I hope one day, when Kaia is in elementary school, middle school, high school, and an adult that I will not forget her cute toddler moments, soaking in all her surroundings and making sense of the world. Being able to watch her grow every day and develop in the most seemingly small ways has been beyond rewarding, more fun and exciting than I’d ever really thought about when I was trying to conceive and when I was pregnant. It is actually even more exhilarating now than theoretically, which is saying quite a lot. But it’s not even just witnessing and being a part of her growth and development that is so amazing; it is also being forced into a moment with her and ultimately enjoying and living in that moment that is so great. As adults, we always have so many things on our plates, things to worry and stress over, things to plan for in the next day, week, month, year, that we often forget to really enjoy and be in a single moment. But toddlers, given how developed their brains are, fully and completely live in the moment; they have no conception of tomorrow or any future. And for us to really enjoy this time with them, we, too, must live in the moment. Otherwise, this time will pass, and soon, they will be grown adults who don’t want to spend as much time with us or cuddle with us anymore.

One of the things I love most is being in the same room or the room next door to where Kaia is when she’s playing with her stuffed animals. I love listening to what she says to them and how she addresses them. Her mouse stuffed animal is named RaRa (she named the mouse after I asked her one day), and she wears a red sweater with a button. She was telling RaRa today that it was time to get ready for bed.

“Okay, time to go to sleep, RaRa mouse!” Kaia declared while climbing onto her bed and grabbing RaRa. “Xi zao (take a bath), shua ya (brush teeth), shu tou (comb hair), suck nose. Do you want to take off your sweater? I help you take off your sweater for bed.”

I looked over at her, and she glanced back at me and stopped talking, but she continued to try to remove RaRa’s red sweater. She then moved onto her kangaroo, which holds an Australian flag that you can remove. She patted the kangaroo gently on his head and back and said, “Kangaroo, are you all done with your flag? Can I have it?” Then, she proceeded to take the flag away from the kangaroo and play with the flag.

A few mornings this week, I’ve taken Kaia to school, which means I also get to see her teacher. She’s usually not there at pickup since she leaves at 4:30 given her schedule. So it’s an opportunity to ask how Kaia is doing and to hear anything interesting she wants to share. Her teacher told me that Kaia is constantly chatting with her and all the kids all day long: she is a true chatterbox. And she’s very helpful and supportive to the teachers as well as her classmates. When other kids are upset or having tantrums, Kaia goes to them and tells them, “It’s okay, (insert name). Don’t cry. Do you want to go over there and take a break?” Sometimes, she even offers them a hug or to hold their hand.

My baby is blossoming into this sweet, empathetic, caring human. I could not be prouder.

I had read about the magical SeaGlass Carousel downtown at Battery Park, how all the glittering animals were from the sea and how glorious the carousel looked just at dusk when all the colorful lights came on. It looked like this picture-perfect Instagram photo op for parents with young children. Given how early Kaia’s bedtime is, I figured we’d wait until she was a bit older to get on this carousel during the evening time. A closer carousel option for daytime would be the one at Central Park, and so today, we went with her school bestie and his parents there for one last playdate before their big move to a Jersey suburb.

Her classmate’s parent suggested we get at least 2-3 tickets each (one per rider, including the adult) because the kids would likely want more than a single ride. I watched Kaia as she observed the carousel go round and round, so I thought she’d enjoy it once we were on. But… how wrong I was. As soon as we got on with her friend and his parent, it was total hell: I tried to get her on a horse, but she screamed that she didn’t want to go on and screamed and cried endless tears for the entire duration of the first ride. Chris and her bestie’s mom were observing, and they wondered if the crying child was Kaia… and yes, they were right. Chris captured a bit of the screaming on video, just to “document” the first carousel ride experience, and I was completely worn out after just one ride of having Kaia scream in my ear and battle me to get off the moving carousel.

The second ride was a lot better: Chris came on board and judiciously chose to have Kaia sit on the chariot with the friend and parent. She happily got on and got off when the carousel stopped. Then, the third and final ride was with me again. She was happy for the entire ride, once again in the chariot, but when it was time to get off, she absolutely did NOT want to get off. And she screamed and yelled that she didn’t want to get off this time. I literally had to drag her off. The operators gave me sympathetic looks as I got off and thanked them.

“I should have warned you ahead of time that the first ride would be brutal,” her bestie’s dad told me. “The first ride, they scream and cry bloody murder and hate every second. Then, the second ride, they have fun. The third ride, they love it so much that they refuse to get off. It’s like a textbook experience, ride by ride. Kaia is the same as Jacob.”

Welp. It goes without saying that we did not capture any good photos during these carousel rides. But hey, maybe in a couple years, we’ll do better?

Two nights ago, it took almost 2.5 hours after story time to get Kaia to fully fall asleep. I was nearly at my wit’s end, but had to keep taking deep breaths and reminding myself, this is just a phase. This, too, will pass. And one day, she will not be so little anymore. But in the meantime, it was kind of hard to get mad at her because she constantly insisted on cuddling, hugging, and poking my face and nose. And every time I tried to face my back to her, she would pull my shoulder towards her and say, “turn this way.” It was almost as though she’d gone through this same exercise with a classmate at school during nap time and wanted to now test it out on her mama!

She finally fell asleep. And when I emerged from her bedroom to find Chris on his computer on the couch, he said to me, “That’s what the three muffins did to her. They gave her too much energy!”

I had just baked a new variation of my apple banana carrot mini muffins for her — they had three types of flour (all-purpose, whole wheat, and spelt), two types of seeds (ground flaxseed and whole toasted sunflower seeds), and of course, three types of fruit and veggie (apple, banana, and carrot). They came out very bouncy and moist, with just enough sweetness to be tasty and healthy at the same time. While I’m happy she enjoyed them, next time, she only gets them during the day time and not before bed!

Kaia is speaking in longer, fuller sentences each day. I’m sure a lot of the influence is from school where she hears interactions between teachers and administrators all the time. She also hears us interact at home and likes to mimic us. 

One thing she’s been doing when she’s having breakfast on weekday mornings is yell out for me when I’m coming in through the door, back from my workout at the gym. “Hi, Mummy-Dear!” she will call out before she even sees me. “Did you have a good gym?” 

It’s really cute. Sometimes, she will ask, “Did you have a good day?” at the end of the day when she sees me. And because she knows I am at the gym when she’s waking up and eating breakfast since Chris tells her, she will incorrectly ask if I had a good “gym.” We should probably teach her to say “workout” instead of “gym,” but I can’t help but smile and gush over how adorable this incorrect speech is. It’s like how now that she’s over 2, I still miss the days when she would say “bluey” for blueberry or “mangi” for mango. The speech mistakes are part of the growth, and while I’m happy she learns the correct form of speech, I still reminisce on the incorrect times. 

Yesterday when reviewing the daily report from school, Chris noticed that there was an “incident” report recorded with a photo of Kaia’s back, noting that Kaia had been injured by a classmate. There was a typo in the report, so I wasn’t sure exactly what happened until I spoke with the teacher at drop off this morning. The teacher let me know that Kaia and a classmate were fighting over the same toy, and Kaia had an iron grip on it. The other child retaliated by biting her in the middle of her back, which resulted in Kaia crying and having a lingering red mark on her back.

“Kaia cried, and I felt so terrible because she never cries!” the teacher said to me, with a frown on her face.

I didn’t realize it was a bite from the original report because of the typo. But I did notice the mark when I gave her a bath. The bite was the size of a large strawberry, and it seemed weird that it would have been so dark and red. At first, I wondered what toy would have left such a mark. Now that I found out it was a bite from another child, the mark made much more sense.

At this age, kids don’t always understand what you are trying to say to them, and you definitely do not always understand them. They’re still learning what is considered “appropriate” vs “inappropriate” behavior with family, friends, and classmates, and so it’s hard to fault them when things like this happen. I shrugged it off and told the teacher I wasn’t that concerned. Toddlers will be toddlers. She said she felt relieved after I said this.

“Not all parents let these things go,” she said with a sigh. “They ask us how we couldn’t have prevented it from happening!”

With babies and toddlers, things like this happen in just seconds, and you can’t be everywhere all at once. Taking care of littles can be very all-encompassing and exhausting. We just have to let these things go and move on.

Babies and toddlers are true human sponges. They are always soaking up and in every single thing around them all the time, whether we are cognizant of it or not. Because I have a very loving (facetious) husband, most of the time when we part and I am leaving the apartment, he will hug or kiss me and say, “don’t get lost!” Kaia has clearly noticed this. So this morning, when I was getting ready to go to the gym as Chris was getting her out the door to go to school, she ran to me to give me a goodbye hug and kiss, and after she looked at me square in the eyes, smiled, and said, “don’t get lost, mummy dear!”

While getting her ready, she will notice that one of us is not wearing a coat or shoes, so she will remind us: “Shoes on, Daddy-ma!” or “Put your jacket on, Mummy dear!” Sometimes, she will even giggle and say, “Mommy dear, guai guai ah!” (in other words, loosely translated as “you be good/you be well-behaved!”

For better or for worse, she is learning most of these things from her own parents. Every time something new like this happens, I can’t help but crack up and just want to squeeze her close. It’s too adorable and sweet, even if it can be a little annoying at times.

This afternoon, we took Kaia to the playground where her school class usually goes to when the weather is nice outside. Chris messaged a classmate’s dad to see if they wanted to join us, and when they came, Kaia’s school friend Jacob was on his scooter. Although I had thought about getting Kaia a scooter close to her second birthday, I wasn’t 100% sure she would like it, as she didn’t really seem that interested in anything like that (she mainly seems obsessed with her books — since she was a baby, I always thought she seemed more brainy than athletic, but hey, I could be proven wrong). It’s clear, though, that the peer pressure of her classmates has worked in a positive way with a lot of things she has been hesitant or scared to do, such as getting on a play structure at the playground, or even the slide. The slide took a lot of coaxing; she would only go on them with us if we went with her or pushed her down. It was clear from her facial expression she enjoyed it, but a small inner fear prevented her from going down on her own. Now that she is exposed to her classmates doing it, she’s much more into the slides than before. And it seems this is the same case with the scooter.

Prior to this impromptu play date, I wasn’t sure if a scooter would be a good toy/device for her. But as she fought with Jacob over the scooter and even went on it a few times (and did the proper foot and pushing movements, Chris and I were pretty quickly convinced that she should probably have one, too (along with a helmet, because of course, safety first). So Chris said he would do some research on the right one for her and get her one, along with a helmet. He especially felt firmly about this after he saw Kaia have a meltdown when Jacob went off and sped away on the scooter, leaving her scooter-less. We had never witnessed her crying over a toy in her entire life before, so this was a new experience for us. Chris had to go comfort her and hold her for a bit, when they came to the conclusion/decision that Pookster wanted a red scooter for herself. Okay, well, if she wants a red scooter… I guess she’s getting a red scooter!