Category Archives: Child rearing

A very exhausting and annoying play date

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I had scheduled a lunch and play date today with a building neighbor and her son. She asked me the night before if it would be okay if her other mom friend and daughter could also come. They had originally had a play date scheduled the previous Sunday but had to cancel because my neighbor was sick. I figured it would be fine… I’d likely just need to find a slightly roomier restaurant to accommodate three adults, three toddlers, and three strollers.

The first issue came up before we even got on the train to go down to Dumbo, Brooklyn. One of the moms said she couldn’t fold her stroller because it was too big, so she asked if we could use the elevator. I hate using the elevator and usually carry the stroller down while holding Kaia’s hand, so I told them I’d wait on the main level for them. After scanning into the subway, she wanted to take another elevator down to the downtown platform. I waited for them on the platform level… but they took over 20 minutes to arrive because that elevator was out of service, and they had to find another elevator further away to come down to us. My neighbor lightly suggested that we all stick together to prevent getting separated, but all I could think was… I would really love it if people could just be nimble and go with the flow, especially with the person who actually organized this outing. On the flip side, maybe I was actually being the rigid one because I didn’t want to use the elevator? Either way, this was not fun, and we missed three trains and ended up getting to the restaurant 15 minutes later than I’d wanted and had the reservation for.

Once we got to the restaurant, one kid had a face-down-flat meltdown. Then, one of the moms said she was avoiding carbs, and said the words of cardinal sin to Chris: “I don’t really eat fried rice (or noodles).” She asked me what was low-carb on the menu, so I tried to point out more protein/meat options for her. We went back and forth on whether we’d all share, which was stressful because no one could seem to come to a consensus. Finally, we did, and we ended up all sharing. The side order of stir-fried gai lan came to the table, and Kaia immediately said she wanted them. One of the moms said that would be an adult dish because “the kids won’t touch that,” and I had to chime in and say something. “No, my kid will definitely eat that. That’s her favorite vegetable!”

Kaia had a tantrum when I insisted she had to sit near me (and well, not with her best friend). She eventually had the biggest lunch out ever. I think she even encouraged one of the other kids to branch out and eat foods that weren’t just white and beige.

The first Space Club we tried to go to, which was brand new in Dumbo, had a 25-30 minute wait. So we took a quick Uber ride to the Fort Greene location where we finally got to let loose a little and not be so hyper focused on the kids. Kaia and I made some necklaces, and she seemed quite focused. We all enjoyed the large trampolines, which were unique to the Fort Greene location.

We mapped the closest subway, which was a 17-minute walk away. Neither seemed keen on that walk, so we ended up splitting a Lyft home. I wasn’t thrilled to tack on another $20 to my all-day play date, but I guess that’s the cost of being around people you don’t know well and are hesitant to take public transit. When I got home, all I could think was, I’m so glad to be back and not with two other moms and two other kids. My neighbor friend said to me as we entered our building with a smile, “So, feeling exhausted — just a little?”

Yeah, no kidding.

The more is not always the merrier, especially when you are leaving your neighborhood and relying on things like public transportation and everyone’s comfort level taking public transit.

My introspective, empathetic preschooler

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A few months ago, a friend gifted Kaia a book called How We Eat: Celebrating Food and Feeding Tools. The book celebrates all the ways we eat, from birth to adulthood, with vivid vibrant photos of real people, real babies, real families and friends interacting and eating. It covers eating with bottles, directly from the breast, using a breast milk pump, supplemental nursing systems, G-tubes, NG tubes, and more. There aren’t a lot of words in the book, but there are some nice descriptions of what’s happening and how people are eating for each set of photos. And right now, it is definitely one of Kaia’s favorite books. Sometimes when I am cooking or doing chores, I see her sitting by her bookshelf, flipping the pages of this book and “reading” it to herself by describing what’s happening in each photo.

Last night, I was reading to Kaia before bed. She chose this as one of her three bedtime story books. As we went through the book, she asked me to stop and turn back to the previous page. She pointed at a picture of a little kid with no forearm, with a metal tool that was attached to his upper arm helping him feed.

“Where is his arm, Mama?” she asked me.

I explained to her that not everyone is born with all their limbs, so some babies are born without hands or arms or legs, and this is one of those kids. But luckily, we have tools like the metal attachment on the kid’s upper arm that can help them self-feed.

She looked pensive, touching the boy’s upper arm in the picture, then touching her own arm.

“He doesn’t have an arm?” she asked me with sad eyes. “What does that feel like? Does it hurt him?”

I told her that the child likely doesn’t know what it’s like to have a forearm on that side, and that like her, they likely don’t know anything different.

Kaia kept touching the kid’s arm in the photo and rubbing it.

“Can I help him eat?” she asked me, curiously. “I want to help him eat!”

I could feel tears coming on as she said this. It was like she felt this kid’s loss of an arm, and she immediately wanted to dive in and help however way she could. But she just didn’t know how. She expressed fear for this child’s pain, and deep sadness for the fact that this child didn’t have two full arms and hands to eat and play with. My baby isn’t four years old yet, but she has exhibited deep, mature empathy and care for others that I never even knew was possible at this age. I know for sure that when I was her age, I would never have asked questions like this at all if I saw a kid like the one in this picture.

I always hoped for Kaia to be many things. High on the list was that I hoped she possessed empathy and care for others. It appears that she doesn’t seem to have any struggle in this area. I’m so thankful for my sweet baby growing into a real, caring, loving, empathetic human.

A day off with snow flurries, freezing temperatures, lots of cooking, and scooting

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Since I started at my current company, I’ve had Veteran’s day off the last six years. No other company I’ve ever worked at gave me Veteran’s Day off. I suppose it’s one way to be “inclusive,” but what that ultimately means is that other days off I would hope to get don’t happen, such as New Year’s Eve. That is not a federal holiday, but every company before this current one gave that day off. These days, I have to request that day off officially. Now that Kaia is in preschool, she also gets that day off, so she was at home with us today. She woke up in our bed after creeping over to us a few hours before wake-up time and got excited to see tiny snowflakes falling from the sky.

“What is that falling from the sky, Mama?” Kaia asked, pointing out the window.

“It’s snow, Pookie!” I exclaimed. “Tiny little snowflakes falling down!”

Today, I made a bunch of things to feed the family: browned butter buttermilk oatmeal pancakes using toasted and ground steel-cut oats, my remaining buttermilk, and a bit of browned butter for extra toastiness. Both Chris and Kaia enjoyed these pancakes; they are likely the tastiest (but alas, most laborious) oatmeal pancakes I’ve ever made. So these will definitely be on rotation. I am very much in the “clean out the pantry and fridge” mode right now, so that ticked off using up my remaining buttermilk and most of my small amount of remaining steel-cut oats. That was followed by Eleven Madison Park style granola (which Kaia diligently picked out all the dried sour cherries from her portion…), Thai green curry with chicken and tofu using homemade stock from the bone bag in my freezer, leftover cut-up firm tofu, and pre-frozen cubes of green curry that I doctored up; plus, Thai-style papaya salad with the green papaya I got for super cheap at Apna Bazaar in Connecticut weeks ago! I even made the dough for my once/twice-a-year challah and left it to proof in the fridge overnight. I am planning for us to eat one loaf now, and then I’ll freeze the second loaf to await us in 2026 when we return from the Southern Hemisphere.

Kaia impatiently waited for me to finish shaving the papaya so that I could take her to Lincoln Center plaza for some scooting around. She is definitely mastering her scooter (minus some awkward turns), and she is gaining confidence using it. She loves riding it around and around the plaza reflecting pool, and then she likes to take breaks to pick up fallen autumn leaves and pebbles, pretending to “make pesto for mama.” She says she loves pesto pasta and wants to share it with me. This is her new thing whenever we’re in the Lincoln Center plaza together, with her intermittently scooting and then taking breaks to stir the special pesto pasta she makes for me in her imaginary kitchen.

We have about 2.5 weeks remaining in New York City this year. There is a lot left to do, lots of ingredients to use up, and plans still to be made. Every year seems to fly by quicker than the last, but I guess that’s how you know you are definitely getting older. I’m almost ending my 40th year, as Chris would say, yet I don’t feel close to slowing down even a bit just yet!

Cottage cheese as the new high protein food trend that I am not that into

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Before this year, the only time I ever really embraced cottage cheese was for German style cheesecake. Growing up, I remember my dad would make it once a year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I’d always sit there and watch or help him make it. Real German style cheesecake is made with quark cheese, but given that quark was not readily available in the U.S. then (and barely is now), the closest substitute easily available here is cottage cheese. It takes ages to break up the cottage cheese curds, and you need a high powered mixer to do it, but I always loved it when we got to the final step and got the cake batter silky smooth.

Cottage cheese suddenly rose in popularity this year because of everyone’s obsession with increasing their protein intake (and yes, I admittedly fall into this camp as of late). It’s considered the latest “hack” to increase protein in one’s diet, and it’s been showing up in endless different recipes. I’ve even seen it in some dosa and uttapam recipes! I finally decided I would try it out again, and I’d try using it in things like smoothies and pancakes. I figured that since Kaia likes pancakes, she wouldn’t mind it if I added cottage cheese to her pancakes.

Well, I was wrong. The cottage cheese made the pancakes more spongy, and she did not seem to appreciate this. She’d squish them in between her fingers and declare that she did not want to eat them, that she wanted ME to eat them. I’d have to cajole her to eat at least two before getting something else that she’d prefer. I tried three different recipe variations, some including pumpkin puree (because I like to add pumpkin to as many recipes as possible in the fall). Though I was able to mostly eliminate the sponginess she did not like, I found this to be far too much effort to continue attempting to use it. If trying to incorporate “healthy” or high protein ingredients into our diet ends up becoming more “work” than joy, then I don’t want to keep doing it. I have enough mental load, and this is not something I want to continue.

I finished the tiny bit of remaining cottage cheese in the fridge and mixed it into some just-cut pineapple. And even that felt like an effort for me. So, I’m declaring it now: No more cottage cheese in this house — unless I decide to make German style cheesecake.

Overnight potty training, part II

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Luckily after sleeping almost 11 hours, I woke up this morning and actually felt much, much better. Though I didn’t have any real body aches, I did have an on-and-off headache yesterday, so I was happy to feel that it was all gone, and my phlegm and cough had subsided quite greatly.

In the last number of days, I checked my Oh Crap! potty training book, and I realized that given Kaia has been staying dry each night for about over a month now, we’re now ready to move to stage 2 of overnight training, which is instead of waking up at two different intervals at night, we will consolidate to one wakeup. We used to wake up at around 11:30 and then 2:30. Now, we will wake up just once, at around 12:30, and then just pray that she holds it until she wakes up to pee. This also means that both of us no longer need to wake up each night, that we’ll now alternate nights.

“It’s like we’re back to the night nanny days, on nights and off nights!” Chris declared, laughing.

We have now had four nights of waking Kaia up at 12:30 to dream pee, and so far, so good. She has a bigger pee at that time, and then when she wakes up between 6:30-7, she has a wake-up time pee. Now, all we have to do is get her to wake up on her own to pee. How are we supposed to do that?

Another year, another sickness

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The most amazing things about years 2020 and 2021 are that I never got sick, even a single time. In 2020, I was isolated from pretty much the entire world, so who was going to get me sick? In 2021, we were technically still in COVID times, but I was still fairly isolated. Then I got pregnant and had Kaia. And I was still in the clear. Then 2022 came and the world was open and free again. Chris went to Chicago for a big work conference, came back and gave baby Kaia and me COVID. My milk supply (temporarily, thank God) plummeted for those days, and I still remember every pumping session was painful and so sweaty that I had to change my top and air out my pumping bras each time. After he got back, he learned that over a dozen of his colleagues went home with COVID. He never tested positive, so he annoyingly claims, to this day, that since he never tested himself, he never had it.

In early 2023, Kaia caught Hand Food Mouth from a friend in the play room, and then gave ME my first case of HFM. I had it worse than she did. In the spring of that year, she got sick, and I got really sick, too, AGAIN: I was sick on and off for at least a month. I was so miserable, with my violent coughing fits. I went to see a primary care physician, a respiratory specialist, and even a gastroenterologist just in case. I took lung capacity tests and even a scan of my lungs for anything potentially more serious (all came back negative for problems). No one could give me any answers for why I was having these coughing fits. I still don’t know why I get them now.

Then memorably in November 2024, so about a year ago, I got a peritonsillar abscess as a result of getting hit by two rare strains of first the flu, and THEN strep throat. Because both hit me at the same time, an abscess developed on my left tonsil about three times the size of a quarter. Ever since that happened, I told myself I seriously needed to isolate myself and stay the hell away from anyone remotely sick. Although I am not sick anywhere as often as my colleagues who have young children, when I do get sick, I get REALLY sick, and I hate being nonfunctional. Inefficiency is one of the things that pisses me off the most.

About two weeks ago, I could feel a sore throat coming on. I did all the things I was recommended: daily salt gargle, daily evening nasal saline rinse, all the ginger-lemon tea. I even added a few TCM teas into the mix, like apple-fig-apricot kernel and ginger-aged tangerine peel-honey. While I clearly had a cold because I had some congestion and a cough, I was fully functional for the last week and a half. I did everything I’d originally planned to do and worked every day. I just skipped a few mornings at the gym. It felt like a standard, mild cold. I could deal with that. Then, we had two friends over for lunch on Sunday. I thought I’d wake up Monday morning being 100 percent. No, I did not: I woke up with a scratchier throat, a sharper cough, and more phlegm than I’d had the previous week. I had no idea what was going on. Today, I basically moved any meeting where I had to speak a lot, or joined meetings camera-off when I could, because my cough and phlegm were so bad. Chris got me some soup, and I increased my hot liquid intake and took a long, steamy shower.

I keep maniacally checking my uvula to ensure it hasn’t deviated. It has not, fingers crossed. I also keep checking to see if I have any weird spots in my throat. I just want to be a regular person who gets a minor cold and then it goes away. Why is that so much to ask? In my twenties, I almost never took real “sick leave” because my colds were so minor that I’d just sleep them off. Now into my late thirties, it’s as though my body says, nah, you can’t have it easy anymore! Now, you have to suffer because you’re getting older and you have a child, muah hahaha!

Kaia tried to wake me up earlier than I wanted this morning, and I told her to be nice to mama because she’s not feeling well. She pat me on the head and said, “Mama, why are you sick?”

“That’s a good question, Pookie,” I said back to her. “Why am I sick? Is it because of you?!”

A family heirloom passed down to Kaia from a loving, non-blood-related auntie

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A friend and I caught up over coffee last week, and she was telling me about the chaos of moving into her new house. She has endless documents and boxes to sort through, and it’s been a very overwhelming process since they lived in their last place for over 14 years. She mentioned she stumbled upon a few of her wedding items, including a pair of gold and jade earrings she wore for the ceremony that was passed down from her paternal grandma. The earrings were a family heirloom likely passed down to my friend’s grandma, but she said she had no sentimental attachment to them or even her grandma at all. My friend was abandoned by her parents when she was born. Her mom fled and was never to be heard from again after the birth. Her dad made brief appearances in her life, with an outreach in her teen years saying he was ready to be her dad. But that ultimately failed, and she was sent into the foster care system. Out of helplessness and feeling sorry for my friend, her dad’s mother took her under her wing and raised her, but with a deep sense of resentment that was always loud and clear to my friend. When her grandma eventually died about five years ago, my friend said she felt almost nothing because of how bitter her grandma was for having needed to raise her. So, my friend said that given she doesn’t have kids and will not have any, she wants to give the earrings to Kaia.

I was so touched. I didn’t even really know what to say. I was just so shocked at the generosity and kindness that my friend was extending to Kaia — and me. She insisted it was just an object she had that she didn’t know what to do with, would never wear or need again, and she had no family of her own to give it to, and because she loved Kaia, she wanted to give these to Kaia.

“It’s just sitting there!” my friend insisted. “I want her to have them.”

I get what she is saying, but it still felt like a very generous, loving gesture, one that is usually only suited to blood-related family members. To date, this is the most generous gesture that anyone’s given my Kaia Pookie. I’ve only known this friend for just over four years, but I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her. And I do feel we have a kinship that is far below surface. I am always deeply grateful for the kindnesses and generosities that others extend to my sweet baby.

“Couples” date in Elmhurst today

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Today, the three of us met up with my friend and her husband for lunch at an Indonesian restaurant we like in Elmhurst, Queens. The funny thing is we originally met them at a food event in a Brooklyn backyard just over a year ago, so this wasn’t actually our first time meeting her husband. I’ve met up with this friend over the course of the last year one on one, but we’d never arranged for the guys to come until this time. Kaia was intrigued by the “new friends” at the table. My friend’s husband knew way more about Bluey and Peppa Pig’s family than we would have ever guessed. And we talked a lot about family and cultural dynamics, travel, and college experiences.

The “couples mingling” thing is always funny because two friends can get along amazingly well when it’s just the two of them, but their spouses may not get along when in that group setting. Or, one of the friends may detest the other friend’s spouse, or whatever other combination you can think of. Given this was the first time we were all hanging out together, the conversation was fairly neutral and tempered, and nothing really edgy came up. But I was thinking about “couples friends” and how hard, in reality, they are to make, given the above potential situations. In most of my friendships, I far prefer just hanging out with my friends vs. hanging out with them and their spouses. I like being with them all occasionally, and I do enjoy seeing potential group dynamics and how they can unfold. But I almost always would prefer their spouse not be there. There are very few people I can name where I can say I equally enjoy time altogether as much as time spent with just my friend.

So, we’ll see if we all hang out again. I hope we do, but if it doesn’t happen that often or again, it won’t necessarily be the end of the world. The good news, though, is that both like kids, and they definitely enjoyed spending time with Kaia Pookie. I could tell Kaia was warming up to them, too. When we took a bathroom break, as we washed our hands, she asked me if my friend would still be at the table when we came back. When she asks questions about my friends, this is how I know she likes them.

Halloween with a sweet little ice cream vendor, and Kaia’s first real packaged Halloween candy

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This year, we dressed Kaia up as an ice cream vendor for Halloween. It was Chris’s idea, and Kaia was obsessed with it. The costume came with a hat, shirt with a big red bow, and white pants, but the part that really reveals her costume is a large white cloth tray that houses six detachable ice cream cones in six different colors. It has straps that you velcro onto your child. So it’s a bit bulky and annoying to carry around. Kaia did embrace carrying it around in the beginning, smiling and giggling endlessly while saying “Who wants ice cream?” and then naming her (constantly changing) flavors by color.

This year’s Halloween was quite cool and windy, so she had to wear a jacket over her costume to keep warm, as did all her classmates during their annual Halloween parade that the parents come for. Once we got to the playground and took group photos, she immediately wanted to rip off her ice cream tray and ice creams and run around freely. So of course, she handed all that over to me (which her teacher eventually took).

In the evening while Chris passed out candy to our building trick-or-treaters, I took Kaia trick-or-treating in our building for the second time ever. Last year when it was her first time, she did not completely get what was going on, but went with it. This year, she understands that when she rings doorbells and the doors are opened, if she says “trick or treat!”, then she gets candy! She got really sad, though, when some participating neighbors didn’t want us to ring their bell and instead set up “self serve” candy stations, either with large bowls, buckets, or bags full of treats. I’m still very impressed by some neighbors’ selections of treats they are dishing out, some of which I can remember from last year. This year’s treats handed out ranged from authentic packaged stroopwafels, Walker’s shortbread, granola bites, to “healthy” lower sugar options. When we went to all the units to trick or treat, we relented and finally let Kaia eat some of her Halloween candy (last year, we confiscated all of it). Chris let her choose two, and she settled on one tiny box of Nerds, and one Twix (mama’s favorite Halloween candy from childhood!). She savored both of them and ate them slowly. In the end, she declared she liked the Nerds more.

People ask us if we let Kaia “indulge” on Halloween. Well, that’s as far as “indulgence” is going to go for our almost-four-year-old! And she seemed quite happy with her overall Halloween experience and her candy eating allowance today!

Elementary school applications, tiger parenting, and the desire to “have a happy child”

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Years ago, when the “tiger mom” book was making lots of media headlines, I thought that I might be a Tiger Mom Lite. I’d push my child to be the best that they could be within the bounds of what they actually enjoyed. I’d demand obedience (to a limit) and self-discipline. I’d expect them to do house chores, homework, and extracurriculars. And hopefully all that would culminate in their developing into a good citizen of society and the world — growing into an adult who would be intelligent, curious, empathetic, disciplined, globally minded, and passionate.

Fast forward years later, after a year of futilely trying to conceive, IUI, IVF, and finally the birth of Kaia Pookie, and I think I’ve softened quite a bit. I’m no where as strict as I thought I would be as a parent. I’m a lot more gentle than I ever imagined. And all I can think about is how not to continue intergenerational, “inherited” trauma in her. In my mind, I just want her to be safe, healthy, and happy.

I think about this during the recent weeks’ worth of elementary school tours, open houses, and parent outreaches and conversations. And all these parents seem to say the same thing: we want our kids to be happy and thrive in their environments. But then the big question when choosing a school is: which environment is best for my child to optimize their happiness and learning?

I recently finished reading this culinary memoir called How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert. Bonny’s father survived near-starvation during the Holocaust in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and this legacy of hunger impacts the family’s relationship to food. The book, though repetitive and slightly irrelevant tangents at times, shows how trauma can continue across generations even when the older generations who directly experienced trauma try so hard to shield it from their offspring. In Bonny’s case, her father steered as clear as possible from sharing vivid details of his struggle and survival during the Holocaust, insisting that she and her sisters not worry or think about it. He constantly says over and over to the girls that there’s no need to know about all that in the past. “Just be happy. I want you to be happy.” But the anxiety from not knowing the details but being aware of their father’s Holocaust experience constantly echoes in their lives and causes Bonny an internal instability that she cannot shake. We spend most of the book navigating this journey, which leads her… right back to Poland.

I suppose the reason I thought about this book during this elementary school application process is that it’s not really enough, at the end of the day, to focus on our child’s happiness, as made evident in Bonny’s case with her dad. What does “happiness” mean to kids at each stage of development, anyway? At times, it can seem like an empty, meaningless word. Something actually needs to drive them internally for them to move forward. And all we can do, as their parents, is to be the one to help them navigate through all their options and choose what we think is best for them as individuals.

That feels very difficult (and vexing) right now.