When baby’s first word comes

Kaia is almost 11 months old, and so I figured at some point soon, she’d start attempting to say real words. I know she knows a lot of what we say just based on her reactions and facial expressions. She knows our tones, like when we don’t want her to touch certain things or go to certain areas of the apartment. When she goes into a room she knows she’s not supposed to enter, she will give a cheeky little smile and look back at us, then make a “run” for it by giggling and crawling as quickly as possible into the room. When I say her name or “Kaia Pookie,” she always looks up at me. When I say “no,” she will hesitate and try to continue what she was doing, even though she can tell I am going to carry her away in another minute. In the last week, though, it really has sounded from her frequent and louder babble that she is truly trying to say real words. I was secretly hoping her first word would be Chinese. So it wasn’t a surprise when today, for the first time, she actually waved at our nanny when she was leaving for the day, and she repeated “buh buh” multiple times while waving her hand up and down. A few hours later, I was changing her diaper and handed her one to hold onto while I was taking off her dirty one, and I said, “I’m changing your diaper now. Can you give me the clean diaper?” And she looked up at me with a huge grin on her face and said, “Dai—paa! Dai-paa!”

I did a double take and looked at her huge smiling face. Did she just say “diaper”??!! She proceeded to repeat it at least 5 or 6 times after that, and I thought, how hilarious: my baby’s first word is “DIAPER”?!

When my almost 11-month old is ravenous

The last couple of days, Kaia’s solids eating has been sporadic. She’s been drooling a lot, sticking her fingers and fists in her mouth, and exhibiting irritation due to teething. I guess from the age of about 4 months to 3, pretty much any type of annoyance or pain for a child can be attributed to teething. Upset? Teething. Not eating? Teething. Rejecting her bottle? Teething. Teething likely can cover about 95% of all grievances at this stage of development, as it’s been said that teething is the most painful thing that human beings go through.

Today, I made something new for her: Instant Pot keema with peas and potatos, made with ground turkey. Making keema with ground turkey is a bit unconventional, as it’s traditionally made with lamb, goat, or beef, but I happened to have turkey, as I originally got it since Kaia still hadn’t had any turkey yet. Plus, I figured this would be an easy way to introduce it to her, along with more Indian spices.

I originally served this to her without salt as usual, but with rice. I had quite a large helping of keema in her bowl, and I figured whatever she didn’t eat, I would just finish. But I was shocked to see that she ate the ENTIRE portion I served, which looked like an adult portion of keema! She loved it so much and kept sticking both hands into the bowl to try to self feed whatever chunks of turkey and tomato her little hands could grasp! It was the cutest thing. I wish I had recorded her doing this, but I unfortunately had both hands dirty from feeding her food. But sometimes, we just have to live in the moment. It was such a happy thing to see her really get into the food and enjoy it, barely pausing to take breaks and constantly “mmm”ing the entire time. I love watching my baby enjoy the food I make her. It is one of the best feelings.

My sweet little strawberry (and milk bottle)

I’ve never been much of a Halloween person. My parents never really cared about any holiday. I was only ever allowed to have one costume that I was supposed to wear until forever (that ended up being a crappy jack-o-lantern costume). I went trick-or-treating, but I usually disliked about 80 percent of the candy I was given. I always used to wonder why most of the candy I got from trick-or-treating was crappy — mostly things I didn’t like, such as candy corn (the WORST), Hershey’s kisses, too many tootsie rolls. I can’t even remember all the junk and what we ended up doing with all of it because we definitely didn’t eat it. But I always wanted Twix or Skittles, or the “good” stuff. I rarely got those.

Now that I have a baby, I knew I wanted to dress her up and as something edible for Halloween. I really wanted to dress her up as a mango, but alas, I couldn’t find any baby mango costume (or any mango costume for that matter). So I went for the next closest thing that was sweet (and not too expensive): a strawberry. The added bonus of this 3-part costume was that outside of Halloween, she could still wear the base pink shirt and white stockings.

Chris thought my strawberry idea was “meh” in his words. So he got her another costume that was also simple but effective: a bottle of milk, complete with a red hat with a “nipple” on top. Not only that, but there’s even a millimeters measurement on it, as we measure Kaia’s milk in milliliters and not in ounces.

Dressing up my baby as edible delights was a predictable route for me to take, but I didn’t realize we’d become THAT family that got our child more than one costume per year. 😀

Always things to buy when there’s a baby

When there’s a baby at home, there’s almost always something additional you need to buy, whether it’s more diapers, diaper cream, wipes, clothes, supplies… It feels like you’re in a never-ending cycle of constantly consuming more products. Chris just placed an order for more diapers and noted that for the same size box of diapers, quantity and size of diaper, the price has gone up about 17% since the middle of the year — seriously? All I have to say is — our salaries have definitely not gone up by that much since mid-year.

My nanny also keeps telling me that Kaia has outgrown the infant bunting bag for her stroller, and I need to upgrade and get a toddler sized one, as it’s getting colder outside, and she needs to stay warm. I’ve been stretching the infant bunting bag for as long as possible since last winter, we barely used it at all, other than to take her home from the hospital after she was born. So I finally sucked it up today and ordered a new, larger one. And to add to the list of things to buy: the nanny also suggested getting layering pieces for Kaia – short and long sleeved undershirts. But that also means she will need more sweaters and thicker clothing, especially for January and February when it will be especially chilly here in New York.

Next thing you know, she’ll be walking, and we’ll need to get her all types of different shoes, as well. And then we’ll find even more things she needs. We’re always in a state of buying more stuff now.

A new approach to shopping for groceries with baby

On average, I go to Trader Joe’s about once a week, if not a little less. And when I do, I usually have my eye out for staples that we normally eat, as well as new seasonal items that we either have tried and liked, or could try out for the first time that are temporarily available. But another thought I have that is top of mind is: what is a new food that Kaia hasn’t had yet that would be baby friendly (low or no salt) for her to eat?

This week, it ended up including: ground turkey, shiitake mushrooms, couscous, and acai puree. I also get a few things that only she eats: bell peppers (she loves these roasted), European style whole milk yogurt, and sweet potato.

I told my nanny that this is top of mind when I go to Trader Joe’s, and she laughed. “Kaia has no idea how good she has it! She had…. *only* 7 things to eat for her lunch today! What a life!”

Shishito pepper for baby

“Are you CRAZY?! Do you want me to call child protective services on you?!”

My nanny was going a little ballistic at me this afternoon when I told her that as part of her dinner, I’d add some shishito peppers to Kaia’s plate. I would pan fry them on the stove until blistered, then slice them in half. I’d test a half of each and then give her the other half to ensure they weren’t hot. With shishito peppers, there’s always a bit of a “surprise” element: you never know if you will get one that is mild to plain, medium heat, or HOT. I’ve been eating these tiny peppers for years, and while the vast majority have had no heat, a handful have had mild heat, and maybe one or two ever were actually spicy hot. Our nanny had never had shishito peppers, and she seemed wary when I described them to her. She thought it seemed a bit suspect that it was not predictable whether they’d be hot or not hot at all; she’d never heard of these peppers before. So I cooked them, then offered her some. She tried and said she liked them. Plus, neither of the ones she had were hot, so she seemed more open to having Kaia eat them for the first time.

“This is a very different house,” our nanny declared. “Kaia has quite the life!”

192nd food tried will now be shishito pepper. She’s doing pretty well at 10.5 months of age for variety.

When baby becomes more communicative

Kaia is getting more expressive and communicative by day. Granted, we could tell from when she was very young when she was happy vs. sad, hungry vs. tired. But now, we can tell even more. I always know when she is coming — the sound of her hands eagerly slapping the hardwood floor as she is crawling towards me, usually in the kitchen or bedroom, always makes me feel happy. I can usually tell her mood depending on how quickly she is crawling and smacking her hands on the floor: when she is slowly slapping the floor, she is cautious and a bit pensive; when she is a little woman on a mission, she slaps the floor quickly and forcefully as she charges forward, usually while babbling away at the same time (and usually trying to go after something she knows I want her to stay away from, like the bug glue trap..). When she wants to be held, she signals that by staring up with eager, happy, or puppy eyes, and then raises her arms towards you, hoping you will oblige.

Usually when that happens, I am pumping. So yeah, pumping still sucks and takes up a lot of my life. Even though I pump only four times a day now vs. 7 in the beginning, I’m connected to a pump for an hour each time, so that’s four hours every single day; that’s like a part-time job in itself. And most of the time because there’s always so much to do, I have to multi-task. But I can’t multi-task by pumping and holding her. So I always feel a little sad when I cannot indulge her while pumping by picking her up. It’s another limitation that is annoying. And this week, I’m also not supposed to be picking her up since I got the steroid shot in my right wrist, so when I do pick her up, the weight has to be in my left arm/hand. So I always end up being a bit of a let down to her, as she probably sits there with her arms reaching out, wondering why mommy is not picking her up…?!

I just love being able to see her be more communicative. And at some point, when she does start walking sometime soon, I know I will miss the happy sound of her eager, purposeful hands slapping and smacking the hardwood floor while crawling on her little missions.

How quickly they grow out of clothes

The nanny was excited to see all of Kaia’s new clothes, both clothes I’d recently purchased as well as gifts that I finally pulled out of the drawers to have washed, as she finally fits a lot of these now. She looked at a number of the clothes labeled as “12 months” in size and held them against Kaia.

“12 months?! You may only get 1-2 wears out of some of these NOW, and she’s 10 months now!” the nanny exclaimed.

That’s funny to think about. When my baby was born, she was so small that she didn’t even fit her newborn clothes. I felt a little worried about it, but in the end, she grew well and gained weight at a healthy rate. And well… the upside of having a small baby is that they get more wears out of all their newborn to 0-3 month clothes! Amazingly, some of the Australian clothes she was gifted that are 0-3 months she still manages to fit!!!! These things run big and are stretchy!

Auria’s Malaysian Kitchen – curry spice blend to the rescue

Since Kaia’s birth, although I have still enjoyed cooking, I have also been focused on making things that require less effort and time for obvious reasons. Time is limited when you are not only a new mother but also an exclusive pumper and working full time, so while I want tasty, homemade food, I can’t spend all weekend cooking anymore.

Auria’s Malaysian Kitchen has been quite the God-send during this time. I’ve used her spice blend packets more times than I can remember since Kaia was born, and the latest way I’ve used it is through a method she recently posted on her Instagram reels: instead of using the curry spice blend to make a curry like stew per se, she uses the blend with a little salt and yogurt to coat chicken thighs, then pan fries them on the stove until cooked through. Instead of tending to cooking the meat on the stove, after an overnight marinade with the spices and yogurt, I roasted them in the oven at 425 F for 20 minutes, and then blasted them under the broiler for an additional 4 minutes for some color per her message to me. And it worked out perfectly: the meat was cooked through and still juicy, and it was super flavorful!

I decided to let Kaia have some, too. Even though it does have a little brown sugar, I figured that a little sugar in the overall packet wouldn’t be too much for her. In addition, her portion would be so small. Plus, she’s getting closer to 1 year, so no point in being super insane about avoiding sugar now. I just didn’t add any salt to her chicken thigh. I had her nanny try the chicken beforehand, and while she enjoyed it, she said she thought it might be too spicy for Kaia. At her 5pm feed today, the chicken was the first thing she had… and not only did she accept and eat it, but she didn’t even cry for yogurt or water the way she has done in the past when given really spicy foods! She happily babbled throughout and ate her roasted curried chicken.

“What have you done to your baby?!” the nanny exclaimed, in total shock and awe.

I’m so proud of my little baby, embracing spice and heat.

Postpartum hair loss – not the kind you think

When I reached about five months postpartum, every shower when I’d wash my hair, I would dread. Because then, I was losing clumps and clumps of hair each time I tried to comb. And it was miserable. I was wondering if I’d start developing bald spots. Luckily for me, I did not, and since I already have very fine hair, it wasn’t that noticeable. Now that Kaia is older and far more aware of her surroundings, she’s also very interested… in literally everything. She pulls on her nanny’s necklaces and earrings. She pulls at my ears and nose, tries to put her fingers in my mouth, and occasionally tries to touch my eyeballs. And the most painful thing she does? She tries to pull my hair constantly. I only have my hair down on days I wash it, so on those days… she goes crazy and tries to get as many handfuls of my hair as possible. And on the other days when I have it pulled into a pony tail or bun, she still manages to pull the loose or baby strands and tug until they come out. At one time, she’s gotten as much as five strands of hair pulled out.

Yep, this is what it is to have a rapidly growing and curious baby.