Category Archives: Child rearing

Winter is cold, and getting even colder, plus a secret love of boots

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For years here in New York, winter hasn’t been a true “winter.” We haven’t had much snow relatively speaking due to global warming. December through March has been a milder weather period; it has always been cold, but just not as freezing as we expect. Snow has been sparse, so Kaia has had very few times to make and throw snow balls or build a snowman. But this winter, it has most definitely been cold. It snowed last weekend; the temperatures have been in the ‘teens and low twenties Fahrenheit. And Kaia is NOT a fan. As she is becoming more and more verbal by the day, she’s definitely making her opinions known.

She has protested almost every other day of boot wearing. “I don’t wanna wear boots! I wanna wear shoes!” She hates the high-top nature of the winter boots I bought her; she probably dislikes how her ankles can feel trapped in them. I can relate to that feeling, but I have since gotten used to wearing boots since moving to the East Coast.

Kaia told us multiple times this past week, “I don’t like winter. I want spring and summer. I want to wear sandals! I want it to be warm!” We agree with her; we also tell her that neither of us likes winter much, either. But winter does not last forever, and before she knows it, spring will be here, and she can shed all her thick layers and boots and wear regular shoes and dresses again.

I’ve adjusted to living in a four-season part of the country and world. I actually don’t mind it much. It does require more different types of clothing (and a very different skincare regimen in winter due to dryness!), but now that I’ve been here almost 18 years, this is my long-time current “normal.” One thing I have secretly embraced but never said out loud is that the best thing about living in a four-season place is that… I actually love boots! For someone who doesn’t like winter, this sounds kind of funny. But to be fair, most of my boots are autumn/winter boots, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be freezing cold to wear them. I still remember back in 2003 when the Wellesley recruiter came out from Boston to San Francisco, and she told me that she had at least ten pairs of boots — all for different types of cold/weather, occasion, and environment! My mind was boggled at the time when she shared this, but now, I completely understand. I myself have three different pairs of dressy boots, along with one pair of super casual, long Uggs (which I basically live in when it’s cold but not wet outside), one pair of rain/waterproof boots, and one pair of fall duck-style boots (which really need to be retired, after ten-plus years of wear, because I found out while in Denmark that one shoe has a hole in it!). So I have seven pairs of boots myself, which is kind of hilarious. I love all types of boots: I like the leather boots, the suede ones, the heeled ones, the flat ones. I like the Chelsea style boots, the tall knee-high ones, the slouch style boots, and even the chunky combat style ones. I could easily waste an hour on Nordstrom’s website staring at all their boots and wondering which ones would be comfortable and still look good in whatever weather. But then I think that if we end up moving to a warmer weather place, how often would I really wear all these boots, if at all?

Kaia doesn’t currently share my love of boots, but who knows — maybe she will embrace them as she realizes that you absolutely need these in cold weather climates. Or maybe she will shun them and refuse to ever live in a cold weather place ever again.

New B train rides and my sweet Kaia’s twinkling eyes

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Kaia loves the subway, the trains, the buses, the cars, planes — all forms of transport excite her to no end. But in New York City, she especially gets excited about riding on the new B train. It’s always a toss up whether we are able to get on one coming back home after school, but today for the second time ever, we got lucky and got on one. She saw it from very far away and yelled, “It’s a new B train! I get to go on a new B train!” She was all smiles the entire ride home; she kept reciting all the stops we passed, plus the stops that were still to come. She counted down the stops until we arrived at Columbus Circle.

Parenthood is hard no matter what generation you are in, what age you are parenting. But there is a lot to love about it. I still love and get excited watching her get excited over things that as a jaded adult, I think are just mundane, everyday things. It’s like I get to see life through her eyes as someone who is just discovering the world and all the things that make up that world. Sometimes, it feels like a renewal to me, that I get the privilege to see the beauty of life through her eyes. Everyone makes their own life choices. Some people choose to be child-free. Some people who want children are not able to have them because of situations beyond their control. But it’s hard for me to imagine not having this experience of experiencing life through her young, growing eyes. It’s as though a richness of life would be absent from my life. I squeezed her and kissed her extra while on the train today, just reveling in how lucky I am to be able to be her mama.

Unreliable childcare = situation normal in the U.S.

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Back in August, over a month before I confirmed and booked a restaurant for my 40th birthday dinner party coming up this Saturday, I reached out to our main babysitter who lives a block away to ask if she’d be able to babysit Kaia that night. She agreed and blocked it out on her calendar. And despite the fact that she confirmed she could come all the way back in August, I had this weird feeling in the back of my mind that something, somehow, would come up closer to January 17, and she would end up cancelling.

Unfortunately, my gut feeling was correct. I typically reach out to our chosen babysitter about a week ahead of the date they are scheduled to come to ensure they can still make it — just as a reminder. I texted her on Sunday and did not get a response until Monday morning, when she told me she could no longer come because her grandmother had died. It wasn’t clear what the timeline was for her grandmother’s passing, which is obviously sad, but all I knew was that I needed to find a replacement ASAP. And with less than a week’s notice, it would be a real challenge to find a replacement.

I immediately reached out to our #2 babysitter. She couldn’t make it because of her son’s basketball game. A third babysitter through Chris confirmed she also could not make it. I asked babysitter #2 if she could recommend anyone she trusted. She said that she had a 26-year-old daughter who has three kids of her own (and thus childcare experience) who she could ask if she would be free. She immediately found out she was, sent me her number, and we texted back and forth to confirm her pay rate, time, our address, and agreed to have her come.

Ideally, we’d have a babysitter come who knew Kaia, who Kaia knew. But in this case, we ran out of options. The three babysitters we usually cycle through were all unavailable. We have no backup care options through my work; Chris doesn’t work anymore, so his work benefit is long gone. We have no grandparents nearby. So we’re constantly at the whim of babysitters who can easily flake on us at any time, with zero notice. And then we’re stuck. In these moments, I get frustrated that reliable, trustworthy, affordable childcare is such a challenge and impossibility here. It feels like a no-win situation. And then I can’t help but get annoyed by people I know who do have able bodied, mentally sound grandparents nearby who can help (for free), yet they still complain about their free childcare all the time. No one is ever satisfied with what they have.

A happy surprise at the door: when your neighbor friend shows up with freshly baked goods and milk!

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Growing up, I always wished I had a friend who was just next door or on the same block who I could easily go play with. That never happened. Then as an adult living in New York City, I always wished I had a friend who either lived in my building or just a block or two away who I could see as often as I wanted, with as little notice as possible. For the longest time, I only had that once with a friend who lived about six blocks south of us. But he wasn’t very easy to get a hold of, and so that “ad hoc” nature of hanging out just never happened. We’ve been living in our current building for almost nine years now, and unfortunately, I’ve just never been able to make a real friend in this building until last year. This friend has a child who is close in age to Kaia, and luckily, they love each other. So the four of us try to arrange a catch-up about once a month when we’re all in town.

This friend remembered when we were coming back, so she messaged me randomly yesterday afternoon that she had done some baking and wanted to bring us some treats! So she stopped by and hung out with us for about half an hour with her son. They even brought over a half gallon of milk in case we were short of groceries! Kaia and her friend didn’t talk very much, but they did run around each other and squeal quite a bit to indicate that they were both super excited to see each other again! It was a quick and rushed visit because they had to get back to their home to welcome an out-of-town friend, but it was still so nice that they came to see us and came bearing edible gifts.

I love that I have a relationship like this now and that it’s right in my own building! It was so touching when she texted me to say she wanted to share baked goods and to see us even briefly. I know Kaia got really excited when I told her she might see a little friend later that day, and it definitely warmed my heart, as well. One thing that I haven’t loved about adulthood, or “adulting” as my friends call it, is that it always feels like everything needs to be scheduled and planned in advance. Yes, that’s necessary for a lot of things, but not everything. I wish I could do more ad hoc, spontaneous things more often with friends; it would feel a lot more fun… and frankly, more young. But I guess the older we get, the less spontaneous we can be, especially when we all don’t live in the same building or down the block from one another.

Dining in the air on Cathay Pacific

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While waiting for our flight from Manila to Hong Kong yesterday early morning, we were at the Cathay Pacific lounge at Manila airport. It was extremely early, so we didn’t get anything to eat (other than Kaia grabbing an apple and eating 70 percent of it, as per usual). I went to make my last cup of freshly squeezed calamansi juice, honey, and hot water, and to see what the breakfast offerings were at the food bar. I noticed a man marveling out loud at all the food options in the lounge. He made his selection, was quickly served, and snapped a photo of his dish. “What could be more amazing than this?” he exclaimed out loud in an Australian accent.

“Few things are more amazing than the food in this lounge,” I said to him, grinning. We’ve had some epic lounge experiences around the world, but I will say that the Cathay Pacific lounge experience from a food standpoint is likely one of the best ever. I cannot decide if I like this lounge more or the JAL First lounges in Japan; it might even be a tie (the thoughts of someone who is obviously overly privileged!!).

We made some small talk. He’s based in Sydney, where he was born, and shared that he’d just sold his company, was feeling “unshackled,” and was heading off to Japan for three weeks with zero itinerary other than starting in Tokyo after spending the last ten days in Manila, Cebu, and Boracay (did he copy our Philippines itinerary, or what?). He told me that he’d never eaten better food in a lounge before flying Cathay. “This food is so much better than Qantas lounge food – their food is the worst!” he moaned.

I wrinkled my brow at him. “Ummmm, the Qantas lounges actually have food,” I replied dryly. “If you were based in the U.S. and flew American, you’d be lucky to even get pretzels!”

He is not wrong that the food is incredible with Cathay. Sometimes when we have flown them and eaten their food, I think that the food could be similar quality, if not better, to some of the best Chinese food we’ve had at upscale restaurants in Asia, Australia, and the U.S. I could feel my cold progressing, so I went to the food bar and asked the server if I could have a bowl of just broth instead of the full wonton noodle soup. He quickly ladled a bowl for me, and I immediately inhaled and took a sip. Mmmmm — this was like a nourishing elixir. It had that nice, clean chickeny, porky flavor, with just a hint of seafood at the end the way a legit, authentic wonton broth should have.

In flight to Hong Kong, we were served a braised minced pork noodle dish, which seemed like such a decadent breakfast. We all ate the entire serving — even Kaia! And on the breakfast on the flight from Hong Kong to JFK, we were served beef and mushroom jook/congee. Without us helping, Kaia immediately started eating huge spoonfuls of congee while engrossed in her Bluey screen time. Once again, she finished the whole damn serving! My child was eating like a little adult!

For lunch, the seasonal Chinese offering was a clay pot rice with abalone (A WHOLE ONE!), Chinese sausage, and pork patty. I was curious to see how they’d achieve the crispy rice bits characteristic of the best claypot rice dishes. Somehow, they were successful! There were large morsels of crispy rice flecked throughout the bowl. The pork patty, sausage, and abalone were perfectly cooked. The abalone piece was not only whole, but huge! Every single thing I ate on these two flights was perfect, whether it was the congee, the claypot, the tea (Hong Kong milk tea on unlimited offer… dangerous), or even the hawthorn berry jelly with Chinese yam (something I’d never order on my own at a restaurant or cafe, but hey, if it’s on the flight, why not?). Even the three pieces of dim sum served with my congee were likely some of the best dumplings I’ve had — regardless of whether it was on land or in the air.

Whenever the rare occasion comes up when I can have abalone, I always think of my dad. My paternal grandparents had a pretty large family and friends network, and so when my dad was growing up, they got invited to seemingly endless weddings all the time, all with huge Chinese banquets and the most lavish multi-course feasts. The dish he remembers savoring the most were the abalone dishes. He insisted that they were the most delicious things he’d never eaten in his life. To this day, abalones are highly prized in Chinese cuisine and command a ridiculously high price tag. A single abalone can go for as much as $125 USD! And as a poor kid growing up in Chinatown when it was considered a ghetto, my dad found these meals life-changing and completely exhilarating. The funny thing was — back then, I never thought much about abalone, but I realized that they are actually large marine snails (gastropods). I always liked abalone shells for their rainbow iridescence. I’ve collected them as gifts as well as from the sands of Brighton Beach in Brighton, Victoria, Australia (sorry, I may be the reason that there is currently a sign there that says “no removing shells”), but I never had abalone until I became an adult. I think abalone is fine, but it’s not worth the insane price tag. I would never seek it out myself or choose it off a menu, and I’d certainly never choose to pay the crazy high market prices for it. It’s mostly a texture thing that makes it unique to me; it has virtually no flavor. Frankly, if I am going to pay a premium for seafood, it better be something like crab, lobster, or Moreton Bay bugs — sea creatures that actually do have a distinctive flavor!

I am sure Cathay puts it on their menu to impress their high-paying Chinese business/first class customers. I am also sure that this tactic works. I know for sure that my dad would have savored every last bite of that abalone far more than I would have. Maybe the next time I call home, I’ll tell him I was served abalone on the flight back to New York just to get his reaction.

Mild food poisoning, but this time, for mama and daddy

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Last night when I came back from the mall with Kaia and her new (and less than $3 USD) sandals in tow, I discovered that Chris had arranged a surprise birthday meal in our hotel room. The staff and the hotel chef were there setting up. They had organized birthday balloons, streamers, and a beautifully laid out table, even complete with a high chair for Pookster. The meal consisted of a seafood soup, wagyu steak with fries, garlic rice (of course), caesar salad, plus several huge slices of chocolate mousse cake. After eating earlier in the day along with some fruit smoothies, this felt like a lot of food, but we tried to do what we could to do justice to this beautiful meal the chef had put together for us.

This morning after brushing my teeth, I could immediately tell that something didn’t feel right in my stomach. I had that strange, queasy feeling that told me that I had eaten something bad. I even started feeling light headed, and a strange, muted pain was going down my neck. After eating a very light breakfast at the hotel buffet, I told Chris that I’d need to lie down while he and Kaia went out to have one last beach outing. At 12:30, we’d need to get on our shuttle, boat, and shuttle back to the airport, where we’d fly to Manila to spend our final night in the Philippines before heading back home to New York.

As I was lying in bed, I kept thinking that at least I got food poisoning towards the end of trip, rather than at any other time; it’s the least disruptive to our days. The last time I remember getting any real food poisoning was in Vietnam during my trip with my parents in January 2008; I was so sick that I was in bed for at least three days at the hotel. Then, I needed to be near a toilet at all times because I had such awful and sudden diarrhea. That was also at the tail end of our trip. My mom got so worried about me that she called our travel agent to shorten our trip by a couple days so that I could go home and “see a real doctor!”

We got our laundry done from the laundry services just across the street from the hotel, and so all our swimsuits were washed and dried. So Kaia ended up having to wear a t-shirt and her underwear to the beach (luckily, she’s still at an age where none of this matters to her). She happily went out with Daddy to have more ocean and sand time. I took some Pepto Bismol, Tums, and lid down on the bed for about two hours. Eventually I was able to get up and feel a little bit better, but I still had this lingering feeling of malaise all over me. I went out to meet them at the beach for a little bit just to get some fresh air and braced myself for the short boat ride that was ahead. I was really hoping that the water would be calm. The last thing I’d want was to vomit in transit.

Luckily for me, the water was very calm (I guess it just gets turbulent at night during high tide). So I was successfully able to get to the airport without throwing up. This was a huge win for me because all I could think of was… the very last thing I wanted was to end this trip covered in my own vomit.

We had a good flight back to Manila. And after checking into our hotel, having a light dinner at the lounge, and getting back to our room, I discovered that Chris also wasn’t feeling well. He spent a good amount of time on the toilet (at least it went out that way and not the other way), and then eventually went to bed. He clearly was not well. Kaia’s stool also wasn’t extremely solid, but her mood seemed to be happy (I’m so thankful to have a happy child). So preventively, we gave her one Tum before bed (she loves these things now! She keeps asking if she can have more medicine…). After a few hours of sleep, I woke up in the middle of the night to get Kaia to dream pee, and I realized that my upset stomach feeling was gone. What replaced it… was a general unwell, cold feeling. My throat was still sore, as this had begun on New Year’s Day. I was still coughing. I had phlegm. And I had a feeling some coughing fits may be in my near future, which is such terrible luck for me because I just had a cold like this back in late October!!

Traveling while feeling unwell is never fun. But being sick on a plane with recycled air is probably one of the worst situations. At least we are flying Cathay Pacific, so if I need hot broth, I have a feeling they will be able to provide me a very good one!

“The beach took my sandal away”

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We discovered in Boracay that during the day, it’s generally low tide and the waters are calm and serene. At night, though, high tide arrives, and the waves can come all the way to the steps of businesses (that is REALLY far in if you knew how small the current was during the day!). As with most islands, typhoon alerts are very much a real thing to be cognizant of and concerned about.

Yesterday early evening, Chris was having a massage while Kaia and I played in the water and built sand castles at White Beach. But given we’re so close to the equator, the sun set relatively early, so people started leaving the beach. We eventually left the beach and spent some time walking on the streets to find a restaurant. The place I originally chose had a wait, so we had to find somewhere else. After further browsing, I ended up choosing a restaurant to meet Chris at that would be most convenient if accessed by going to the beach first. What I wasn’t prepared for, especially in the dark, was how far in the tide would be. Luckily Kaia and I both were wearing waterproof sandals, so we were able to walk through the shallow waves easily. But I did feel a little uneasy, wondering if one of her sandals would just disappear with the force of a wave. We met Chris at the restaurant and had a quick dinner.

But after dinner, there was no escaping going back into the water in the dark. There wasn’t a way for us to get back to the hotel via the street; none of the businesses would let us go through their businesses to get to the street (okay, so maybe not everyone here is hospitable). So we had no choice but to walk at the edge of the waves to get back. This time, Chris held Kaia’s hand and walked through the waves. And a few minutes in, Kaia yelled out that she didn’t have a sandal on anymore. We turned on our phone flashlights and tried to see if a wave would bring her sandal back in, but to no avail; the waves had swept away her sandal forever! She ended up having to walk barefoot on one foot for the distance back to the hotel. It wasn’t a long distance, but it was still very annoying. And we were obviously very unhappy to be that family who had their kid lose a single shoe! I was even more mad about this because I just gifted her these sandals right before this trip, and so she’d only been wearing them for a few weeks. I cannot even count the number of times I’ve seen a single flip flop, a single sandal, a single shoe, lying around on the streets of New York, in playgrounds, parks, and at beaches. Each time I see these, I’ve given a sad look at what was lost that I could see, but its rightful owner would unlikely ever see again.

Now, we have to get her new sandal replacements for this trip while here so that she could continue to enjoy what limited time we still have at the beach. We really liked these sandals a lot, and they matched with everything she wore. I felt guilty for not securing the strap more tightly before we left the restaurant (I always tried to strap it on tighter, but she’d yell and say she didn’t like it, and eventually loosen it).

When we got back to the hotel and cleaned up, she gave me this long, glum look and said, “The beach took my sandal away.”

And that’s the story of how White Beach took my baby’s sandal away.

The most beautiful beach in the world

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Boracay’s White Beach is widely considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We happen to be staying at a resort hotel that is just steps away from this beach. For many years, this beach was considered one of the benchmarks against which other tropical beaches were compared. It’s been called one of the top five urban-accessible white sand beaches in the world, ranked number 1 or 2 for beaches across all of Asia, and considered one of the top 10-30 beaches globally, depending on your source (e.g. Travel + Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, or TripAdvisor). I was curious to see if seeing this beach in real life would truly live up to all the hype.

As soon as we got on the beach, I understood immediately why it’s so popular and highly ranked: the color of the water is just immaculate, ranging in shades from pale aqua to pale jade green to deep turquoise. The sand truly is almost white here, and it has an airy, soft, fine texture against your toes. In addition, the shoreline is long and gentle, with calm waters and waves that would make it comfortable and safe for littles and people like me who are terrified of big waves. You could go out quite far and still be standing in water just at ankle or knee level.

Diniwid Beach is a little beach just across a cliff walk from White Beach. We walked along the cliff walk and admired the rocky headlands before finding a little covered alcove to park our blankets at. As far as I was concerned, Diniwid Beach is basically like White Sand Beach, just much quieter, less open, with fewer people and thus more of a relaxed feel. I was all for this! I especially loved our little shaded alcove right under some big trees we camped out at, which you definitely would not be able to easily find at White Beach, which is far more out in the open with fewer coverage areas. We spent the majority of our late morning here today. Chris and I took turns splashing in the water with Kaia, and I also spent a good amount of time building a sand castle with a large moat (as I keep telling Pookster, the best sand castles always, always have a moat — it’s a non-negotiable!). I found some interesting shells amongst the coarser sand that my toes dug into and tried to collect those. And as soon as I (dumbly) announced to Pooks that I would be taking a photo of my sand castle…. she went ahead and sunk her arms into it. And there went all my hopes and dreams…

Eventually, I stopped taking photos and videos of White Beach and Diniwid Beach because I realized I just had to soak in these sights on my own. No photo or video was going to ever fully capture how spectacular these beaches were. After seeing these beaches and wandering around the different streets throughout the day, I realized why people choose to spend a full week or even over a month here — Boracay has a really great mix of tourists and locals, touristy and local businesses, and a fun, relaxed vibe. You can have a $0.10 USD Filipino pastry from a local bakery, or you can have a $35 USD plate of Thai crabs at a tourist-centered restaurant that is just down the street. But either way, you can enjoy the beauty that is right in your face here.

When your 4-year-old gets food poisoning and poops in her bed at 3am

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Chris and I are still taking turns waking up in the middle of the night to take Kaia to the potty to “dream pee.” We decided not to put her in pull-ups for this trip since it would be too long of a time frame out of this routine and might cause her to regress. Our bodies have a muscle memory, so we thought doing that would set her back too much. Our goal, of course, is to have her wake up on her own to pee if she needs to, and to stay dry all night. It was my turn last night to wake up to have her pee. I set my alarm for 1am, but at around 12:30, she woke up and came to our bed. I touched her bottom and realized she was already wet. This seemed a little odd to me; I had been able to wait until 1:30 or even 2am to have her pee, but I didn’t think much of it. So I cleaned her up, lay a towel on top of the small wet spot on her bed, and had her go back to sleep. Kaia fussed and indicated she wanted me to stay. So I ended up staying there and passed out until 3am, when I woke up to go back to my own bed.

Within 10 minutes of going back to my own bed, Kaia started crying. She jumped out of her bed and ran to me. And before I even touched her, I immediately smelled something very foul. I touched her bottom and even in the darkness, I could see that my hand was covered in something dark and mushy.

“Oh, no, baby!” I exclaimed lightly. “Did you poop in the bed?”

She had this pained look on her face. “It was an accident! It was an accident!” she said over and over. Then, she told us her stomach hurt. And then the sequence of events made even more sense.

I proceeded to clean her and her poopy shorts. Chris gathered the towel I lay on her bed, and luckily it caught almost everything. He emptied it into the toilet, then called housekeeping to see if they could help with this emergency cleanup and new bedsheets. Luckily, they came up right away and were quite gracious about the whole accident. We had to keep Kaia in a towel just in case — we had no idea if everything had come out, or if there was still more to come. I was bracing myself if she might not be able to control her bowel movements while sleeping for the rest of the night. It’s not like we had easy access to laundry here.

From the smell of her poop, I could tell immediately that it had to be the seafood lunch we had on the boat the previous day. Although lunch was quite tasty, it clearly did not sit well with my sweet baby’s young tummy. Luckily, Chris and I got through the night and the rest of today just fine, so our stomachs were not negatively impacted by the same food Kaia ate. As the day went on, it seemed like Kaia was doing just fine. Her poops were more solid; she seemed to be in a good, chipper mood. She said her stomach no longer hurt. So we’re lucky that this passed through her relatively quickly.

i always wondered when Kaia’s first poop accident or poop-in-bed might happen. And well, now, it finally happened, and I suppose with “good” reason since she got a mild case of food poisoning. I felt so proud of her for getting through the day and being so good about it all.

Snorkeling in Cebu’s crystal clear waters with parrot fish, clownfish, and butterflyfish

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We got picked up from our hotel bright and early to on a boat for our island-hopping and snorkeling tour around Cebu. Via boat, we visited Gilutongan Island, Nalusuan Island Marine Sanctuary, Hilutungan Island, and Pandanon Island. As we were going out to sea, I realized that the last and only time I’d been snorkeling was in the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, in 2014. How amazing is that — that the two places I will have experienced snorkeling will be the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Cebu in the Philippines?!

Kaia was able to get a child-size life vest (after Chris had to insist upon it when the operators said they didn’t have one ready for her…), so for the first time, she got to be immersed in deep ocean waters. After a slow start, she was obsessed! She loved being in the water with the both of us. She spent the most time swimming around with Chris since he’s clearly the better swimmer. I got this video of her watching Chris get into the water with his life vest and snorkeling gear on. From the boat, she yelled down at him, “Wait for us! Wait for us, Daddy!” And without a quick enough response from Chris, since she can get impatient, she started again. “Fuzzy, wait for us!” I love how she switched from calling him “Daddy” to calling him “Fuzzy,” since that is what I call him!

A huge difference I noticed right away with snorkeling here versus in the Great Barrier Reef was that my snorkeling gear here was… a bit questionable. We got off the boat at three different points for snorkeling and had two different sets of gear. The first set I had was definitely faulty: water constantly kept flooding into my mouth every time I tried to breathe through the tube, so I was never able to use the breathing tube properly. Because of this, every time I went to swim and look for fish, I just had to hold my breath for as long as possible. The second time we went out to snorkel, I had a different set of gear, and the breathing tube finally worked as it should. I was able to experience the fish and the coral, and it was enjoyable… other than the fact that this area was a bit dead for fish, and we had to move to a third location. At the third location, water kept flooding into my eye mask every now and then, so I had to constantly empty it out and try again. During our Great Barrier Reef snorkeling adventure, everything worked as intended every single time, plus I had the added benefit of flippers to help me move along faster! It’s a bit hard to compare these two snorkeling outings since that was a group tour in Australia while this was private and in the Philippines, but it’s my only other experience with snorkeling. It also made me realize why some people who love snorkeling prefer to buy and transport their own gear; this way, they know it will work well and they will know how to use it.

Once I got my snorkeling gear to work, though, I was obsessed with finding all the rainbow colors in the ocean. The coral here is nowhere as colorful or stunning as the Great Barrier Reef (they don’t call it “great” for nothing!), but occasionally I did see live coral. Sadly, most of it looked dead. But I felt like here, I got closer to very colorful fish than I remember getting in Queensland. The depths of the water in the area of the Great Barrier Reef we were in were far deeper. Here in Cebu where we did our island hopping, the water was relatively shallower. Here, I distinctly know I saw endless clownfish (hi, Nemo!), angelfish, butterflyfish (the yellow, silver, and black patterns on them were so fun to see!), rainbow fish (these looked fake!), parrotfish (so many fluorescent outlines – I loved their purples, electric blues, and greens!), and many others. We saw lots of schools of tiny fish swimming, plus the most number of starfish I’ve seen in my life out in the wild. We saw large ones, small ones, and some very interesting blue starfish. It’s crazy to think that these bright electric colors truly do exist in nature — they are not just made up!

We also got to swim and splash about at Pandanon Island, where you could walk out for what felt like miles and miles before the water would actually get past knee-high. This made it fun and safe for Kaia to splash about; there were pretty much zero waves to worry about. The water was bright turquoise blue where you can always see the ocean floor — it was like the postcards you see of exotic destinations in the South Pacific, except this was actually real and not photoshopped.

We were also served a delicious lunch on our little private boat — an amazing spread of barbecued prawns, mussels, chicken, and rice. I have no idea what kind of marinade they used to cook the seafood and chicken, but I will say that it was a really addictive blend of salty, tangy, sweet, and umami that had me licking my fingers at the end. Kaia devoured the food, as well, and most definitely loved her mussels and chicken. Given we had no regular restroom on board (there was a pot that you could manually “flush” with water that was enclosed.. and comfortable for someone maybe half my size!), we were given a communal bucket filled with water to “wash” our hands. And then Kaia had her first non-Cavendish banana: a little Filipino banana that was far more yellow in the flesh than she is used to. She kept remarking how “so yellow!” it was. I ate one of the bananas, and I immediately tasted the difference: it had an almost custardy after-taste that just lingered. Yum.

We ended the day much tanner than we started (I am so happy I am embracing my rashguard, as it meant that I didn’t have to put any sunscreen on the upper half of my body other than my face, or reapply, which I hate!). And our New Year’s Day dinner was at the famous House of Lechon, where we enjoyed a half kilo of lechon, pork cracklings (as Chris said, “it tastes like a heart attack,” and we unfortunately could not finish these), more kang kong, garlic rice of course, halo halo, plus a tiny shot’s worth of pandan jelly and cream.

This was definitely a memorable New Year’s Day, and an amazing and fun way to start off 2026.