Category Archives: Child rearing

Waddles the Penguin, Star of the Week Presentation

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In the last several weeks, each student in Kaia’s 3K class took turns taking home the class stuffed animal named Waddles the penguin. The goal is to take Waddles on different daily adventures with them, write notes about what they did together, then report back to school on what they did. During individual presentations with a caregiver in tow, the student would read aloud their favorite book and share their poster with the rest of the class.

Today, it was Kaia’s turn to share what adventures she took Waddles on. During the last several days, Chris took photos of Kaia and Waddles doing different activities. He filled out the Star of the Week poster and also the notebook recording activities together. I came to her class at 9:30 this morning to present with her. And well, it was similar to the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival activity back in September where she didn’t really want to participate and wanted me to do everything. She got really shy and refused to face the class. One of the teachers and I had to keep coaxing her. So, I interacted with the teachers and students. I read the book aloud (of course, she still doesn’t read, so this was always going to be the case), and I shared with the class what she did. All the while, she said her ankle, knee, and leg hurt. She found random bits of dust on her pants and shirt and kept going to the trash bin to throw them away. And while going through the book, she called out that “Daddy loves chocolate” or, “I love beets!” All in all, it was definitely MY presentation. At the end, her main teacher presented her a box of surprise rewards, and she pulled out a long, colorful, stacked macaron pen. I looked at it and thought….. Hmmmm. Shouldn’t that be my reward because I was ultimately the one who did this presentation?

All parenting and early child development resources almost universally on the fact that almost all children will act worse and more baby-like and needy when their mother is around. It’s a sign they know they are in safe place and will always be protected. I suppose the rationale is very positive, but the outcome (e.g. in this case, this presentation) is not always positive.

“Sumi and Topey” leave New York, and Kaia gets sad and wants to go with them

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After a few weeks of on and off grandparents time, it’s time for “Suma” and “Topa,” also known as “Sumi and Topey,” also known as Chris’s parents, to leave. They are leaving for the Europe leg of their round-the-world trip. I told Kaia this morning that they would be leaving, and she immediately grew pensive. She then declared, as she pointed to our bed, “That means you’ll be sleeping in that bed because they aren’t here!”

As we got closer to the time they had to leave, Kaia became visibly sad. She kept insisting she didn’t want them to go, and that she wanted to go with them. She said she wanted to go to Italy (where they are going next) and Melbourne with them. She even tried to put on her jacket and shoes to go with them. As the cab got packed up and they left, Kaia cried for a long time. Chris tried to comfort her and hold her, but she just kept crying. Finally, he consoled her with some Peppa Pig screen time, which of course, got her to immediately stop crying. She was fixated on the Peppa and George fight, apparently. Later on, she still kept saying she wanted to go to Melbourne with them.

My heart always aches in these situations. I really love seeing Chris’s parents get along so well with Kaia, and I love that she has a deep attachment to both of them. I myself also feel pretty sad when Chris’s parents leave. Even though I always get questions about how crowded and packed our apartment must feel, I genuinely don’t mind it at all. I do not say that to seem like a good sport or to create some facade of a perfect in-laws relationship; I truly mean it. I always look forward to their visits every year, and I look forward to seeing them when we go back to Melbourne in December. I don’t really care about giving up my bed for them since our sofa bed is actually quite comfortable. We have two bathrooms now, which makes the whole morning/evening routine a lot smoother. Unlike what Chris says about his parents, I think they are very “go-with-the-flow.” Even when we lived in our shoebox apartment on the Upper East Side and shared the space with them, I found it fun and enjoyable. They never once complained and always made the best of the experiences; they made it seem like an adventure since they’re so used to having a lot of space. At the end of the day, neither of them really came all this way to be a tourist in New York City; they came to spend time with their son and his wife, and now their granddaughter. I’ve always loved preparing food for them, and they are always happy to eat it (with the occasional complaint about being “stuffed to the gills” from his mom…) and make it very clear that they appreciate my efforts and skills. If there is one thing you cannot fault, it’s someone’s ability to always show appreciation for others. Chris’s parents never fail in this regard, even in the simplest things done for them (e.g…. when you place in the bathroom… a NEW SOAP BAR). It’s also nice to change up our usual routine and have other family and loved ones in our home. It’s more lively and more fun.

I also am briefly reminded in recent years of how my parents never visit, but it’s not like I romanticize what their visits could be like. They are not adaptable. They are absolutely not “go with the flow.” They complain about almost everything, see fault in everything, and rarely show outward appreciation for anything done for them. They zero in on the things they do for me and how I apparently have not shown appreciation towards them. It’s a game of, “How can we gaslight our child the most?” That’s not the kind of game I enjoy.

In the back of my mind, though, I still wish I had a better relationship with my parents. I wish I could be more open and honest with them. I wish I had their emotional support. I wish they could be close to Kaia the way that Chris’s parents are to her. But it’s a wish that will never be granted. They don’t want to make the effort, and well, I cannot sacrifice my sense of self and sanity and give them that much more time with her. “It is what it is,” as Chris always says. And lots of truths are sad and hurt.

Newport visit, rabbits, and dandelions at the Cliff Walk

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The last time we came to Newport, it was just weeks after Ed had died. I was walking around like a zombie, seeing him and signs of him almost everywhere I went. I remember when we struggled to find parking somewhere, we eventually found it on a street called Edward Street. I also felt like I was hallucinating and thought I was hearing his voice or seeing his face in places where he obviously was not.

It’s a very different visit this time with Chris’s parents and Kaia. After having coffee at a cute France-summer-house-style coffee shop and eating lunch at a popular brunch spot, we dropped Chris’s parents off at The Breakers (the Vanderbilt summer mansion) and we explored the town. We walked through and around the exterior of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. I learned about court tennis and how only bougie people seem to know and play it now, and rarely given the rarity of the court tennis court’s existence (this is most definitely the definition of “if you know, you KNOW”). And Kaia saw wild rabbits running around the grounds and stooped and sat to watch them, waiting for them to come back out (spoiler alert: they did not come back out). Kaia was carrying her pink bunny, Irene, as a comfort stuffed animal on this trip. She was running around with Irene, and when I suggested to Kaia that she show the other bunnies her own bunny Irene, she actually smiled and did just that: she sat down on the ground by the grass where the rabbits were and stuck Irene out to show the bunnies. And then she waved to the rabbits to come out. I couldn’t help but laugh and admire how adorable this whole sight was.

After Chris’s parents were done with their mansion visit, we walked along the famous Cliff Walk. Kaia enjoyed running around and picking dandelions, occasionally plucking off their petals and letting them fly away. This was her very first time picking flowers, even if they were weeds, and she really seemed to enjoy it. I picked them with her and we shared our dandelion bouquets. She tried to add grass to them, and well, I had to veto those additions.

Parenting littles goes so quickly. We always grumble at all the annoying parts of parenting, like dealing with the tantrums, the messy eating, the potty training, the bedtime routine and how long it takes. But what I hope to remember most about this period of raising Kaia and watching her grow are these little moments: Kaia proudly showing her pink Irene to the two wild rabbits and grinning ear to ear; Kaia discovering dandelions and that you can pick flowers, and then happily looking all over the grassy paths to search for and pluck them; Kaia greedily grabbing all the clams and so daintily pulling them out from the shells and shoving them in her mouth. These are the moments I would bottle up and want to save forever and never forget.

Twirl, twirl, plus pig tails, nail polish, and earrings

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My earliest memory of wearing nail polish is likely when I was about five years old. My aunt, who lived upstairs from us, used to always paint her nails some shade ranging from pink to red; magenta was a common color she painted both her finger and toenails. My mom was never into it, but as soon as I saw my aunt wearing it, I wanted to have it. I asked for it endlessly until my mom relented. So, once my mom said okay, my aunt would indulge me and occasionally paint my finger nails. I remember being completely obsessed with it and just staring at my nails for ages, thinking they were the prettiest things ever. And then my mind got blown when I started school and towards my later elementary school years, classmates would come to school with green or blue or OMG, purple glitter nail polish!

So, I guess Kaia is now reaching that age where she wants a little of everything that is stereotypically girly girl. She twirls endlessly and stares at herself in the mirror when she gets a new dress, skirt, or hairdo. The more pink and purple, the better. And if there is something glittery or sparkly, she is all over it. When I got her new pink jelly summer sandals that have silver glitter in them, she refused to take them off after trying them on and had the biggest tantrum when I pulled them off (It was too cold to wear that day). She has been asking repeatedly for pink or purple nail polish, which I am very reluctant to do because a) the chemicals and b) can she seriously sit still long enough to allow it dry properly… because there’s no way I am dealing with a nail polish mess (that’s a REAL MESS) everywhere?! I know a few of her classmates wear nail polish, and at this age, it’s all about, “if they have it, I want it, too!” Even her desire for her hairstyles comes from her classmates: some days, she wants a pony tail. Other day, she demands pigtails or braids. Occasionally, she will say she wants her hair down (which is never allowed because it will get everywhere and annoy her!).

Kaia has also been asking about my earrings. She loves playing with them. The more dangly, the more she stares and tries to grab them. She’s not really at the age where she understands what ear piercing entails, though she keeps saying she wants her ears pierced. I am debating on waiting until she understands the concept of ear piercing = pain and management before actually going to have her ears pierced. I thought maybe we’d do it for her 4th birthday… but will she actually understand the reason for the pain and how we have to treat her ear holes every day? I’m not sure.

These are cute, “female” things to grapple with when you are raising a little girl. Yes, of course it would be fine if we had a boy and he wanted these things, but these questions/desires are socially constructed as “feminine” and therefore accepted as girl problems or situations. Although lots of situations will come up that will be extremely challenging and make all this look like nothing, I’ve actually enjoyed thinking about it and thinking about how I will handle it all. I just hope she doesn’t look back and think I was overly strict, but rather thoughtful about how I’d approach her.

The melted microwave cover

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Whenever there are other people over, and when Kaia is around, it’s pretty much inevitable that at some point, accidents are going to happen. When Chris’s parents came back from their side trip to Asheville, North Carolina, yesterday, I had prepared some steamed scallops with glass noodles. I had the steamer setup on the main front right burner and the sauce to pour over the scallops on the left burner. Both burners were on; the sauce was on simmer, while the steamer setup was on medium-high. When I shut the steamer setup off, I took the saucepan with the scallop sauce off the left burner, but I forgot to shut the flame off. I had originally left it on because I wanted to makes sure the sauce was still hot when I poured it over the scallops and noodles. Chris has this habit (which I hate) of resting the silicone and plastic microwave cover on one of the burners whenever he finishes microwaving things. I always either tell him to move it, or more often, I just remove it from the top of the burner. He almost never cooks, and he has little awareness of which burner(s) I may have used, so it’s always a potentially dangerous situation even if the burners are off due to residual heat.

Well, that dangerous situation actually happened on Tuesday evening. The microwave cover was left on the still-on-simmer left side burner, and suddenly, I saw smoke rising into the air and smelled something plasticky burning. Alarmed, I rose and immediately went to the stove to find out that alas, the microwave cover was melting atop the still-on left burner. I shut it off and blasted the fan on. Chris spent some time scraping off the melted plastic/silicone and opened as many windows as he could to get that burning smell out.

Things like this rarely happen with us because we take pretty good care of our things. Before Kaia, we also pretty much never lost any of our items. But at least the microwave cover is cheap and easily and quickly replaced. The moral of the story is: two wrongs never make a right, especially when it comes to fire.

Puddle jumpers, pool dates, and arguing over the push of a button

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As part of a Buy Nothing group bundle several months ago, I was gifted a puddle jumper. I actually wasn’t sure what a “puddle jumper” was until I received the item. It’s essentially a floating device for a young toddler that has straps that snap around the child’s back, as well as floaty pieces that you ring through their arms. I figured this would actually be great for Kaia to use when she’s in our building pool. It would also mean that when Chris and I take her into the pool, we wouldn’t have to hold her 100 percent of the time, which would actually be a bit more relaxing and freeing for us.

Today, we had a planned play date at our building pool with a neighbor and her similarly aged son. Two times ago when we saw them, it was actually also in the pool where he had his own puddle jumper on, and it was clear he was obsessed with it. So I figured Kaia would enjoy using it knowing her little friend had one on, too. She was excited to have a play date and was eager to go up to the pool to see her friend. But they were running late, and she didn’t want to go into the pool before her friend arrived. So she watched me swim a couple laps as we waited for them to join us. She insisted she would not come in… and finally I convinced her to come into the pool with me and to put on the puddle jumper. She resisted initially, yelling and attempting to swat me away, but I was able to get it on. And then, when we got into the pool, she was holding onto me with a near death grip, refusing to let go of me and feel herself float. When our friends arrived, the little one was so eager that he stepped down two steps in the pool and jumped right in! It made sense, as his mom told me that they try to take him into the pool (with the puddle jumper on) at least once a week, so he is absolutely obsessed with the water and fearless. At that moment, Kaia got super excited, pushed me away from her, and said she wanted to swim by herself. I guess all the kids really need is some peer influence/pressure, and they will do as they do (which is actually what I wanted all along). Every time she saw her friend jump into the pool, she wanted to jump in again and again with her puddle jumper on.

Eventually, it was time to go, so we all rode the elevator down together. The first floor we reached was ours, and the two kids fought over who was going to push our floor button. Kaia eventually won, which resulted in a huge melt down from her little friend, who buried his face into his mom’s crotch as she laughed hysterically. And as we exited the elevator and said bye to them, Kaia wondered out loud, “Why is Hugo crying? Why?”

It really is the little things with toddlers. And as hysterical and upset as they get, it makes it all the more amusing and funny for the parents to witness.

Nothing goes as expected with a toddler on an unanticipated car ride home from school

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When I had to go to New Jersey for my work meeting yesterday, I originally planned to do an early morning workout, drop off Kaia at school, then head to Penn Station to take NJ Transit to Morristown. This way, Chris could do pickup at the end of the day. Well, this plan got thwarted when Chris rescheduled plans for mid-afternoon drinks with his friend, who has a flexible work schedule, and he pleaded with me to let him do drop off that day and for me to do pickup straight from Penn Station. Originally, I was annoyed with this given that he sees this friend almost every week for drinks (it sounded pretty desperate, as though this was the one thing that gave his weekly life meaning), but I figured I’d just relent and and pick my battles, and this wasn’t really one of them. He then said that since he knew I was traveling that I could just use the transit card to take the subway down to Chinatown, and then get a work-paid Uber back home with Kaia. I asked him to pack the ride-safe seat belt for her in her backpack for our car ride.

I got back from my workout yesterday morning to find out that somehow, Chris had forgotten to take Kaia to school with her backpack (he said she was being fussy when they left the house). So he packed the ride-safe belt in my work bag… for me to take to New Jersey and then down to Manhattan Chinatown. I was not happy about this, as I wanted to put my purse into my work bag to consolidate my items, and now that bag would be too full; I was just going to Morristown for the afternoon and didn’t want to seem like I was taking the whole world with me. First, I change my planned schedule revolving around work to accommodate his rescheduled beers catch up with a friend. Then, he forgets to bring the one thing she takes to school…

Chris said that since we rarely take a car that it would be a novelty for Kaia to take a car home from lower Manhattan, and she would enjoy it. So when I picked her up at school, she was excited to see me (she didn’t quite understand that when I said I’d go to Jersey for work for the day that I’d be back at the end of the day; she usually associates my work travel with nights away from her). And she was even eager to put on her ride-safe seat belt. She happily climbed into the car. For a moment, I thought… okay, this ride will be fun. But as soon as I tried to buckle her toddler seat belt to the regular car seat belt, she had a total melt down, screaming, crying, kicking, and somehow managed to get down on the backseat car floor, still attached to the car seat belt. Kaia eventually calmed down when I told her that Suma and Topa would be coming back very soon and would see her when we got home. She eventually passed out and ending up sleeping for almost half an hour. We were in the car for over 50 minutes, stuck in traffic.

Things rarely go how you envision they will with toddlers. But I guess it’s always safe to say that you should never expect anything with toddlers and just take things as they come, and try to enjoy them as best as possible since these moments will fly by so quickly, you won’t even know what hit you. She looked so cute in her ride safe belt, and it was really adorable how she so effortlessly slipped her arms into the straps and allowed me to velcro and loop things together.

Kaia’s caterpillar worries

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After 17 years of living on my own, not in my parents’ house, and no longer in college, I have finally found the optimal way to store basil to keep it fresh for as long as possible: place the stems in a tall glass with some water and position them like they’re a bouquet. Then lightly drape a plastic bag over them. Replenish the water every day, ensuring that none of the leaves are submerged. Somehow, with this process, I was able to keep my Thai basil stems fresh for seven days; on day 7, they looked like they were just as fresh as on day 1!

The basil I had was so fresh that somehow, for seven days, a little caterpillar was able to rest and stay alive on its stems that long. I didn’t even catch it until today when I was replenishing the water in the glass, and I found that the caterpillar was crawling off a stem on my kitchen counter. I immediately looked at it, realized what it was, and then told Kaia to come look; I wasn’t sure she had ever seen a real caterpillar before. The only “encounter” she’d had with a caterpillar was in Eric Carle’s famous book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which she loves and has read on repeat for the last two years. When she came over to look at the caterpillar, she examined it closely and started smiling. Then, Kaia ran into her bedroom, grabbed her copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and then brought it over. She held the book next to the real caterpillar and said, “They aren’t the same!” I told her that they weren’t the same, but they were, in fact, moving the same way.

A bit later, I told her we had to release the caterpillar outside to make sure it got some food and could be free. She waved “bye bye!” to the caterpillar as I released it into a bush. We went about our day outside.

Later that evening, after we had finished bedtime stories and I tucked her in, I kissed her good night and left her room. About an hour later, she slowly opened her bedroom door and had a sad face.

“What is it, Pooks?” I asked her. “What’s wrong?”

Kaia hesitated for a second and then whispered, “I want to know what happened to the caterpillar. Is it okay?”

I brought her back to bed and tucked her in once again, and I assured her that the caterpillar was doing just fine. I’m sure he had something to eat and was probably also getting ready for bed, as well, as all living things had to sleep.

She then did her “side eye” thinking face and said in Chinese, “Does he also need to shower and brush his teeth?”

Yes, I said, I’m sure he does his version of both.

She smiled. “Okay. Good night, mummy! Bye bye!”

My sweet, caring Kaia Pookie. Her empathy and thoughtfulness never cease to amaze me as it appears in different forms. I imagined her lying in bed for that last hour, worrying about the little caterpillar friend we had set free almost 10 hours before. It was so sweet. Her innocence always warms my heart.

Grandparenting in the current era

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The Atlantic recently wrote a piece about how “grandparenting,” or specifically, “grandmothering” is on the rise. When they say this, what they mean is that active parenting by a grandparent, mostly a grandmother, has increased notably in recent times due to the shortage of reliable and affordable childcare, soaring costs of living, and the mandatory need given the soaring cost of living for dual-income households in the U.S. This has made parents of the current generation apply more pressure on their parents to help raise their own children. This is most definitely something I see across a majority of parents of a similar age to me: most of my friends with kids have a parent look after their child(ren) for at least 1-2 days a week, without them there. We have a friend whose in-laws not only pick up their two kids from preschool at 2:50 every weekday, but also take them overnight two nights a week; those same grandparents take the two kids to Michigan during the summer where their other son and his children are — for two months; that is two months that my friend doesn’t see (or have to parent) his own children, time he gets to himself and to himself plus his wife. These grandparents play an active role in their grandchildren’s upbringing, not just having fun with them and getting to know them inside out, but also being a second set of parents to them.

I was thinking about this today as I watched Chris’s parents struggle to wrangle Kaia around, whether it was on the sidewalk, on the street, or in stores. A couple times I told Chris’s dad to walk with Kaia, and as per usual, he would barely hear me, and Kaia would run off on her own without him even noticing. In the end, I’d have to run off after her. In other cases, Chris’s mom struggled to run after her to keep up, and Kaia succeeded at keeping her grandma on her toes. Back when Kaia was in her diapers era, Chris’s dad wouldn’t even want to be in the room when a diaper change was happening; Chris’s mom would only do it if Chris or I wasn’t there. During their very first visit to New York after Kaia was born, when Kaia was about five months old, when I was working from home and Chris was at the office, and they were meant to babysit while our then-nanny was on vacation, Chris’s mom would come into the room when I was working and announce that Kaia needed a diaper change. The implication here was that I needed to stop what I was doing to change her diaper since I was there (who cares that I was actually working… since I was, you know, at home?). Now that Kaia is potty trained (but still isn’t equipped to wipe herself or wash her hands without assistance), neither of them has offered to help with the potty visits, either during our visit to Australia in December, or now. Granted, they aren’t used to being around her all the time, definitely are not used to helping someone during potty time, or seeing exactly how much she loves to run around and be cheeky, but they could in no way keep up with her. I am positive that if they had to look after her for even one day a week on their own, they’d likely leave her in their own house so they wouldn’t have to worry about the threat of getting lost in a store or, in the absolute worst case, the chance of getting hit by a car or bicyclist.

Chris’s mom always used to tell friends, family, and us that if we lived in Melbourne, she would have loved to be a full-time care taker to Kaia once we went back to work after family leave. But the thing is — you can certainly assume you want things in theory, but in practice, it’s never as simple or easy as it seems in your head. In theory, lots of things sound nice. In real life, it’s a completely different story. As we all get older, our physical and mental abilities get more limited. We tire more easily. We have less energy. And frankly, there just may be less stamina to run after a boisterous, rebellious little toddler than you had originally assumed.

“Daddy, clap my butt!” and other fun toddler moments with Kaia Pookie

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We were on the train coming back home from Bensonhurst on Saturday, and Kaia was sitting at the window seat on the train. Then, she decided to stand to see the view (she loves the “view,” even when we’re underground in the tunnel and can see nothing. But she does get very excited when she sees trains passing us and tries to identify which train number/letter it is). Kaia started acting cheeky, as per usual, and wiggled her butt and danced on the seat. And while we’re having mindless chit chat, she suddenly started sticking her butt out very conspicuously and said, “Daddy, clap my butt! Mummy, clap my butt!” And she started clapping her butt with her own hands and giggling hysterically.

There are a lot of things you can get away with as a child of her age in both behavior and speech. If I said the same thing at my current age, it would likely elicit confusion and annoyance. This is one of those moments that not only elicited lots of smiles from surrounding passengers, but it even got a rider sitting in front of Kaia to text her friend to tell her about the “adorable toddler” sitting behind her who was singing and dancing (I just happened to see this when Kaia was leaning over towards this person’s side, and I saw her text message very clearly near Kaia’s face as I gazed over).

Another fun thing that Kaia has been doing with me is we’ve been “eating” each other. Ever since she was a newborn, I’ve been obsessed with her little fingers and little “toesies,” and before she lost a lot of her baby fat, I could not get enough of staring and lightly squeezing the rolls that were her little “wrists” and “ankles.” When I’ve given her a bath or shower, I always say, “Mumma loves Kaia’s toesies! I’m going to eat your toesies.” And then, I say, “Mumma loves this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie!” after reaching her last toe on a foot. Then, I go onto the next foot and their set of toes. I occasionally say, “Mmmmmm, Kaia’s toesies are yummy! I’m gonna eat your toesies!” To which she always shrieks and giggles with delight. Lately, she’s been answering back: “Mummy! You can’t eat me! I’m not food!” And then I say in response, “Haha, yes, you are! I’m gonna eat you right now!” Then, I nibble her hand or fingers or toes or foot. She goes into her hysterical laughter. But then she tries to eat me. She insists that her mummy is food! So, she’ll take my fingers or even my face and lips and start nibbling away. I love this pretend mummy-and-daughter-eating-each-other session. Yes, it sounds slightly cannibalistic. Yes, I can also see how it can come across as sexual. But either way, it’s done with lots of fun and deep affection.

Today while riding back home from school, Kaia was in a really happy and chipper mood. In her after school program, they are learning lots of nursery rhymes in Chinese, and one of them is the Chinese version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” She decided to loudly start singing Chinese “Twinkle Twinkle,” and then I joined in and we sang it together. It became apparent very quickly that there were at least four other female riders, all separate, who started taking an interest in looking at and listening to Kaia. All were smiling and some were even humming along. And when Kaia finished the song, they all started clapping and telling Kaia, “Good job!” Kaia did her usual thing: out of nowhere, when she realizes that she has attention, she starts getting “fake shy” and starts burying her head into my stomach or chest. She did this a couple times when people started waving to her and saying hi, and then she started giggling hysterically and waving back to them.

When we first decided to enroll Kaia at her Chinese immersion school downtown in Manhattan Chinatown, a part of me dreaded the daily subway commute. It obviously wasn’t going to be as convenient as anything walking distance from us. But now I realize that this decision was beneficial in so many more ways than just having more exposure to Chinese language and culture: she just loves everything about the subway and people watching. She has more practice walking, running, and going up and down stairs. It’s great for her to be around so many different people and seeing people like this every day. And for me personally, I love observing her on the train and watching her interact with others on the subway. I love these moments of watching her grow and mature and getting comfortable with subway travel. She’s a true New York City baby.