Category Archives: family

Visiting friends and mom’s comparisons

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When you live in a city as exciting and cosmopolitan as New York, you inevitably will have guests and visitors come from all over the place not just to see you, but to see and experience the city. One of my friends came to visit today with her now husband, and since they were coming over to grace me with their presence, I decided that since I was still feeling good, I’d make one of her favorite childhood cookies, the snickerdoodle, and send her off with some. Unfortunately, the Serious Eats recipe did not come out as I’d hoped (immediately out of the oven and a few hours later they were good, but passed that, they didn’t retain their soft, chewiness the way snickerdoodles are supposed to.

The two of them had been engaged since 2014, around the time Chris and I got engaged, and so my mom used to always say annoying things about how at some point, they would get married, never tell me, and not invite me to the wedding. “You can’t just assume that just because you invited someone to your wedding that they will invite you to theirs,” she started. “Maybe they don’t have the money to invite you, or maybe they just don’t see you as close enough to invite to their wedding.”

I thought about these constant jabs when my friend revealed that the two of them had gotten married about two weeks ago, in her parents’ backyard with just immediate family in attendance. Great, I thought, now my mom will be smug because she was right. Though it wasn’t like some grand affair that I was just left out of as my mother would want to imagine.

Not only did they get married in the last month, but they’ve also bought a home in the Bay Area. Talk about a double whammy in just one month.

I told my mom this later in the evening, which excited her to no end. She wants all my friends (at least, the ones she knows) to get married, have kids, and “settle down.” “Did you know that she’s your prettiest friend? I used to think (insert another friend’s name) was the prettiest. But no, SHE is the prettiest of them all!”

Yes, because I rank all my friends by how good looking they are. My mother really cannot help herself from comparing, as comparing people is one of her absolute favorite things to do, which annoys me to no end. Why can’t someone just be pretty or smart and that’s it? Why do they always need to be compared to someone else….?!

Baby’s head low in pelvis

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I was at my OB’s office yesterday for my 38-week appointment, where we did a high level ultrasound and she informed me that the baby’s head is very low in my pelvis.

“That means that she’s ready!” my doctor exclaimed, smiling wide and getting excited. “I estimate that based on her position, she could really come anytime in the next week. You have our emergency number on your phone, right?”

Anytime in the next week? WHAT? I was both filled with excitement and terror all at once. Pookie Bear is ready to come out and discover the world? I guess I really shouldn’t have been surprised given that I’m already at 38 weeks, and babies being born about a week or so early is pretty normal and healthy since it’s not like they have a calendar that says, “it’s 40 weeks — time to GET OUT!”

So what did I do, the crazy overdrive person who can’t keep still and is obsessed with productivity? On the way home, I stopped by Whole Foods and purchased a 3-lb container of rolled oats to start making lactation cookie dough balls to get ready for the freezer. I already picked up ground flaxseed and brewer’s yeast the week before, so I had all the core ingredients to make up the “lactation” part of this cookie dough.

I told Chris about what the doctor said, and today, I knew he was on edge regardless of whether he’s willing to admit it. He insisted we organize a lot of the baby items in the second bedroom and start taking things out of the boxes that we were gifted from the baby registry. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, and I also knew it wouldn’t take that much time, but he snapped at me when I said it wasn’t a big deal and that he could take care of a lot of it.

“What if you go into labor tonight or tomorrow?” he snapped. “Then I have to do all this myself! I don’t know what’s in all these boxes!”

Well… the box that says “changing pad” — that has a changing pad in it? None of this is that complicated. He didn’t appreciate my comments and insisted we do this at this second. So we did it all this evening, and it took probably less than 30 minutes. There’s really not THAT much baby stuff, and I don’t think he realizes that because pre-baby, this bedroom was empty, hollow, and had a big echo. There’s not much of an echo anymore, though.

But this is what Chris is like when he gets anxious, and he feels like he’s not in control. I married a loving control freak who wants to be in control of literally everything, and he hates surprises. The second he feels like he’s out of control, he reacts by being a bit short fused and snappy. So I expected this from him at some point.

I don’t think there’s a newborn out there that allows his/her parents to be in control. And that’s what he and I will need to get used to — not feeling like we’re in control at all and just going with the flow of what the baby wants and needs.

Bánh ít trần

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Growing up in a household dominated by my maternal Cantonese Chinese grandma, I mostly ate Chinese and random American/Americanized foods when I was young. But occasionally, we’d get Vietnamese food, whether it was pho or bun at a restaurant, or in San Jose or Westminster when my mom would indulge and eat all the Vietnamese foods that were extremely laborious and time-consuming to make. So instead of making the food, which my mom always hated (she’s never enjoyed cooking even in the slightest and only did it out of necessity), we’d just pay money to buy and eat these things. One of these dishes that I didn’t even know the name of growing up but finally got reacquainted with recently was banh it tran. These little sticky rice dumplings that are stuffed with steamed and mashed mung bean, pork, and shrimp are a truly delicacy. They are also extremely laborious, requiring mung beans to be soaked, steamed, and mashed, then combined with minced pork and shrimp, rolled into balls, then covered with a glutinous rice dough on the outside and steamed or boiled. Finally to serve, they are topped with a pulverized dried shrimp topping, scallion oil, fried shallots, and nuoc cham for dipping and dunking. It’s also good to have them with a slide of pickled carrots and daikon. Yes, that’s right: that’s FOUR different toppings for serving! These were traditionally reserved for banquets and special occasions, but in Western countries that have a decently sized Vietnamese population, you can now find them in counts of 3-5 served and wrapped in plastic on styrofoam trays at good Vietnamese bakeries. This is how I ate them growing up; my mom would come across them at a Vietnamese bakery, bring a couple trays home, and warm them up for both of us to enjoy, as my dad and brother never really cared for them.

I came across them via a YouTube video earlier this year, and I knew I had to make them. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen them served anywhere in New York, which isn’t surprising since this is one of those dishes that isn’t really well known in Vietnamese cuisine. I finally got around to making them yesterday. It took a while, and I had to get used to working with glutinous rice flour dough again, as it’s quite tacky and you need to get it to the right texture for it to roll correctly, but it was so much fun. And when I finally tasted them, I knew it was time worth spent. I individually froze about 32 of them for eating once the baby comes; this will be a tasty part of a quick meal when I’m exhausted and covered in milk and drool. They just need to be steamed on high for about 12 minutes before eating.

This is one of those happy food memories for me growing up, though. My mom never really told me what these were called or their background or how they were made. I didn’t even know what was in them before I’d dive in, and frankly, I didn’t care. She’d just plop them in front of me, and I’d eat with her. That’s the thing about my parents: sometimes, all they’d have to do is eat something in front of me, and that’s all it took for me to want to eat the same thing. I hope I am able to pass on food passion and food traditions to little Pookie Bear when she arrives and as she grows, too.

When your mom is more anxious than you are about labor

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This work week has been busier than I’d originally assumed it would be. I’m supposed to be offloading all my account work onto my colleagues who are temporarily covering for me while I’m on leave, but some of them are out on PTO this week, which means I still have day to day tasks to do. It’s not that bad because it keeps me busy, but I had told my mom that work would be slowing down this week, so I suppose she took that as a cue that she could call me whenever and I’d be free. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have told her that, but oh well. Now it’s too late.

I was on back to back calls for about two hours this afternoon, and she called three times during that period. I saw three missed calls from her on my phone, and I was wondering what tangent she was on. So I called her back, and she nearly raised her voice at me.

“What is going on?!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t you answer the phone?!”

I explained to her that I was on back to back work calls, which is why I didn’t answer the phone. What was wrong?

“You didn’t answer the phone, so I got nervous and thought something was wrong!” she responded. “I thought you could have gone into labor! You need to call me back right away when I call, otherwise I will worry! I need to know that you and the baby are okay!”

Oh, great. Now my mom is on edge because she’s worried about when I’m going into labor, which at this point, could be any time, and she’s more anxious than I am. So now I have to deal with her anxiety on top of my own state of uncertainty….

To be honest, I don’t really have much conscious anxiety around this; when it happens, it will happen. The only thing that has recently heightened my anxiety was the hospitalization and the doctor saying that the baby is small on average, and that the placenta needed to be more closely monitored. I’ve been gradually, mentally preparing myself for labor since around week 30. I’ve certainly done as much research about it as I can. Now, it’s just a matter of whenever Pookie Bear is ready to jail break.

Well, I still have Vietnamese sticky rice dumplings and lactation cookie dough to make for the freezer, so Pookie Bear, as a reminder: don’t come out yet!!

When your mom starts getting nervous

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Okay, to be fair, my mom is pretty much always nervous. In fact, I think it’s her default state to be nervous. Part of that is because of all the turmoil and terror she experienced living in a poor, rural village in Vietnam, then being there for the war, then entering the U.S. and being treated like crap by her mother-in-law and her new family she married into. But part of it, sometimes, feels like she just looks for things to be nervous or anxious about. We’re currently in week 35 of my pregnancy, and she said she’s getting anxiety about my going into labor. She kept asking questions today about whether we had everything ready – safe place for baby to sleep, diapers, changing area. She asked if there was food for us to eat in our freezer. She expressed remorse again that she wouldn’t be here to help prepare nourishing postpartum foods for me. She asked again (maybe because she inherently thinks men are useless… since that seems to be a favorite topic of hers concerning my dad in the last nine months regarding the two babies she birthed) to confirm that Chris was, in fact, planning to take time off in the beginning to help. She said she’s basically on standby waiting to hear news about when I will pop. And it’s highly unlikely that when this does happen that I’m going to call her between contractions to announce, “Hi, Mommy! Guess what — I’m in LABOR!”

Fetal movements at 28.5 weeks pregnant

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Since the baby is getting bigger, her movements are definitely becoming more and more pronounced as the days go on. I’ve realized that anytime I am in a social situation and am being very animated, or whenever I am doing presentations for work on Zoom, she tends to start going a little wild with her movements. I can’t quite tell the difference between her hands and feet yet, but she gets very active whenever I speak loudly or laugh a lot. She was very active on the night of Sambal Lady’s backyard outing in Brooklyn last week. This week, she’s been kicking and flailing a lot during my more active speaking during meetings. And sometimes, when the music on the TV is on a bit louder than usual, she starts moving a lot. When I am not in meetings and have YouTube music on during the weekday, I’ve been removing my headphones so that she can listen. And well, my music is a bit dated to the 1990s and 2000s/2010s, but the baby is definitely getting more acquainted with Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, and Adele. It’s almost like when all the socializing and music is happening, her movements are saying, “Hey! I’m here, too! Let me in on the fun!”

I read that at about 28 weeks, babies can hear sounds outside the womb, and sometimes, if they hear the same song or sound over and over again, it can serve to be like a lullaby that will calm them down or hush them. Who knows — maybe Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” or Mariah Carey’s “Hero” will be the baby’s lullaby song.

Baby preparation at Nordstrom

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This early afternoon, I hauled Chris over to Nordstrom so that we could test out some strollers and car seats. The sales assistant was quite helpful and showed us some of the limited models on my list, and we further narrowed down the strollers that we wanted. In addition, I’m pretty set on a specific infant car seat to get, as well. We immediately eliminated the super popular and bulky Uppababy Vista and Cruz strollers. They are far too big, and the Cruz is pathetic in that it doesn’t even close up all the way. The Cruz itself would take up the bulk of a car trunk’s space, which is ridiculous when you think about it regardless of whether you own a car or not. The sales assistant was pretty blunt about the strollers: if you are the kind of person who doesn’t take a car or public transit or leave your own neighborhood, and all you want to do is push your stroller around your own neighborhood, then the Vista or Cruz is likely for you. If you actually plan to go on trains and other boroughs and travel, you will hate these Uppababy models. So that was an easy decision. Since they didn’t have all the models I wanted to see in person, I have to do another visit to a different baby store uptown to get a better sense of finalizing what we end up getting. We’re getting closer to the end of this decision making process!

When Ed turns 42

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If Ed were alive today, he’d be turning 42 years old. It’s a sad thought every year when his birthday comes. I wonder who else thinks about him on this day. Do my parents actually think about him and think about him deeply? Or do they just think he wasted his life away as they always did say and think while he was alive?

Throughout this pregnancy, I’ve thought about him a lot, but I was especially grief-stricken when I went to visit him at the Columbarium when we went back to San Francisco last month. I “showed” him my pregnant belly, and Chris snapped a photo and video of the moment. And I just felt empty and blank. I didn’t feel angry. I didn’t feel resentful. I just felt nothing. My brother is never going to meet his little niece. If I ever have any other children, he will never meet any of them, either. He will never have the chance to be an uncle, and we will never have the chance to spend time as a family ever again. After staring blankly into his niche, I went into the bathroom and just cried.

I wish he could be alive and healthy. I wish our parents were more supportive of him. I wish they hadn’t antagonized him so much. I was chatting with my therapist about Ed a few weeks ago, and she suggested that it may not be fully fair to have lingering anger against my parents because some people, regardless of how much support they have, still end their lives. That is true, I admitted to her, but she and I have not spoken about the exact extent to which my parents antagonized, bullied, and made my brother suffer.

At the end of the day, “you feel what you feel.” I’ve made enough peace with my parents about Ed’s passing as I could, otherwise I would no longer have a relationship with them. But it should go without saying that he should still be here today.

My mother, the potential baby snatcher

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My mom loves babies. She especially loves the chubby, fat-cheeked ones that drool and smile all the time, regardless of who they are staring at. As soon as she sees any baby that is remotely cute or chubby, she always squeals, “Awwww, I want to hold!!”

She called me today to tell me that while at a grocery store recently, she saw the cutest little girl, probably somewhere between 3-4-years of age. She was extremely cute and had rosy, chubby cheeks (“her mother must have eaten an egg every single day of pregnancy to have a daughter with cheeks like that!” my mom exclaimed), and for whatever reason, was wandering around the shop unattended by a parent. As soon as she made eye contact with my mom, she smiled, and then started walking up to her. My mom said hi and waved, but didn’t want to do more than that in the event the parent showed up and got mad. My mom turned to walk away, but the child was so intrigued by my mom that she just kept on following her around the shop. My mom turned around to interact with her a few times, but didn’t get too close, though she said many times she wanted to. Finally, the mom of this little girl appeared out of nowhere to gather her child, and she shot my mom an unfriendly glare.

“It’s fine that she wasn’t friendly with me,” my mom said, gleefully. “I don’t need to hold or kiss her child because I have a grandchild on the way!”

While I am happy that my mom seems happy about my pregnancy, I’m not sure how much time she will actually spend with her grandchild once she is born. Who knows how much time any family member will be able to spend with her given the distance. So that’s always why it’s a bit comical to me how excited they are about babies.

Nana’s funeral

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At home this evening, we attempted to watch the live stream of Chris’s Nana’s funeral, but failed just a short while into it annoyingly. But Chris worked on the video and photo component of the program, so he had it uploaded to YouTube so we could watch it without the live stream. While watching it, I thought about the amazing, privileged, happy, and full life that Nana lived in her 92 years. I thought about her love for knitting and crochet, cooking, gardening, and her family. I thought about how beautifully and neatly she kept her home despite living on her own for so long. I still fondly remember all of the little trinkets and crystals she had so meticulously displayed on all her surfaces and cabinets everywhere in her home, and how much she relished her time with her grandchildren and great grandchildren. And although I felt sad knowing that our future baby will never get to meet Nana, I know from all the stories shared and the time I spent with Nana that Nana died with a true level of contentment in the life she led, likely with little to no regret. We are lucky to have seen her nearly every Christmas since 2012.

I thought about my mom while watching the different cousins share their Nana stories and listening to Nana’s children speak details of Nana’s life, and I wondered if my mom, hopefully one day a long, long time from now, would be on her deathbed, reflecting back on her life and what level of fulfillment she’d feel. Would she look back and see a life well lived, or will she simply see “constant pain and suffering” as she used to yell at my dad and Ed about all the time? Will she get angry at all the people she believes wronged her, or will she actually take the time to be thankful for all the good fortune and good deeds that others have done for her with no expectation in return, even if she was always so quick to exercise “quid pro quo”?