Category Archives: Child rearing

The homemade apple sauce that was not received well

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Kaia has really loved eating whole apples since she was about 18 months old. Sometimes she will eat the slices when we make her eat the apples sliced, but most of the time, she prefers eating whole apples. And when I say “whole,” I mean she will eat about a quarter or a third of the apple, get bored, and then decide she is done and hand it over to us (oh, the toddler stage!). As you can imagine, Chris and I are not fans of this as it’s extremely wasteful, nor do I want to eat her partially eaten apple (but well, I usually do since I’m anti-waste. Chris could care less, so he just tosses it). So whenever possible, we will slice the apple up and make her eat the slices. In the last few weeks, she’s grown tired of apples and has refused them. At school field trips, the teachers will pack lunches for the kids that include a small whole apple, and she has not eaten them. So she brings them home to us. They’ve gone into the fruit bin in our fridge, along with a couple Pink Lady apples Chris bought. I decided we couldn’t waste the apples (I am not the biggest fan of apples, especially in the summertime when there’s so much good warm weather fruit!), so I decided to use the leftover apples for apple sauce for Kaia. Kaia loves apple sauce. She used to have it occasionally during snack time at her last school. I’ve been buying Trader Joe’s organic apple sauce (the only ingredient, supposedly, is apples) in a large jar to use in healthy baked goods for her. Sometimes when we bake together, she will ask for some apple sauce to eat on its own, and I’ll indulge her and give her a small bowl; it’s her “treat.”

I used two types of apples, some water, and a splash of apple cider we had in the fridge. Even after simmering for an hour, the apple pieces had broken down, but there were still some small soft chunks. It was a bit more watery than the Trader Joe’s apple sauce, but I figured it would thicken as it cooled. I tasted it, and I actually thought it tasted better than the jarred apple sauce — as it should, right, because it’s homemade?

I told Kaia she could have some homemade apple sauce yesterday, and she got really excited. When I presented it to her and she took a spoonful and put it in her mouth, Chris said her face immediately turned, and she didn’t seem to like it. She asked for a “different” apple sauce.

I insisted to her that this was “real” apple sauce, and I said the other apple sauce was “fake” (okay, that’s not really true, but that’s what came out of my mouth). As if she knows what any of this means! She then declared, “I want fake apple sauce!”

I’m not buying the TJs apple sauce for a while, so I said no “different” apple sauce.” Chris force fed her the rest of the homemade apple sauce bowl he doled out for her. I ended up eating the rest of the homemade apple sauce, which I actually found pretty tasty. And it acted as a good after bite while eating Xi’an Famous Foods spicy noodles for me!

Cute Kaia Pookie goings-on lately

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Whenever we arrive at our subway station, Kaia likes to go up the stairs and wait for the elevator to get to ground level. When we wait for the elevator, she always checks out all the OMNY card machines, getting her fingers all over the touch screens. She also enjoys peering into the change slots to see if anything is in there. Well, she got lucky earlier this week when through the clear slot, she saw that someone had left their change in there. She shrieked with joy and yelled out, “Mumma, I found money!” I walked over to the OMNY card machine and realized she was right: someone left three quarters in the slot. So I told her she could take the money out, and she carefully held all three coins tightly in the palm of her hand on our walk back home. She was so proud of herself for finding money that she immediately declared it to Chris as soon as she walked through our front door.

What this ended up leading to, though, is that on subsequent waits for the elevator up, she now expects to find money in the slots and gets upset when she doesn’t find any… which is, well, every time other than that one time. On Friday, she said she’d wait at the machine until the money “came.” No way. I immediately whisked her into the elevator to prevent a wait-for-absolutely-nothing situation.

Tonight at bedtime while I told her all the things I say to her before bed, I said to her my usual in English and Chinese, and she finished the sentences: “Mumma loves Kaia more than anything. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to Mumma. Mumma is grateful for Kaia every day. So, every day, mama takes care of you, protects you, and loves you. Did you know? Mumma is so lucky to have Kaia Pookie!” And then she said in response, for the very first time, “And Kaia is so lucky to have Mumma!” I gushed and squeezed her in my arms and covered her face with kisses, to which she giggled endlessly and then gave me kisses all over my face.

And then after peeing in the potty, she proceeded to terrorize me by not going to sleep and playing with literally every toy or stuffed animal in sight until past 9pm before finally passing out from exhaustion.

I love being a mother. I really do. It’s given me so much perspective on life and love and just being. But what it’s also reinforced to me that with everything you love… comes all the things that piss you off to no end. And you really cannot have one without having the other. That goes for pretty much everything in life: your spouse, your kids, your career, your home – it applies to every single thing. The things you love about your spouse are also the things that will make you want to punch him in the face. The personality traits of Kaia that I love are also the ones where I just think to myself, “Can you please just shut the fuck up and go to sleep now and stop being so damn cute all the time?”

A toddler’s mind and logic converted into words: “It’s raining on my leg”

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When I picked Kaia up from school yesterday late afternoon, we were walking towards the subway entrance when she suddenly said, “Mummy, it’s raining today.”

I wrinkled my brow and looked down at her. “Pooks, it’s super sunny and hot today,” I responded. “There wasn’t any rain!”

“No, it’s raining,” she said, looking up at me, looking hurt because I contradicted her. “It’s raining on my leg.”

Oh, wait. That’s when I stopped and pulled her over to the side of the sidewalk. I looked down at her backpack, and I realized that a teacher likely did not close her water bottle properly. It was dripping so quickly that the water had already soaked the bottom of her backpack and actually was dripping down her leg! I wiped her leg, then took her backpack off her back, removed the water bottle, and resealed it properly. Then, I turned it upside down to ensure it was no longer leaking, and we went about our way into the subway station.

Toddlers can be so smart, so sweet, so hilarious, and so absolutely illogical and infuriating that you just want to rip all your hair out when they have their monstrous tantrums. But when they say cute things like, “It’s raining on my leg,” it shows you how they are putting their understanding of the world together into words. Kaia comprehends the meaning of, “It’s raining.” She also understands getting wet. But she doesn’t really know how to say that something is dripping down her leg (at least, I don’t think she does yet). So, this was her way of conveying it. I found it really cute and clever at the same time, and a sweet look into her psyche and how she’s making sense of the world in her beautiful, developing 3.5-year-old mind.

Toddler birthday parties and “playing together”

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Kaia was talking all about Seneca’s birthday party all week. She was so excited to go to a birthday party, to see Seneca again, and to play with her and her friends. This was likely the biggest kids’ birthday party I’d been to, or that Kaia’s been to other than the school ones (which frankly, do not really count). Seneca had 11 classmates and three siblings, plus their parents, come join the party in Prospect Park. My friend’s friend brought his human-sized bubble tubs and made endless bubbles for the kids, and the kids played with ribbon wands and balls, amongst other gadgets.

So, we arrived at the party, and while Kaia eagerly gave Seneca her birthday present, after that, they didn’t seem to want anything to do with each other. Kaia wanted to play with the ribbons and some other more outgoing friends. Seneca wanted to hide away from everyone and kept running away. And when Kaia saw Seneca run away, she decided she would run, too…. along with three other kids. I definitely got my step count up today with all this running around and making sure a bunch of 2- and 3-year-olds didn’t get lost or leave the park.

When it was time to leave, Kaia was happy to hug and give Seneca a high-five, but while Seneca reluctantly engaged, she still wasn’t really into the company and was pretty shy. So, I came to this conclusion that maybe toddlers actually act out the way adults act out, but in a cuter way: we want the attention, affection, and love of others, and we want to know they are around… we just don’t want them all that close to us and in our faces. I get it. I get it.

Unexpected tears when watching the field trip bus unload the children

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On Thursday when the field trip bus was delayed coming back from the Melville farm, I stood at the other location of Kaia’s school several blocks down with the other parents and waited for the kids to arrive. As bus arrived and parked, all the parents got into a commotion in regards to where the bus would park and when they could actually collect their children. But our school had a pretty careful system: they had all the teachers get off first and arrange themselves by class. Then, they slowly asked each child to get off the bus; the child was then received by hand by another teacher to stand by their appropriate class group. When all the students were in their respective class groups and the teachers were all present, they then walked them, class by class, to the front of the school where us parents stood, and then each lead teacher or admin would release kids by class one by one.

As I saw all the kids get off the bus, I suddenly felt like my heart was heavy. My baby is 3.5 years old now, turning four this December, yet she’s already gone on three field trips with her summer camp! This means that she’s had three fun-filled experiences involving school bus transportation without me. And of course, she will have even more of this fun and learning-filled experiences without me in the future. I wasn’t able to be there to witness her excitements and little joys and new discoveries. Her teachers and classmates were, though. And as the groups approached the school building, I could see Kaia spotting me from the crowd and poking her head out as much as possible to give me a cheeky smile to let me know she knew her mummy was there waiting for her to take her home. There was just something about all this orderly off-boarding the bus and obediently walking in lines that made me feel sad, resulting in my eyes welling up with tears. My baby’s growing up so quickly, and there’s nothing I can do to pause or stop it even for a second. It was like just yesterday I pushed her out of my uterus and was struggling with breastfeeding her. Yet now, she’s already going on field trips in Long Island and acting like a real student in a real school.

I guess that’s another thing about motherhood: so many emotions all the time like a roller coaster, and like a really good roller coaster, you cannot always see all the twists, turns ahead of time. Sometimes it’s the littlest things that catch you off guard that make you cry your eyes out or feel like your baby is growing up just a little too fast for your liking.

Subway malfunctions and flood warnings

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I love the New York City subway system. Sure, it has its faults as any public transit system would, but it’s really hard to hate it given that it runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you can rely on it to get to most places throughout the four boroughs (sorry, Staten Island). Because of the New York City subway system, I have had zero reason to drive for the last seventeen years, so that makes me super, duper happy!

But then there come the times when the subway does, in fact, malfunction, and you are left wondering to yourself, what the fuck is actually going on here, and how did a 13-minute subway ride become a two-hour commuting nightmare? The last three days, there have been power outages, likely due to high heat/hot weather, at the West 4th Street station. This has meant that all trains going through it, so the A, C, E, B, D, F, and M trains, have been negatively impacted. It took Chris multiple line changes and walking to different stops to get home today from dropping Kaia off at summer camp — a total of two hours of commuting time.

I was cognizant of this when I went to pick her up later in the day. I went into the Columbus Circle subway station and checked the times. The status board said it would take about five minutes for the next B/D train to arrive. It ended up taking longer than that, plus a stall right before West 4th Street. I still arrived at her school at about the same time I usually do for pickup. Unfortunately, she was not there when I came, though. The teacher at the school answered the door to let me know that the bus was stuck in traffic. Several classes had gone on a farm field trip to Melville out in Long Island, including Kaia’s. They left early given the rain/flood warnings this afternoon, but due to multiple unanticipated road closures, they were running behind. The bus was not expected to be back for another thirty-plus minutes.

Of course I was annoyed, but it was out of their control even when they intentionally left the farm early, and nothing else could be done. So I walked around for a bit and popped into a bakery a few blocks away to pick up a pork floss onigiri for Kaia, as I knew she’d be hungry given we’d be late for our usual dinner time at home. I stopped by a tamal shop I noticed a couple months ago when I walked by it to pick up some horchata for myself to stay hydrated, plus two tamales to go. It made me realize that while I’ve spent the last year really exploring Chinatown deeply, I have really neglected the Lower East Side. It’s right next to Chinatown, and it also has endless delicious things to check out. So I made a mental note to self on this.

The bus finally came at around the time the teacher estimated. I told Kaia we had to take a different train at a different stop to get home, and this would necessitate more walking. She did perfectly fine when we went to Canal and took the yellow trains home. But I knew she’d eventually whine and whinge on the walk from the 57th Street yellow train stop to home given it was more after-school walking than she was used to. She happily nibbled her onigiri during the entire subway ride uptown.

We didn’t get home until past 6:30 when we usually get home from school between 5:30-5:45. But in the end, we got her fed, showered, read to, and sleeping. It was definitely tiring, but it definitely made our after-school routine a bit more exciting for Kaia, as it wasn’t as predictable. Plus, we both got extra steps in!

Building friends and play dates

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While living in New York, what I’ve always wanted was a friend who lived walking distance who I can just say, “Hey, are you free? Want to grab coffee/take a walk in the park?” During this whole time I’ve lived in New York, I’ve only ever had one real friend who lived within walking distance, and frankly, we never had that type of relationship with each other. We probably saw each other at the same frequency we’d see each other if we didn’t live close by.

When we lived in this building, and especially after Kaia was born, I thought it would be amazing if I could make other mom or dad friends in the building. This… was a desire, but it barely came into fruition. In my mind, this seemed like an ideal setup: our kids could play together and entertain themselves while we’d have adult conversation or meals. I attempted a friendship with at least three different parents in the building. One was a dad, who has since moved out, but he was the most reciprocal. He actually did reach out to do play dates, but unfortunately his son (two months older than Kaia) and Kaia did NOT get along (his son wanted to throw toys at and hit Kaia, and Kaia did not like him). The second was a mom who had a son about four months younger than Kaia. I tried reaching out a few times to set up play dates, and she always said she was busy, so we never actually did an official play date. She never reached out unless she had childcare or kid product questions (fun). The third is someone I met at the gym; we’re both called “gym rats” by our building trainer because we’re always at the gym every weekday. We were quite friendly. She gave a baby gift when Kaia was born and gave me endless suggestions for baby products and stores because she had friends having babies (and she was doing IVF, which she later revealed). We invited her to our Thanksgiving meal just a couple weeks before Kaia was born. I was invited to both her baby showers and attended the first one. But when I’ve tried to schedule play dates with our kids, it’s never worked. Again, she also has never reached out to arrange any date. I figured that I should just let the idea go and came to the conclusion I was just never going to make nearby parent friends.

Then earlier this year, I took Kaia to the pool on our roof, and we happened to swim with a mom who had a son about five months younger than Kaia. We made some small talk, and since she didn’t have her phone, she asked me to leave my name and number with the lifeguard, and she’d contact me for a future play date. I didn’t think anything of it because of my previous experiences attempting to meet up with other neighbors for play dates. But then about three days later, she sent me a message on Whatspp and asked to arrange a play date in the coming weeks. Since then, we’ve had three play dates — one at the play room/library, one at the pool, and the most recent one was today, when we started at the pool; after, I invited them over to our place for snacks (I made whole grain chocolate banana mini muffins for the kids, plus I had Peruvian dark chocolate to share, along with some fruit and roasted sweet potatoes for the kids). The kids played with Kaia’s toys; Kaia was really sweet and actually laid out a lot of her favorite toys and arranged them “just so” so that Hugo could decide which toys he wanted to play with alongside her. They fought over her Peppa Pig bus and ice cream truck. They got excited and started squealing when we took some balloons out for blowing up. And they eventually started bonding over Kaia’s book collection, when they spent a good 40 minutes just reading books together, sharing stories, and taking turns with books over and over. While they played, we chatted about work, travel, different countries and cultures, and local restaurants and play areas.

Our neighbor’s work and travel schedule is a bit hectic for the next couple months, so our next play date isn’t until the beginning of October; she wanted to confirm while we were together and put it in her calendar so she didn’t forget, which I really appreciate. But it feels really good to finally have a friend in the building who has a child similar in age to Kaia who I can enjoy spending time with. It took a while, but it has finally happened! I’ve made a real neighbor friend (with a child!).

A gem of a bakery in Ridgewood, Queens

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We had our brunch date with my friend and her husband today, and given our babysitter cancelled on us and all our backups were occupied, we took Kaia with us to Ridgewood, Queens, where the restaurant is. It ended up working out really well because Kaia had such a nice surprise treat at a local bakery we visited.

Rudy’s Pastry Shop is an institution in Ridgewood and has been around since about 1934. They started out as a German bakery back then, but now they do a whole array of different, delicious cakes and pastries (even including gluten free!). Chris found out about it and added to our to-try list. We came in for the cannoli and alfajores. I knew this would be a good spot for cannoli once I saw an entire glass case full of unfilled cannoli shells. YES, cannolis should be filled to order for freshness and for the shell to stay crisp! We got a large chocolate dipped one, which includes mini chocolate chips stirred in the fresh ricotta filling. We have had a number of incredible cannolis in New York, most notably off Arthur Avenue in the Bronx and in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, but now, we have an excellent spot in Queens to add to our cannoli list! This one had perfectly whipped ricotta with just enough sweetness; the shell was thin, really crisp, and had the perfect crunchy texture. Even Kaia, who usually doesn’t like “cheesy” things, kept dipping her finger into the ricotta and eating more and more of it. And of course, she loved the cannoli shell.

Rudy’s has a comfortable seating area towards the back of the bakery, where we sat down briefly to enjoy our oversized cannoli. Behind us, there was a small table of elementary school-aged kids and some adults, piping cupcakes with pastry piping bags and topping them with sprinkles. I thought it was such a cute activity and figured they must be participating in some mini class organized by the bakery. But then out of nowhere, the owner Toni came by and asked if Kaia would like a mini cupcake piping lesson. She asked if my toddler would prefer vanilla or chocolate. Of course, we said Kaia would love chocolate. Kaia’s face lit up like a little bulb, as she heard she was getting a chocolate cupcake! With that, Toni came over to our table with a chocolate cupcake, a little piping bag already filled with fresh buttercream, a cup of rainbow sprinkles, and a to-go cupcake container. And just like that, Kaia had her very first cupcake/frosting piping lesson with this very sweet and kind owner; if only I had recorded more of her facial expressions when Toni came and presented the cupcake, the piper, and the rainbow sprinkles on our table!! Toni was so sweet, showing her patiently how to pipe and control the tip. She talked through the motions and guided Kaia’s fingers along the piping bag to pipe just the right amount of buttercream frosting onto the top of the cupcake. Shockingly, this whole experience and all the ingredients were totally on the house! Toni just kept saying how much the kids love it, and so she loves doing this for them. She said it wasn’t just a business; it was about building community. We were so touched.

I am grateful for the kindness and generosity of the owner of Rudy’s Pastry Shop. We’ve never had this type of hospitality in any establishment with Kaia to date. Kaia has been given endless freebies, little treats, and kindnesses pretty much everywhere that we’ve repeatedly been shocked by. But this one, single experience truly takes the cake (literally)! When we’re back in Ridgewood, we will most definitely be back here. I’d also love to come back and try their famous Black Forest cake, which seems to get rave reviews. When I realized their Black Forest cake was one of their signature items, it actually made me a little sad because I remember how much Ed liked this cake. I always thought the cake was overrated, but maybe it was because I never had a really good one? But I have a feeling that Rudy’s makes it the way it’s supposed to be, in classic German fashion.

Babysitter cancels, and all back-ups are unavailable

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We had plans to have brunch in Ridgewood, Queens, this Saturday with my friend and her husband. They planned to leave their two kids at home with my friend’s mom while they caught up with us. When Chris heard this, he said that it felt uneven and that we should get a babysitter, too, so that we could actually enjoy brunch. I hesitated, but I figured it wouldn’t be the worst idea to have a different babysitting experience and get one during the day time. So I asked our usual babysitter several weeks ago, and she agreed to come.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. She texted on Tuesday, saying a “family emergency” came up, and she wouldn’t be available that day anymore. Granted, she could easily have lied and just got an invite to the Hamptons or Jersey Shore, but regardless, she was not going to be free, and that was all I really needed to know.

I immediately texted my second babysitter backup. She said she already had plans and wouldn’t be free until past 4pm. I told Chris this, and he contacted his babysitter contact, who ended up being out of town. Finally, I texted a former daycare teacher if she could babysit, but she actually works her regular job on Saturdays now! So we’re totally out of luck. In the end, we’ll have to take Kaia to brunch with us… and likely give her more screen time at the table than we’d ideally like.

Oh, the joys of lack of decent childcare options when you really need them!

Three going on thirteen and avoiding potential head injuries

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Ever since we got back from South America, it’s like we are at peak level of “three going on thirteen/three-nager” land with Kaia. Every single thing I do seems to piss her off. When I try to wake her up in the morning, she screams and cries and refuses to eat breakfast. When I want to brush her teeth or comb her hair, she screams and runs away. Even at night when I try to get her up to pee at midnight, she might let me take her to pee, but then she throws a fit when it’s time to wipe.

Today after dinner, she asked if she could do a video chat with Chris’s parents, but he said no. This was the beginning of her tantrum, and it only got worse when it was time for me to give her a shower. I stripped her while she thrashed around. And then when it was time to put her in the bathtub, she refused to stand up and tried to lie down as best as she could. I had to keep trying to protect her head so that she didn’t accidentally bash it in while tantrumming. She ended up sitting almost the entire bath. Somehow, I successfully cleaned all parts of her despite her screaming, crying, and thrashing around almost the whole time. I was pretty proud of myself.

Being a parent is rewarding, but it’s also really thankless work that can be extremely tough. In moments when she’s screaming and crying and thrashing around everywhere and almost self-inflicting bodily harm, I have to try really hard to stay centered and not flip out or just give up. All I have to say is… I have no idea how people go through these tough phases with multiple kids — no idea.