family and friends stay over with us, but in this case, there was the added dynamic of having a baby stay with us, plus Pookster’s dynamic with the baby and the baby’s parents. Kaia has always had FOMO even from an early age, so bedtimes have been a been rougher this week with company staying over. But it’s been really sweet to see her interact with baby Harriet. Every day when I’d pick her up from school, she’d ask if baby Harriet would be at home waiting for her. She’d ask if baby Harriet was okay, if she was eating, and if she would go out and play. She’s even asked to bring food home for baby Harriet to eat. I love seeing this caring, affectionate side of my Kaia Pookie.

Having a baby in the house again has also made me reminisce about the early days of Kaia baby. Luckily, Chris’s cousin is able to nurse her baby…. maybe even a bit too well given the baby refuses a bottle. But it made me think about how much I struggled with breastfeeding, how nursing unfortunately was not the way I was able to fully feed Kaia, even though I very much wanted that to be our life, and how I ended up resorting to exclusive pumping, which was likely the very least convenient and most difficult way to feed.

Nothing ever goes out exactly as you envision it or plan. With Chris’s cousin, she ended up having to get an epidural and then an emergency c-section, neither of which she wanted, but all because in the last moments she developed preeclampsia, and the baby got stuck in her canal. And while she did struggle with breastfeeding in the beginning, she had constant in-person lactation support every single day for weeks (god bless New Zealand’s healthcare system), which eventually got Harriet to feed well despite being on the small side. This locked in her milk supply, and thus their breastfeeding journey. So while she didn’t have the birth she ideally wanted, she did have the feeding journey she so desired. I had the birth I wanted, but I didn’t have the feeding journey for Kaia I hoped for. If only things could go exactly as we all wished!

I love hearing other mother’s birth and feeding stories, though. Today, modern mothers are all about sharing and reducing stigma around the stories of giving birth and feeding our babies, and it helps so much to have that perspective and that story telling continue… because, well, these are ultimately the stories of the beginning of our children’s lives, and the beginning of our lives as mothers.