At 18 months of age, Kaia is extremely verbal. We’ve been excited to hear her constantly say new words and match words to objects or actions. I’ve been curious to understand at what age children are able to differentiate what language they are speaking or is being spoken, and how they are able to map that out in their minds. So far for her Chinese, most regularly, she says “xi shou” for “wash hands.” She’s also said “xi fa” for wash hair, and “mian” for noodles. I know she also associates “shui jiao” with “sleep” because she always whines and whinges whenever I say it around bedtime, then tries to make a beeline out of her bedroom. But for other things, I’m not always sure.

This morning, I was giving her breakfast, and the final part of it was sliced red grapes. I held up a bunch of grapes and asked her, “Kaia, what’s this?” She immediately smiled and responded, “Pu tao, pu tao.” In that moment, Chris’s mom got confused and asked, what is she saying? But I knew exactly what she said and just felt so damn proud. I felt like my whole body lit up.

“Pu tao! YES, BABY! That’s right! Pu tao! That’s ‘grape’ in Chinese!” I exclaimed, excitedly.

I was a bit worried when she started daycare because they always sing English songs, and it was very clear that she preferred her English songs to the Chinese nursery rhymes I’d sing her. She used to know a couple of the Chinese song verses and sing them, and even our ex-nanny noticed this. But once daycare started, she stopped, so I wasn’t sure if she’d even want to sing the Chinese songs anymore. But with this single act of saying “pu tao,” that worry got put to rest, and my hope for her continuing to learn Chinese was reignited.

I got lucky in endless ways with my baby: Kaia is growing into a sweet, affectionate little toddler. Not only does she happily kiss or lean her face in when you ask for a kiss in English or Mandarin, but she also readily asks for hugs. One day, she was just walking around our living room, came up to me, and said “Hug?” And immediately threw her arms around me and hugged me. It was so sweet that I nearly melted into a puddle.

She’s also understanding a lot more of what we’re saying. A couple weeks ago, while reading one of her favorite books, Bluey at the Beach, when we come to one of the end scenes where Bluey finds her mum out of nowhere, and they both embrace, Kaia loves to blow me kisses and hug me when this happens, and she either starts saying “Hug! Hug!” or “Muah! Muah!” It’s so heartwarming that sometimes, I just want to freeze time and play the scene over and over again.

This morning, I cut up a bunch of Kesar mangoes that Chris ordered online through Say Weee, but a lot of them were a bit too ripe to eat as whole pieces. So he suggested we turn them into a lassi. Well, I did this, and while we both enjoyed them, Kaia did not. She took one look at the small cup I prepared for her, shook her head, and said “no!” in her usual high-pitched voice, ending in a higher pitch as though she were asking a question. After repeat attempts to show it to her and have her watch us drink it, she still refused and got no FOMO from it. She just kept rejecting it. So in the end, I just drank her small portion and let it go.

Kaia has embraced pretty much every fish we’ve ever introduced to her, so we thought it would be a no brainer to give her some of the white fish jook/congee we had leftover from dinner last night. Well, she initially refused it and fought it. But after watching me eat a few spoonfuls and make “mmmmm” sounds, she finally agreed to have one bite. Then, she ended up eating all the remaining fish in the bowl, as well as all the jook.

Toddler selectivity is definitely at play here. I know for a fact she would enjoy the mango lassi, as she’s had it before after she watched me have it and gobbled it up. Sometimes, I think she just refuses for the sake of refusing. It gets tiring and definitely tests my patience, but I am still not willing to give up on introducing new/different things to her. I recently gave her some apricot, which she also repeatedly refused, though she was absolutely obsessed with them this time last year. The problem with a lot of foods she’s had and loved before is that they are seasonal, so it’s not like she can have year-round access to them. So this ends up becoming a challenge to “re-introduce” these same foods to her.

Every day, Kaia is learning even more things and becoming more aware. When she wants to go outside, she either says “shoes” or “jacky” (jacket), grabs her jacket and/or shoes, and demands to go out while saying “outside!” When I’ve come to pick her up from school each early evening, when we get into the elevator in our building, she now says “nineteen,” as when we’ve been in the elevator with others, others will ask what floor we are on to press the button for us. Next, she will ask for “keys?” She anticipates a lot more now.

This is a good and bad thing. When she sees her saline nose spray or Frida nose sucker, or the toothbrush, or hears me say “brush teeth,” she immediately starts squirming to run away or yells. She also is NOT a fan of getting her hair combed, or of having me do her hair each morning.

She also has recognized when we have replaced one word for another. After she started recognizing that “paci” referred to her pacifier, she kept repeating the word. I changed the name to “dummy” when I’d refer to it to Chris, but she quickly recognized that dummy = paci, so she’d say both words. My baby is getting too smart for us.

Since Kaia has been sick and teething on and off since starting daycare, it’s been even more challenging to keep her in her (open) crib bed throughout the night. We finally replaced our twin-sized air mattress that got a hole in it in the last week and got a queen-sized air mattress, which we covered with a fitted sheet and added a pillow to. Kaia loves her bed space; she also still has her separation anxiety, as when she sees us lying on the bed beside the crib mattress, she refuses to stay on the crib and insists on rolling over onto the air mattress where we are. Somehow, miraculously, she slept the entire night last night on the crib mattress and the air mattress. Chris found her asleep this morning — just past the crib bumper and on the air mattress, sleeping comfortably head down, with her butt high in the air — her usual comfortable, happy sleeping position. She is likely one of the only almost 18-month olds who has THIS much bed space all to herself. My silly Kaia Pookie.

Ever since I became pregnant, I have been served endless child/parenting related memes and posts on social media. One of the most recent ones that I remembered and chuckled out loud at went something along the lines of:

“My child is the most precious thing in the world to me.

I can’t wait until 7pm (their bedtime).”

It reminded me of one of our friends who has twin girls who recently turned 4 years old. Ever since we can remember, he’s constantly made comments about how he wishes he could be a stay-at-home dad, that it would truly be the best job for him, in an ideal world. His full-time work schedule is Sunday through Thursday, so he’s off on Fridays and Saturdays. His wife works Monday through Friday. From Monday through Thursday, his in-laws care for the twins full time. So on Friday, that’s his full-time dad duty day. Keeping this in mind, he’s also made this comment given they will be starting preschool this fall, “I cannot fucking wait until the girls start preschool because it means I will have Friday ALL TO MYSELF – sleep in, play video games, and do whatever the fuck I want and be free of them!”

So, I think the above meme sums up exactly how he feels. And how a lot of us parents of young children likely feel.

When I was setting up Kaia’s bath this evening, I realized that given her size and length now, she really doesn’t even need her seat anymore. First, we started her as a tiny newborn in the newborn sling; then we detached it and had her sit up in the bathtub seat at around 4 months. And now, at almost 18 months, she’s graduated and no longer needs the seat. We probably could have nixed the seat earlier, but I just got used to the habit of having it, really. So we bid farewell to the seat today and I detached it from her baby bathtub. Soon, she will no longer even need the baby bath tub and will be able to bathe comfortably and slip free in the regular bath tub. Recently, she’s also gotten frustrated with having water dunked over her head, so lots of interesting developments as she gets older.

Kaia has not been happy. She has some side front teeth coming out, and surprise surprise: the pain seems to be the worst, even worse than her molars. With her molars, I was actually quite surprised that four popped out in her mouth with very little fussing or noticeable pain from her. With these two side front teeth, she’s so upset that she’s barely eaten anything over the last day, even her usual favorites. Even bread hurts her; she took a few bites and screamed.

Chris didn’t think it would be fun or productive to go out and about with her today, so we decided to stay home and let her rest. We walked around the building and in the common areas. I made some apple sauce, banana, and chia seed (ABC) cookies for her, which she ate four of in one go, so at least that was a hit. But we ended up not really leaving the building at all today, which is strange for us on a Saturday. Hopefully, she will be better tomorrow to go out.

Earlier this week when we brought Kaia home from daycare, she was wearing a diaper we did not recognize — with an Elmo design on it. I didn’t think much of it; I figured the teachers got the diapers mixed up once, and I let it go. But then today, she came home with a Target brand diaper (which we buy), but it was a size 3; that’s two sizes smaller than the diaper she typically wears. Plus, it was super tight on her. After changing, I realized she had a bit of a rash on her butt, and I started applying some diaper rash cream. All rashes are inevitably going to be uncomfortable, but a diaper rash is worse because given the fact that this area is always covered with a diaper other than during diaper changes and baths, it has no time or “air” to breathe and be free, which makes it even more susceptible to getting worse over time.

I was willing to let it go with the first diaper, but with the second diaper, I was definitely annoyed… not just because it was someone else’s diaper, but because the diaper was just too small. And who knows – maybe that small diaper is what ultimately caused Kaia’s rash? It would be hard to prove, but she has never before had any type of diaper rash, not even a small one. Also, this would mean that Kaia’s diapers are likely being used on someone else! So I sent a note to the teachers to address the problem. Whatever their response will be, I know for sure it will not just simply be a scowl or death stare that assumes zero accountability the way I used to get for even the most benign feedback from our ex-nanny.