Shortly after Kaia was born, a sweet friend of mine sent a care package for Kaia and me. It included the book by Anne Lamott entitled Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year. I looked at the title and laughed. I decided I would read it after Kaia turned one. So I started reading it a few weeks ago, and while it is definitely over the top, neurotic, and hyperbolic, it is extremely relatable on everything from the concept of “they just send you home with a baby?” to “I hate my fucking breast pump.” It’s an easy book to read, laugh, and cry at. Anne, though a single mom by choice and a well paid writer at the time, faced a lot of her own demons before having a baby, including drug and alcohol addiction, as well as… an addition to bad men. Despite that, she had an amazing “village” she had built herself — her mom, siblings, and friends who genuinely treated her and her baby like family. It was really endearing to see how they truly gathered around her and acted as family can (and should) when a new baby arrives.

One thing that I was caught off guard by, and I guess I shouldn’t be, but I was, given the time it was written (1989) was exactly how much of a white gaze this book had. Granted, I knew going into this that this was written by a white female American writer, but it was a turnoff to me whenever she called out how her church members were black or another friend was Latino. She was eager to give them race descriptors, yet she never mentioned that other people were white; you just assumed if their race was not stated that they were white. Therefore, she basically “othered” anyone who was not white. People probably weren’t that cognizant of things like that in the 1980s, but people are hyper cognizant of them now.

A colleague of mine, who has always lived in small towns across Texas and North Carolina, recently asked me what I like the most about living in New York City. The answer was pretty easy for me: the diversity of the people and cultures, which then translates into a great diversity of food spots and restaurants that are here. It doesn’t seem to matter where you are in New York or what borough you are in, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a massive variety of foods from across the globe, right here all the time. Today, I went downtown to get my hair cut, and to make the trip worthwhile, I also decided to eat lunch down there and stop by a couple bakeries that have been on my radar. I ate Taiwanese spicy beef noodle soup for lunch; I popped into a Middle Eastern-inspired bakery and purchased a multigrain seeded sourdough loaf, a pistachio-rose croissant, mini babka, and a za’atar labne bun; then, I walked a few blocks northeast and salivated over the display of Malaysian desserts at a Malaysian bakery and bought a piece of ube kuih, pandan nian gao, ube nian gao, and a mango mousse curd dessert. And on my way to the train, I stopped into a Juice Press to get my nanny a bottle of her favorite beet, apple, lemon, and ginger cold pressed juice. That’s a lot of variety in just about 1.5 hours of walking around the same neighborhood.

Did I spend a ton of money today too easily? Yep. But do I have any regrets about it? Not really. That pistachio rose croissant is likely the best thing I’ve eaten so far in 2023, and the end piece of that seeded sourdough loaf was incredibly fragrant with the most satisfying crunch. This is why I am here.

After my nanny told me that Story Time was cancelled at the library for the winter season, I was pretty disappointed. Granted, it was already competitive to get a spot the way it was set up because they required that the caregiver come with the child to pick up a ticket at least two hours ahead of the scheduled story time hour. That’s frustrating for many reasons: 1) that’s Kaia’s eating time frame, so how the hell are we supposed to bring HER to claim a ticket during that time? and 2) pretty much every caregiver and their baby in the neighborhood is going to be waiting and fighting for the last available ticket. They only allow so many caregivers and their children given it’s indoors and the city is still very scared of COVID and spreading illness, and so it basically meant constantly failing last fall for our nanny and Kaia in getting into Story Time.

So I did some digging on the NYPL site earlier this week to find out the library has a new policy: indoor story time (until summer, when they make it outdoors) is now limited to only 15 caregivers and their children; plus, the registration needed to be done at LEAST one week in advance online. The registration would promptly open at 9am about one week before. Well, I can stomach that. Online pre-registration would be a lot easier and more comfortable than rushing to the library two hours ahead of time and fighting with other caregivers and the endless sea of strollers.

Of course, I knew I was going to do this, and I was going to fight all the other Upper West Side mothers and get a spot for my nanny and kid. So I set up calendar reminders for the next three sessions to register ASAP. There’s no way I am losing this.

Although I’ve obviously dined in the West Village more times than I can count, I have never really thought much about the fact that when I went, I rarely saw strollers in the area, especially when you compare the volume of strollers seen on the Upper West and Upper East Sides. You mostly see younger people with their partners, their friends, dining out, brunching. And then, when we went to have a late lunch at a spot known for its burgers in the area, I was reminded of why this is likely the case.

The further downtown you go, the more you realize how tight and cramped all the restaurants are. The tables are typically smaller and closer together. There are usually very narrow aisles to get from one part of the restaurant to the next. And the bathrooms are usually ridiculously small. You are lucky if there’s even a full sized sink. There is usually a half sized sink with a side faucet (always the worst because those get water EVERYWHERE), a toilet, and potentially a paper towel dispenser and/or a hand dryer, all in less than five feet of space. I am 5’3″ and about 117 lb now, and if someone MY size finds these bathrooms tiny and cramped, then I cannot even imagine what a slightly larger, wider person would think.

Right before our burgers came, Kaia was happily sitting in her high chair, and Chris noticed she smelled, so I took her diaper change items and carried her into the bathroom after I scoped it out. I had JUST enough space to change her on the floor (where else was I supposed to do it? I’ve gotten used to this across all our Saturday outings from when she was four months old onward). Of course, she had a poop. She screamed and cried, as she always does in dark, cramped bathrooms on the floor in scary New York City restaurant bathrooms. Multiple people tried to open the locked door into our bathroom. But we got through it. I brought her back to our table, and we finished lunch. And because she really wanted to get yet more poop out of her… well, she had yet another bowel movement before we left. So for the first time, I had to change her diaper, a SECOND poop diaper, at the same restaurant… ON A TINY FLOOR. At least this time, she was in a much better mood and even babbling as I put her new diaper on and washed my hands.

It would be so, so nice if restaurants were mandated to have real changing tables in their bathrooms in this city. I’d feel less miserable in situations like this, as would my baby. But then again, more space typically means a higher price for rent… which then means…. well, we’ll all pay more for our food. But it’s not like these spaces are getting bigger overall. At least she didn’t have a blowout like she did last weekend.

This time last year, I was surprised when I went to Whole Foods to see that the champagne/ataulfo mangoes from Mexico were on sale, which means they were available and plentiful. It made me excited because a) I obviously love mangoes, and b) when mangoes are in season, you know warmth is right around the corner. So Chris bought six, and then I went back to Whole Foods to look for other things and also picked up five more. So now, we have 11 mangoes sitting by our window sill, waiting to ripen and be eaten. And because our nanny also loves mangoes, she’s been looking at and monitoring our mangoes to see if they ripen and if they turn out to be any good. She reminded me that if it weren’t for working here and for me, she never would have started buying the ataulfo mangoes. She was always used to buying the Haitian mangoes, which I personally find a bit too stringy. Now, she’s addicted and prefers the ataulfos while in the U.S.

I hope Kaia enjoys them this time around. It was a bit weird that she didn’t seem too fond of any of the mango varieties other than one in Australia when we were there in December.

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!

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.

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.