Vocabulary explosion at 15-months

In the last week, Kaia’s new words have just exploded. I was already having a hard time keeping track of all the words, but just in the last week, it’s gotten a bit out of control in a good way.

I keep a cup of water for myself by my bedside table each night, and I’ve also kept Kaia’s water cup on the same stand. Yesterday, she started charging toward the table to grab my phone, and I called out, “Pooks, watch out!” She looked at me and giggled, responding, “Watch out!”

She’s said, “oh no,” and “no, no, no!” more times than I can count. She points at her pacifier and yells out “paci!” She goes into her sock drawer, pulling all the socks out, yelling “socks!” over and over again. She pointed at my bowl of dinner and repeated “rice” many times. She knows what beets are and how to say them. She even said “mian,” Chinese for “noodles” multiple times, and said “xi shou,” Chinese for washing hands, when I brought her to the sink to wash up. When she occasionally tries to throw food off her tray and our nanny wags her finger at her to admonish her, Kaia giggles and yells back, “oh, no, no, no, no!” She says “e i e i o” after the “Old McDonald Had a Farm” song, almost at the right pitch. And she also sings the first part of the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” song — “Up above (the world so high).” When we practice walking together, and I say “up, up, up!” she repeats after me. She also loves to yell, “go!” And of course, she is never shy about asking for “more?” when it comes to her very favorite foods.

My chatty baby is learning so much and is a human sponge. I can’t even properly express in words how proud and happy it makes me. Sometimes, I look at her face, and I can’t believe how freaking lucky I got.

Children’s Museum and the cost of giving one’s child a well rounded cultural experience in New York City

A friend who has young children recently told me about the Children’s Museum on the Upper West Side. It’s on 83rd and Amsterdam, so about 23 blocks north of where we live, and he said it would be a great place to consider getting a membership for once Kaia was a little older (walking age). He said most of the activities would be fun for children once they can walk and run around, so I figured I would wait until Kaia was walking confidently. The reason to consider getting the annual membership ($275) is that the admission fee, even for babies, is pretty steep: it’s $16 per person, regardless of age. So even if you took your 6-month old here, they would still be charged the SAME admission as you, an adult. That means every time a parent/caregiver were to bring their baby, it would be $32 each visit, which really adds up if you are planning to go often! The annual membership covers admission for two adults and up to four children each time, assuming you either had multiple kids, or wanted to bring other kids as play dates.

I had posted multiple times in several local parent groups asking about free activities for babies and young toddlers, and the only thing that seemed to come up was Story Time at the local library. Everything else cost… a lot of money per activity, at least $35-45 per 45-minute session of anything, whether that was music class, gymnastics, or swimming. Apparently this season, Story Time has been cancelled. In the early winter, it was so competitive to get a spot because parents and caregivers would line up about TWO hours ahead of the scheduled Story Time event, and because it was held indoors in the library, they had a head count cut-off given COVID and potential illnesses. It’s frustrating to know that we live in a city where we pay really high taxes, yet I cannot seem to get anything “free” to do for Kaia during the day and still have to pay even more. Everything seems to cost hundreds of dollars on end. The music class I am considering signing her up for is $35/session and asks that to lock in that rate, you pay for a whole “season” up front, so 13 classes. But if you want to do a la carte, it will cost $45-50 per class. That’s an ouchie, isn’t it, especially spending on your child who is so young that they won’t even remember you ever did this for them?

The city and country (if not world) we live in is a world of haves and have nots. You either have money to do these things, or you do not. I could do what my parents did for Ed and me…. and sign my child up for literally no activities, no extracurricular anything, and make my child think we’re just poor. But, well, I’m not planning to repeat the mistakes of my parents.

Crib railing comes down

Over the weekend, Chris took down the front railing on the crib and blew up an air mattress to place right by the crib. Given that it’s been about two months of Kaia avoiding her crib and refusing to sleep in it, meaning she has to co-sleep with us, I decided we really need to start cracking down on this. On Saturday, we successfully got her to nap on the air mattress and even sleep on it for about 2.5 hours at night. On Sunday, Chris got her to sleep on the actual crib mattress for about 1.5 hours. These are all baby steps, but steps in the right direction of getting her to sleep independently. On Sunday, I tried to have her nap on the crib mattress, but she wouldn’t fall asleep or get comfortable unless she was on the SAME mattress I was on. She was happy to go up and down from one mattress to the other to the floor and play, though. So it seems her aversion for the crib is dying down. This is really about addressing separation anxiety and just comfort with this room in general.

The things parents go through during their children’s development — it’s like every single day, I gain more and more respect for people who choose to become parents. Being a parent definitely gives you a perspective you’d never quite understand until you became one. And no, being a dog or cat parent is just not the same.

The Montessori method gone awry?

Ever since I became pregnant, pretty much everywhere I looked, I see the Montessori method of child-rearing mentioned. Toy companies trying to market more aggressively label their toys “Montessori” to increase their perceived value (and price). Everyone talks about encouraging children to be their own independent selves, and the way to do that is to have the child “lead,” whether that’s through baby-led weaning (which is inherently “Montessori”), skipping a sippy cup and going directly to straws and open cups; and having children choose their activities vs. having the parents push activities on the children.

In a nutshell, the Montessori method has five principles:

  1. Respect for the child
  2. The absorbent mind
  3. Sensitive periods
  4. The prepared environment
  5. Auto education

What this all means is: education should revolve around “child-led activities” versus “work.” Even without seeing the label of “Montessori,” I’m already very pro Montessori concepts like baby-led weaning, like skipping a sippy cup in favor of a straw or open cup drinking, like encouraging Kaia to problem solve instead of fixing all her problems for her. But at some point, the Montessori method really does go too far, and when I say “too far,” what I mean is this:

I recently got suggested a Montessori parenting handle on Instagram where the mother had a somewhat radical idea when it came to feeding babies. She suggested that instead of giving babies and young toddlers metal, plastic, or silicone plates, bowls, and cups to instead give them ceramic dishes and ceramic or glass drinking cups. The idea behind this is that if you allow the baby to throw or drop a glass or ceramic cup/plate, the mere scary sound of the crash/shattering would be so startling to the child that they would immediately re-think ever throwing or intentionally/accidentally dropping a plate/cup ever again. That way, we “respect” the child by allowing them to do what they want, and at the same time, they come to realize on their own through these loud sounds that throwing/dropping is wrong, and to never do it again. And — that’s ultimately a Montessori approach to feeding young children and teaching them that plates/cups stay on the table!

Ummmm, no. No, no, and no. I’m not going to spend endless money on replacing glass cups and ceramic plates just to do the “Montessori” method of feeding. No, I don’t want to further add to the world’s landfill. And no, I don’t want to constantly clean and sweep up broken glass and ceramics, I don’t want to expect Chris or my nanny to do that, and I especially do not want to risk Kaia getting punctured or injured in the process. Sometimes, these suggestions are truly just beyond stupid. Those who are constantly obsessing over whether they are truly following the “Montessori” or any other method need to get a grip of themselves, calm down, step back, and just be in reality for a second. There’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch because you’re not the perfect parent; no one is, and no one ever will be!

Kaia learns to drink with an open cup

A lot of people asked if I was planning to get Kaia a sippy cup. Many people just assumed this, including our nanny and parents on both sides. For the longest time, sippy cups were the “normal” thing to introduce babies to after they weaned off the bottle or breast. But the more I read about sippy cups, the more I realized that getting Kaia to learn to drink from one would allow her to gain no real long-term skills. The real skills she needed to learn from 6 months onward when it comes to drinking fluids is drinking through a straw and open cup. She mastered a straw after just a few tries. An open cup has certainly been more challenging, but she does seem to understand the mechanics more or less. We do still expect a number of spills, so to conserve things like soup or milk, we have her practice with water.

The cutest thing happened today while I was encouraging her to tilt her cup more. She was being a little conservative, and she wasn’t tilting her cup enough. So I kept repeating gently, over and over, “Tilt it more, Pooks! Tilt it just a little more! You can do it! Tilt it!”

Out of nowhere, she looked me in the eye and exclaimed, “I know!” in response. Chris stopped what he was doing and looked up, and I looked at him in shock.

Did she actually just know what she said? It’s unclear. But what is clear is… I know for a fact that I’ve got a very, very cheeky Kaia Pookie on my hands.

Thit kho and baby’s first pork ribs

It’s been at least 3-4 years since I last made thit kho — Vietnamese braised caramelized pork with eggs. The last time I made it, it was for a Lunar New Year friends’ gathering at home in our last apartment, and I remember using my Instant Pot to make this traditional Vietnamese new year dish, as well as using pork belly, which is traditional. This time, I got the idea from a food blogger I follow to use baby back pork ribs instead since pork ribs are quite a bit leaner than pork belly. Plus, with just two adults and a baby to feed, I really didn’t want to have that much pork belly in the house. So I waited for pork ribs to go on sale at Whole Foods before making this dish. I used my dutch oven to make it and braised it for just over two hours over the stove. It came together really easily with just a handful of ingredients. I also used two bottles of Harmless Harvest coconut water, so we can be certain the coconut juice requirement is legitimate and tasty. As soon as I tasted the braising liquid after a couple hours, I knew the flavor was right. I also knew Kaia Pookie would really enjoy these. Ribs are a great food for babies to eat because it provides chewing/gnawing skills, which help babies understand the “map” of their mouth. And since Kaia’s chewing and tearing skills are already so mature, I knew she’d enjoy the taste as well as the pure act of eating these.

Well, I was right. After dinner last night, our nanny reported that Kaia pretty much cleaned off her entire dinner plate; she gnawed every last bit of meat off both of her rib bones; she loved the ribs so much that when she realized she was done and had no more to eat, she started crying.

That made me so proud: my baby is appreciating traditional, authentic Vietnamese flavors, and at the same time, she’s also respecting her meat enough to get every last bit off the bones. That’s a good baby right there.

Baby shoes – how the hell do you figure out the fit?

The nanny suggested that we get Kaia shoes so that they could practice walking outside. In all the sources I’d read, they all said that babies don’t need shoes until they are walking. They are much better off learning to walk on their bare feet, no footies, no socks, to properly grip and understand their feet indoors. So buying shoes wasn’t high on my list since Kaia had only been cruising along furniture. But I thought, well, maybe shoes at the playground would be helpful, so I picked out a few pairs on Amazon and had them sent. The sizing is by age range (12-18 months), and one brand said they ran large, so I got two pairs that are 12-18 months, and another pair that was 8-12 months.

Well, they arrived today. And all three are way too big. What are we supposed to do now, get custom fitted shoes??

Approaching nearly two months of staying away from her crib

I thought that Kaia not sleeping in her crib would just be a temporary thing, that eventually she’d go back to her crib within a month of coming back from Australia. Unfortunately, we’re almost approaching two months of her sleeping on our bed between us. Everyone keeps suggesting to just move her back into her crib after she’s fallen asleep; well, unfortunately, we’ve tried that too many times, and it’s always failed. As soon as she feels she’s being moved, she opens her eyes, looks around, and then screams bloody murder. She can barely go 3 minutes without going ballistic.

Maybe I should be more firm about the “cry it out” method at this point, but I’m a softie with her. I hate hearing her cry for too long, and the idea that she’s going to cry so much that she will vomit really bothers me. Plus, I’d be lying if I said I did not enjoy waking up to her little face right there on the bed. I like hearing her babble as soon as I wake up, and sometimes, I even like her trying to sit and roll all over me before I’ve woken up. This time is all finite, as they always say. It won’t last forever, so I’ll just enjoy it as long as it lasts.

The magic of Ms. Rachel

A number of mothers have let me know the magic that Ms. Rachel from YouTube has worked on their young babies. Ms. Rachel has encouraged babies to clap, make hand signals, wave byeybye, and say words and phrases. There’s a lot of skepticism around whether any of this is actually effective, but I’d say that if it gets your baby to actually say and do new things that they hadn’t done before, then it’s a win. I’m careful with how much I let Kaia play with our phones and be exposed to screens, so I don’t want her watching anything endlessly. So over the last two days, I let her watch Ms. Rachel three times, in 10-minute increments. She seems to light up and giggle a bit when she sees Ms. Rachel’s face and hears her really high pitched voice. During just 30 minutes of watching Ms. Rachel, Kaia had already repeated “keys,” “got it,” and tried to do different finger movements to follow Ms. Rachel as she sang and used her fingers to show “itsy bitsy spider.” Very quickly, I was impressed and in slight awe. This was really working!

1st time being separated from baby

This Denver work trip was the very first time I was separated from Kaia overnight since she was born. It really wasn’t a long work trip at all — I left mid-morning on Wednesday and arrived back in the wee hours of Saturday morning, so she got to see me again when she woke up on Saturday at around 6:30am. It’s always been unclear whether Kaia actually recognizes that someone is missing or gone. When Chris went away on three separate work trips, once just overnight in Australia, she didn’t seem fazed at all. When she got separated from our nanny multiple times, she didn’t seem to care (other than crying when the nanny came back after her two-week long Jamaica trip). But it did make me happy when she woke up on our bed on Saturday morning, and she said repeatedly, “mama” and “mummy.” I hope she was happy to see me again, as she was quite smiley.

I didn’t really mind being away from her the first night or the second night, but by the time Friday came around, I did miss her and want to play with her again. While at the airport, I started watching videos of her on my phone just to see her and hear her sweet little voice. These times really do fly by, and I want to soak it up as much as I can while she is this little and actually wants to spend time with me. I missed my little Pookster and was happy to be reunited with her again.