An eventful lunch out with a bang at the end

Today, we went up to Banh on the Upper West Side to have a late lunch. The last time I ate there was by myself in 2021, when I was very pregnant and testing out strollers at a nearby shop, and off work for a company-wide wellness day. The food and drinks there have always been delicious, and they are very well known for their weekend specials, which they change every week. Unfortunately, we got there too late today, so all of the specials they had that we were interested in getting were out except for one. It was pretty disappointing, especially since we don’t go there often at all, but at least it was fun to see Kaia enjoy the food: she slurped up her fresh rice noodles and was obsessed with the lemongrass grilled beef we cut up for her.

The visit ended with a bit of a bang. Chris suggested that I check her diaper since Kaia had had a lot to drink. And as I took her with all the changing materials to the bathroom, I realized that her bottom felt like there was a leak. As soon as I opened her onesie, I knew it was trouble: a big pile of poop was in the left leg of the onesie, and Kaia cried and cried. I smeared poop on the changing pad, the floor, and even my pant leg. It was… quite the spectacle. I had to rub off excess poop on her onesie and flush it down the toilet and get her diaper changed quickly. I took her out of the bathroom with Kaia just wearing her diaper. People were probably wondering why I was carrying a nearly naked baby as I walked back to our table. Luckily, we still had a second change of clothes for her in her diaper, so Chris got her into those.

Chris was reflecting on Kaia’s output history. In the beginning as a newborn, Kaia struggled to poop and would get backed up. A couple times, our night nurse even had to stimulate her to get the poop out. Now, Kaia has zero difficulties pooping: in fact, now she poops so often and so big that Chris has already ordered the next size diaper for her, even though those diapers are meant for toddlers who are 2+ in age! That’s how big her poops are now – they’re like explosions every time!

When the stroller rain cover gets stolen

Our nanny took Kaia out to the library earlier today, and it was raining, so she put the rain cover over the stroller. She saw it was quite wet coming in, so she dropped the stroller cover off in front of our apartment in the hallway today and then made her way down to the playroom for a couple hours before dinner. When she came back, the stroller cover was missing. She just assumed I had taken it in at some point, but I never did. I never saw the stroller cover out at all, even when I went out that afternoon. We asked the security and porters. We asked our doorman. I went to the manager twice to see if there was any way to find out where the cover had gone. But it’s nowhere. Someone actually SWIPED it??

The stupidest thing about the stroller rain cover going missing is that it would be pretty much worthless to almost anyone. It is fitted to the exact measurements of our Nuna Triv stroller. It’s just a piece of plastic to someone else. So it infuriates me that someone just took it.. if they actually did and the nanny is actually telling the truth. We’ve never had anything in front of our apartment unit disappear until today – no shoes, no umbrellas, nothing. And on a rainy day, wouldn’t it make more sense to steal someone’s umbrella?

In the end, we didn’t trust our nanny. I think she probably lost it or even purposely threw it out given we had a mini tiff earlier in the day, and she probably did it to spite us. It’s a good thing I got her sweating when I told her that I’d get management to show me video footage of the floor to see if anyone HAD actually taken it.

Everything feels mundane

Ever since we have come back from Australia, I have been feeling like everything is just kind of mundane and uneventful. Nothing really seems that exciting or worth looking forward to. While the highlights of my day are seeing and spending time with Kaia, those moments only last so long until she has to go down for a nap, for sleep, or suddenly gets fussy while eating with her “toddler selectivity” phase that she’s in. Every day I hear news of more layoffs and more companies threatening to take away more jobs. Every day, another black man is getting needlessly and brutally killed by the police, a natural disaster is happening that is decimating populations, Kevin McCarthy is House Speaker. Work feels like the same thing every day with the same problems that I can’t seem to fix because they’re beyond me or even my company. Everything either feels “ugh” or like it just sucks. Even when there are things that I am supposed to look forward to, like lunch with a friend, a facial, an upcoming personal trip — it doesn’t make me feel as happy or as eager as I used to be. I feel bored and exhausted at the same time.

Hopefully this is just a temporary slump. It’s not like anything is actually wrong with my life; everything is really as good as it can be. I think I just need to reframe my attitude and the way I look at things… I think.

When your baby’s teething is so bad that she won’t eat anything

“When a child refuses to eat, it can destabilize the whole family,” Solid Starts writes on their site.

Yep. That is so damn true.

I really enjoyed those weekend mornings throughout the summer and fall when I would sit with Kaia and introduce endless new foods to her. She was so curious, always willing to try and eat pretty much everything. Even the things she wasn’t a huge fan of then, like sweet potato, potato, avocado, banana, she happily eats now. I took endless videos of her eating and was so proud when again and again, she’d gobble up all her green vegetables and eat spicy chicken curry, dal, and everything else with lots of fervor. I thought I was doing all the right things to prevent picky eating. I was going to be the Super Mommy, the one whose baby loved to eat EVERYTHING. I HAD this, I thought to myself each day, preparing her a mini “tasting menu” for each meal as Chris called them.

And so, yes, it felt very destabilizing, if you want to call it that, to watch her suddenly, out of nowhere, start rejecting foods she always loved in December back in Australia. And it felt even more frustrating to watch it continue to happen after we got home this month. I just didn’t understand it: what the hell snapped in her in those weeks in Australia to suddenly have her turn on all the foods she once embraced? Was it really just the fact that she turned one year old, and thus overnight, developed opinions and preferences on what she wanted to eat or not…?! And now, coupled with endless teeth all seeming to pop up at once, she’s in pain, which makes her refuse even more food. Today at dinner, she didn’t eat a single thing and cried endlessly in her high chair. She even refused her favorite things, like rice noodles and blueberries. That’s when we REALLY knew it was teething and not just a preference for certain foods.

It made me feel so sad to see my baby not eat a single thing I had prepared for her, not to mention cry and yell nonstop. No parent wants to see their child go hungry, but for me, it was especially brutal because of how much I love food. And my stomach still wasn’t 100 percent today, so even I barely ate. It has not been a great start to the weekend — that’s for sure.

The mysterious stomach bug

I woke up this morning at around 2am from stomach pain. I wasn’t sure what was causing it. I just knew it bothered me enough to wake me up. I tried going back to sleep, but I never did. Around 6:30am, I got out of bed to use the bathroom, and I realized that my entire body was aching. And 30 minutes later, it erupted into a full on, pounding headache.

UGHHHHHHHH.

I decided to skip the gym and see if I could still get through the workday and sleep a bit. I still never fell back asleep but laid there on the bed, resting. When 9:30am rolled around, I still felt miserable. The pain in my stomach and body weren’t going away, so I took the day off.

I tried to think about what was new that I ate yesterday, and I thought… was it really the crispy pork that Chris brought back from Chinatown? We’d gotten roasted meats from this restaurant countless times, and it was extremely popular with high turnover. It was the only new thing I ate the previous day. Either way, I still felt awful. I managed to go out for my scheduled eye appointment and to buy a few things at Whole Foods, but it was a huge struggle. I felt super heavy, extremely lethargic, and pretty useless.

Woe was definitely me today. And then because I forgot that if I eat less, I pump less milk… I barely pumped any milk today. Or, maybe it was just because my body knew I was sick. Either way, I was screwed.

Baby Bjorn, take 2

One of the items I had put on our baby registry when expecting Kaia was a Baby Bjorn bouncer. Based on all the types of baby seats/baby activity centers out there, this seemed to have had the best reviews, and on top of that, it also seemed to last the longest. Based on the description, it is supposed to last until your baby is about 30 lb, which is approximately 2 years of age. So I added it, and lucky me, some good friends were generous enough to get it for us.

Well, by the time she was 8-9 months of age, we had already lessened our use of it. She didn’t like to be sitting in one place for too long, as she far preferred crawling and climbing on everything. I had forgotten that I hadn’t put it on the highest (toddler seat) setting, so when we got back from Australia, her weight was really pushing it to floor level, which didn’t seem good or safe at all. She definitely was not comfortable sitting in it. So Chris decided to post it for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

He told me this morning that someone was coming to buy it from us today. So I went to the Amazon site to review the description one last time, when I saw a photo of a toddler age child sitting on the chair, in a higher position. I realized we hadn’t increased the setting, so I did it after he told me and put Kaia in it. And I realized… weee, this actually looks like it’s fine again! She was giggling a bit as she bounced in it, though at this time, she has a hard time understanding how to get out given the way the seat is positioned. But I insisted to Chris that we keep it for at least one more week to see if she enjoys sitting in it. We already have it, so why rush to get rid of what we already have if the Pookster can still get use out of it? It’s further ROI on our friend’s investment, so why not?

It has been interesting to see her in the bouncer on the toddler seat position because it makes it more obvious and apparent to me how much she has grown in the last year. It was literally around this time last year, at the end of January, when I first took the bouncer out of its box and strapped her in it. She was once so tiny in this bouncer, wondering what the hell kind of contraption she was placed in. And now, she’s sitting in it almost like a tiny adult. The weeks have passed way too quickly with my sweet Pookie Pie.

Farewell, glass coffee table

When we first moved into this building about 6.5 years ago, we had to buy all the furniture in our old unit for a lump sum to take the apartment, and since we had no attachment to our old furniture, and we also hate shopping for furniture, it seemed like a good idea. One of the items that I really liked that we got was our glass coffee table. It’s a bit asymmetrical. It’s not a design that you see that often. And I’ve always loved glass coffee tables. But once Kaia arrived, it wasn’t really the smartest thing for us to own a glass coffee table anymore, especially once she started crawling and becoming more mobile. Plus, when I was under the age of 4, I smashed my parents’ glass coffee table top with Ed’s bat, so… I know karma has it in for me, and if we were to keep this coffee table, Kaia would remind me how mischievous I was when I was her age. And I’d prefer not to let that moment, in that form, come.

So Chris posted our coffee table on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, and a serious buyer came today to pick it up and take it off our hands. I dusted it off and we moved it out from behind the sectional couch to our front entrance. And Chris helped him carry it downstairs into the station wagon he apparently borrowed from a friend. I gave a short little speech to the table, letting it know how much I appreciated it, how I enjoyed it the last 6.5 years we had it, how we got great use out of it. But now, it was time to go. Because now, we had actively made a choice: we were choosing our baby over this glass coffee table, and the decision was made, final, done. Goodbye, glass coffee table. We enjoyed you and got great use out of you the last 6.5 years, and now, you will go off to another person’s home, where hopefully you will be loved and appreciated just as much, if not more. We hope you have a good, long life, and get lots of good use. Goodbye, old friend.

A day spent in Chinatown, post pandemic

We had the day off today since it was MLK’s birthday, so we spent the afternoon in Chinatown. I wanted to buy some groceries to make some things for Lunar New Year coming up, and we also had a late lunch down there, as well. On our way home, I stopped by one of my favorite bakeries and was surprised to see that they had taken down all of their COVID coverings. Their workers were no longer wearing masks, and I could actually clearly see all of their baked goods once again. I honestly could not remember the last time I was in there before the pandemic, but I almost did a double take around the bakery: it didn’t look or feel like the same bakery to me anymore. It almost felt new and improved even though it was the exact same space! It felt more open, brighter, and like it was more approachable than before, especially if you were unfamiliar with Chinese baked goods before entering. It would be a lot less intimidating, and you could look to see what you wanted and take your time deciding instead of needing to know ahead of time before entering. During the pandemic, it always felt so rushed. Because there was such limited standing space, you really had to come in and out quickly to allow for others to come in and buy their baked goods.

It feels nice to see things more open and seemingly “normal” down there again. I was really worried about a lot of the businesses in Chinatown, especially given all the “China virus” racist nonsense that idiots were spewing. I hope this will make the shops of Chinatown seem more welcoming to those who may be unfamiliar with all their deliciousness once again.

Living in a luxury apartment building – where everything is not so “luxury”

In our last unit in this building, we were in a “model” unit that had mostly sun shades in all the rooms. It made pulling them up and down really easy. Unfortunately in the rest of the units in this building, they use blinds, which we not only hate, but are frustrating to use, and are really, really easy to break. I get that there are different types of blinds, but these are just… awful. Also, how the hell are you supposed to clean them?

A few weeks ago, our nanny said the sun was in her eyes and also shining on Kaia while on the play mat, so she’d been pulling them down in the living room in the afternoon as the sun was setting. When Chris went to adjust it up when he got home, the entire thing snapped and fell apart. The handyman came the next day and had to replace the entire thing.

Oh, and then yesterday, I pulled the blinds back up in our bedroom, and the main piece that holds them all together snapped and fell down. The handyman had to come to put it back. He said they were just cheap blinds, so it’s easy for this to happen. Well, isn’t that nice to know that we have cheap blinds in this expensive building?

I also asked the building manager to have the painter to come do a few touch ups. He told me that the paint, while technically the same color, is not the same “type,” (in other words, the new paint is cheaper because our management company is getting cheaper), so the paint may not match 100 percent. I said whatever, just touch it up anyway. It’s not like we own this place…

It’s always fun to know that while your rent is always going to go up, even in a “luxury” apartment building like this, the materials they use to put these units together is only going to get cheaper. What better way to show tenant appreciation than that?

Wheelchair/stroller accessibility

A couple of months ago, the long awaited Singaporean style hawker center finally opened here in New York. It’s called Urban Hawker, and the idea is to replicate the experience of the famous (and hygienic) hawker stall centers that are found and loved in Singapore. We went to visit and try some of the food today, and it was PACKED. It was a challenge to find a table, and we noticed many other people waiting seemingly forever to sit down with their food… to no avail. Many people left or just ate their food standing. We ate most of our food standing, but at least we had an area to set our food down on; Kaia ended up eating in a high chair Chris found hidden in a corner, and we just fed her while standing up. There are two levels of the center, and on the ground level is where all the food is. But, one thing to note is that even though it’s technically one level, to access one part of it vs. other other, you need to go up a few stairs.

Before we had a baby, this never would have phased me. I would have just seen it as a few stairs to go up and down. There are situations like this indoors all over New York, and I never thought about it much until I got pregnant and started thinking about my future, going around the city with a baby in tow. But now that we have a baby (that we are pushing around in a stroller), it made me realize how inconvenient this can be not just for parents and those with young children, but also wheelchair users and others who are not as mobile to go up and down stairs. Wouldn’t it have been just as simple to set this up with a slightly inclined ramp…?