I invited a friend over for dinner tonight. She’s about to start a new job, so her schedule will soon no longer be as flexible as it once was to hang out with me. Plus, she wanted to try some of my fancy Chinese vinegars I got from Mala Market before forking the money over to buy some for herself, so I thought it would be a good time to have her over. I made Malaysian chicken satays with peanut sauce and sliced cucumbers, coconut rice, a Vietnamese cabbage salad, steamed beets, and roasted Georgian eggplant rolls with walnut paste (with my khmeli suneli!). It was a pretty tasty pan-Asian meal that everyone enjoyed.

Even though my friend is child-free and has pretty much decided she doesn’t want kids, she actually really enjoys spending time with littles. Not too long ago, she actually taught muay thai to young kids (mostly elementary school through high school) age, so she says she really enjoys the energy and honesty they bring. She says she enjoys kids, but just doesn’t want any of her own — that’s fair enough and pretty easy to understand. My friend spent a good amount of time entertaining Kaia before our Lunar New Year party began a couple weeks ago, so Kaia still remembered this auntie, and was very excited that she was coming over for dinner. Kaia practiced some martial arts moves with our friend, and also made sure she got her cardio workout in by chasing her back and forth in the apartment. Kaia was so pooped by the time our friend left that she passed out within minutes. The next morning, she kept asking about this auntie — how she got home, where she went, etc.

I’m lucky that most of my child-free friends genuinely enjoy spending time with Kaia and humoring her demanding, occasionally princessy side. A lot of people around my age complain about the child-free friends they have, saying they don’t want to spend time with their kids and just don’t enjoy children at all. I get that. But it’s also nice when your friends accept that your child is part of your life, and sometimes, hanging out with you also means by default at times, they’ll also have to hang out with your kid. I love that Kaia is building these relationships with my friends in my life — she has no idea how lucky she is to have so many aunties and uncles, not blood related, who care about her so much.