I was asked a few times if I felt relaxed during this trip to Australia, and my immediate answer every single time has been “no.” It’s not that I don’t like being here. I love being here in the Southern hemisphere summer. I love exploring new areas, going to new places, eating different things. I like spending time with Chris’s parents and the rest of his family (at least, most of the rest of his family). But given I have still been working East Coast US hours and am also in full-time childcare mode, it hasn’t been that relaxing. Back in New York, I used to rely on the nanny five days a week to do Kaia’s solid feeds 3 times per day, most of her diaper changes, and her baths two out of three times a week. Now, I do all her baths, a lot of her diaper changes, and the majority of her solid feeds. And while the nanny had the controlled environment of a high chair in our own home, I’ve had to deal with her solid food eating in the company of many family members, plus at endless restaurants, which means… distraction, distraction, distraction.

Chris’s brother commented on the amount of food she was eating and said, “That’s going to take at least 45 minutes to an hour for her to get through!” He was in shock.

And I said, “Um, yes. She usually eats for 45 to an hour at home. And that doesn’t include the time to prepare the food and warm it up, set her up in the high chair, clean her up after, and then clean all the dishes, the tray, and everything she got all over the splat mat and floor after.”

“No wonder you say you don’t have any time to yourself on the weekends at home!” his brother lamented. “Once you finish feeding her and cleaning her up, she’s ready to eat AGAIN!”

She can’t self feed as much outside because Chris doesn’t approve of the mess that she makes (well, she’s a baby? She doesn’t know how to eat cleanly or with cutlery yet!). And while eating out is occasionally fun with her, after a while, it gets a bit wearing, and it makes me empathize with parents who just kind of give up and eat at home most of the time and don’t go anywhere. Do I agree with their choice to be boring and not go anywhere or let their young children experience new places and things? No. But I get why they would be totally exhausted and just avoid it as much as possible because I’m exhausted.

“There is no such thing as a real vacation if your baby is with you,” said one of my mom friends.

She isn’t totally wrong.

For the most part, I think Chris’s family is pretty “normal” and friendly, the kind of family where people in general get along with some quirks and little tensions here and there. But I always sense that there’s a bit more rigidity and formality among relatives on his mom’s side. She has one of her two sisters who lives in Melbourne, and she and her husband came late (i.e. AFTER the party ended yesterday) for Kaia’s birthday party. They arrived just past 6pm. When she came in, I heard her telling Chris’s mom:

“Tony said that you told everyone the party was from 1-6pm and to come any time, but you told me to come between 3-6!” she exclaimed, sounding slightly exasperated and annoyed.

Chris’s mom: Well, CJ wanted it casual and just wanted to give a big window for people to come and go.

I don’t get that response, but either way….

Regardless, if someone tells you that a party is happening from 1-6 OR 3-6, and to come any time in between, doesn’t that mean that the END time is 6pm, so why the hell would you come at 6pm and get mad?

I hadn’t seen this aunt and uncle in three years. Granted, they are not my favorite people to see, but I’m always friendly when I do see them. As soon as they walked in, his aunt came to give me a hug, and I said, “It’s so nice to finally see you again after three years!”

Her response? “It’s so nice to finally see you as parents! What took you so long?”

If I weren’t polite and just wanted to be blunt, I would have said, “A lot of things… other priorities, career, fertility problems, IVF, but hey, who’s keeping track?” but instead I just brushed it off and ignored it. That sounded like a comment I’d get from one of my rude Chinese or Vietnamese relatives, but instead, it’s coming from Chris’s aunt, who thinks that all children owe their parents grandchildren as some sort of debt to be paid.

Her youngest son came a bit afterwards, and he not only has not had children, but isn’t married, which she clearly is not thrilled about. They have an older son who recently got married, but no kids yet. Chris’s aunt started ranting about her lack of grandchildren.

“All of my sisters have grandchildren now, and I don’t!” she complained. “Tom, when are you going to give us a grandchild?”

Tom looked around helplessly and then uttered his older brother’s name, implying, why isn’t the focus on him?

“Well, he’s not here now, so that’s why we’re focusing on YOU now!” his mom insisted.

The thing about comments like this is…. maybe it’s frustrating for Tom because he wishes he had a life partner and kids. Or maybe he doesn’t care. And regardless, why did he have to get the third degree from his mother in front of the rest of us to witness? It’s so rude. And when I was trying to conceive and getting stupid, senseless comments like this, these comments pissed me off, but a more sensitive version of myself would have been really hurt. People of their generation don’t seem to understand that people don’t just get married just like that. They don’t get pregnant right away just trying once or twice, or even a hundred times thanks to increasing levels of sub fertility across both men and women in all age groups. And for a lot of people, maybe they don’t care to get married or have kids. And we should respect our children for the people they actually are, not who we want them to be for ourselves.

When I was little, I didn’t really ask for much when it was my birthday. But for a few years, all I wanted were helium filled balloons. I was obsessed with them when I saw them at events and outside, and I really wanted them for my own birthday. They looked so magical, floating in the air and making the room they were in seem so festive and fun. My parents didn’t understand what the difference was between helium filled balloons and balloons just filled with air, so they blew up some balloons for me on their own and stuck them on the wall. They said helium was not a possibility (they probably had no idea party supply stores existed for this sole reason, but hey, they didn’t know any better, and/or they just didn’t want to spend the money on this or make the effort). I still remember when they first did this: it was my 5th birthday, and I thought the non-helium balloons were really pathetic. I didn’t understand how helium worked, so I kept on trying to throw them in the air, hoping they would float. Well, they never did. I was actually deflated myself.

So when my friend suggested balloons/party supplies for Kaia’s birthday, I suddenly remembered this and thought, I could live vicariously through my baby and get her a couple balloon arrangements for her birthday! My friend suggested going to Lombard’s nearby, so Chris and I stopped by there today, and I picked out a silver “1” balloon, plus two 13-balloon tiered arrangements of pale pink and pearl colored balloons to create a happy birthday vibe for tomorrow. It would frame the cake when we cut it and create a beautiful backdrop. And with the exchange rate, the amount I paid for these balloons actually didn’t seem so bad!

And yes, let’s be real: when kids are very young, their birthdays are not really about them: they are about the parents and the caregivers throwing the parties. So I was very well aware these balloons were really for me, but hey, they look fun and cheerful, they would make for great photos, and Kaia will be able to look back on these when she’s older and see what efforts we all went to ensure she had a fun and beautiful first birthday party at her Suma and Topa’s beautiful home.

Every time we are traveling to and from Melbourne, one of the things I secretly look forward to is Chris’s dad tracking our flight. And when I say “tracking our flight,” I do not just mean tracking the flight path and ensuring on time arrivals, etc. I mean, tracking our journey literally door to door: checking in with us at the approximate time he thinks we’d be leaving to head to the airport; asking about the lounge experience at JFK; asking about boarding/luggage/the related at check-in; inquiring about the in-flight experience from JFK to LAX. Then, he will text us via Whatsapp to ask how it all went, how connecting at Tom Bradley went. He will ask about what we ate in flight, what we might be nibbling and sipping at the Qantas First Lounge at Tom Bradley Terminal. He’ll check the exact flight and plane we’re on via ExpertFlyer and see how many empty seats there are, if any, and give commentary on whether it will be cramped or spacious. He’ll even make commentary about the direction in which we’re walking at the airport and whether it’s pleasant, circuitous, long, etc. Chris and his brother think this commentary is excessive, and in my head, I can see Chris’s brother roll his eyes and scroll pass his dad’s messages regarding this, but I absolutely love it. I love seeing these messages because his passion really comes out, and I love watching people be passionate and in their own skin, doing what they love. It’s so cute and endearing. Plus, it’s also a sign of how much Chris’s dad loves: he loves witnessing from afar the long and exciting journey his eldest son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter are taking to come home to Oz to visit him.

It’s funny how babies grow into children, and then children grow into adults. And then those adults have children, and then the cycle continues all over again. In the beginning, babies and children are100 percent dependent on their parents and caregivers for everything (and as newborns, even for lifting their necks!!!! I still can’t get over that), but then as they grow older, they become more independent to the point that they don’t even need their parents anymore. And while some people would find this fully liberating, others mourn it. They mourn not having someone to care for, not having someone who fully needs them for their survival. I’ve seen a few posts on social media about mothers mourning their baby becoming a kid, and their kid becoming an adult because once they become an adult, it’s likely they will be splitting their time across multiple commitments and loved ones, and so you will then only get a fraction of their time, if any. They yearn for those days when their babies babbled and cooed, when their babies’ eyes lit up when they came home from work or into the room. And for those children who have tumultuous relationships with their parents, they may end up choosing to spend little to no time with their parents.

Kaia is almost a year old. It’s mind-boggling to me how quickly this year passed. When I am doing my last pump of the night before bed, I frequently watch older videos of her from her newborn days, even the ones as recent as last week, and then I compare them to when she was just a few months old. I admire the super chubby cheeks she had in her 4-6-month stage and how excited she would get when I’d sing or take out Shungu the elephant for her. Her cheeks aren’t that chubby anymore, and she’s becoming more toddler like every single day, pulling herself up to stand, trying to cruise along the furniture. Her babble is sounding closer and closer to real words. It almost makes me sad. She could very well be my only baby, and so that would mean this is the only experience I will ever have having a little baby, to have and hold and care for. I keep looking at her and telling her not to grow up too fast. But I have a feeling she isn’t listening.

There was a New York Times article I recently read about the choices you make and how much time a person spends with their children, their parents, their colleagues, their chosen life partner over the course of a lifetime. And it all says the same thing: time with your parents and children are at the max when your kids are their youngest selves; as they grow older, it maxes out and eventually starts declining. And so for that, we need to cherish those times with our little ones as much as we can… because very quickly, they will not be so little anymore and will spread their wings to fly away. That’s partly why even though sometimes, I do get sad that I don’t get to go out with friends as much or read as many books or have as much time to myself as I did before my baby came, I know this is all temporary, and soon, I will get that time back. But, she won’t be this little forever, and so I want to savor every moment with her while I can, and snuggle her for as much as I can for as long as she will allow me to. I want to learn from the mistakes of my parents and not have her want to avoid me. I want her to associate me with love and acceptance. Because sadly, after the childhood I had and even the adulthood I continue to have while in my parents’ presence, I have little desire to spend more time than I already do with my own parents. It is sad, but it’s true. I don’t want to continue the intergenerational trauma. I don’t want that to be normal for me, and I certainly don’t want it to be normal for my daughter.