Category Archives: family

Two-year-old toddler tantrums and whims: a continuing dialogue

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Almost like clock work, once Kaia turned two, it was as though she got the memo that the “terrible 2s” period had begun, and she started having all these tantrums over things she never really got upset about before. Before she turned 2, while she did have tantrums here and there, they weren’t that regular and were usually easily contained. Since then, not so much. If she doesn’t get what she wants when she wants it, she lays her entire body down, sprawled all over the floor, and just cries and screams. There’s no way to reason with her, so we just kind of let her lie there. I occasionally pat or rub her back and remind her that her mama is there, but there’s nothing else that can really be done until she calms down.

One thing that has been really frustrating is that her meals have been really unpredictable. Some days, she will eat pretty much everything she is offered. Other days, she might just eat a portion of pork, some blueberries, and then call it a day; that will be her dinner, and then she will go to bed. Vegetables at breakfast time have continued to be a no-go. Her lunch is also unpredictable. This past week, she had oddly even gone off noodles/pasta. I had made an aged gouda carbonara, and at best, she would pick at it and didn’t really care for it. My baby – not into noodles…?! She screamed and cried one night when I asked her just to have one bite of the carbonara… I just didn’t get it. So I stopped insisting and let her eat what she was willing to touch.

I try my best not to show any emotion when she has these signs of “toddler selectivity” and let it go. But it’s very challenging. Being a parent and trying to feign indifference at things like this is a huge test of one’s patience. You don’t really get it until you’re in this position. And yet even then, for many people who have gone past the toddler rearing years, they forget so easily! At least I will always have these memories documented so I can refer back to these when my memory fails me.

Contemplations on estate planning, wills, and death

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I’ve thought a lot about death since I was quite young. For the longest time, I had attended more funerals than I had weddings. In our family, we never had babysitters, so as kids, we had to go literally everywhere with our parents. So when someone died and my parents attended a funeral, Ed and I were taken along, too. I still remember asking my mom when I was young if we were going to die, too. She replied and said that yes, everyone has to die, but hopefully we will all live long lives, and it would not happen for a long, long time.

The thought made me so sad. I remember many nights, when I was around 4 years old, crying myself to sleep, thinking that there could possibly be a world I’d live in where I no longer had my mom, dad, or Ed. It filled me with so much fear and anxiety at such a young age. I thought to myself, how was I supposed to live without you all, my family? I was especially attached to my mother then, and it hurt me to the core to think that she could possibly die one day and leave me behind.

Since then, I still think about death often — when there are plane crashes, school shootings (always in the U.S.), when someone in my life dies. The hardest death was, of course, my brother’s. I remember having to change a lot of my beneficiary information on accounts after he died… you can’t really leave money to someone dead, right? So now when I am forced to think about my own death and planning for it with estate planning and wills, it becomes depressing in a very different way.

You have to ask yourself uncomfortable questions, like if you and your spouse die, who is supposed to become the legal guardian of your child? If that legal guardian is also gone, who is the secondary, backup guardian of your child? If you, your spouse, and your child die, who should receive your assets in the event of that family catastrophe?

So while once upon a time, I didn’t think about my own death much, you’re forced to do this, *just in case*; in the event of the worst thing happening, as in you and your spouse both dying, you know that your minor child will be taken care of and will not be forced into the broken and disgusting system that is the U.S. foster care system.

It is my hope that I will outlive my parents, that Chris and I won’t die until we’re far past 80 years old, that Kaia will outlive both Chris and me. I hope no one ever has to make use of all the estate planning and wills until we’re nearly 100. But we live in an uncertain world. And as the Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast recently noted, in life, there are very few fair deaths. “You are lucky if you can say, “someone I love died at the exact right time in the exact right way and everyone involved was ready for it.” This might apply to people like Chris’s two grandmas, both of whom had lived long, relatively happy lives. They got to see all their children get married, have their kids, and even see their own great grandchildren. But in cases like Ed or our friend Raj, death was not fair at all, and it was untimely in the most painful way. We can only hope that we will live lives that will end with fair deaths that are a long way away from today.

Laundry: who does it in your house?

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When I first started coming to Australia with Chris, I found it both loving and odd that his mom did all the laundry for everyone in the house. In the home where I grew up, we all did our separate laundry: dad had his hamper, Ed had his own, our mom and I shared one, and when my grandma was around, she had her own laundry. Chris and his brother insisted my family was weird that we separated it. But when I started asking other families what they did, it seemed pretty split 50/50 from an anecdotal standpoint: many families did what my family did and split up laundry, while other families shared and one person owned it. For the latter, it seems like a burden on the person who does the laundry for everyone; in almost all those cases, it’s the mother/wife of the house who does it, and it seemed a bit unfair and sexist to me.

So whenever we are in Australia, we always have the perk of having Chris’s mom do all our laundry. While it’s nice to have someone else do my laundry (Chris’s mom) while I’m at his parents’ place, sometimes, it still feels a bit weird knowing someone else is handling things like my underwear and bras. But she seems to enjoy doing the laundry and finds it relaxing. I always thank her profusely for her laundry services. I get the feeling that she’s not used to being thanked by her husband, who clearly has all his laundry done by her. Things like laundry and household chores are always thankless jobs, so I hope she knows I appreciate her doing this for me while I am there.

The paint spill on Boxing Day 2023

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A couple weeks ago, Chris’s dad had told us that he was doing some minor paint touch ups around the house. I had noticed the cans of paint at the sides of the garage when coming and going from the house, but never thought much of it. Chris’s parents’ house has a two car garage that when you add a lot of paint and gardening supplies, plus just household tools and files, feels crowded and borderline cluttered. Once the two cars are in the garage, it’s a tight squeeze to get in between the vehicles, and often when coming in with the second car, passengers in the backseat (as in, Pookster and I) will need to get out of the car before it’s fully pulled in and parked.

Well, despite Pookster being an active toddler running around everywhere, grabbing and ripping things, and causing mischief galore, we luckily have not had anything in the house break or get misplaced in our 2.5 weeks here. So when we were about to leave the house today to head over to Chris’s uncle’s house for Boxing Day family festivities, an accident finally occurred. With Pookster in my arms and her fat, stuffed diaper bag on my back, I was squeezing between the second car and multiple cans of paint and supplies when suddenly I felt the diaper bag knock something heavy and… BAM! A can of paint fell over, the lid fell off, and white paint oozed out all over the garage floor and into the driveway.

“Shit! Shit! SHIT!” I yelled, as I saw the white paint flow down the slight incline. Chris peered over from where he was by the car and had a frustrated look on his face. I went to tell his parents and asked if they had any paint thinner, and we all had to spring into action, and quickly. We sopped up as much paint as possible with throwaway rags, random paper bags and paper towels lying around, and plastic bags. We took out a bottle of turpentine to remove the paint residue as best as possible. We used the hose to spray and loosen the paint. We had to use the turpentine on our own hands to remove the paint we got on ourselves. All the while as we’re scrambling to ensure nothing gets permanently damaged, Kaia is sitting in her car seat in the car with a door open, singing endless different songs and babbling away as though everything was merry and bright.

Chris, Pookster, and I left to go to Chris’s uncle’s first, while Chris’s parents and his brother took the second car to go, but stopped by a hardware store to see if they had more turpentine. They told a worker there what happened, and they advised to not let the paint dry and to address the matter as soon as possible. So in the end, Chris’s dad stayed behind to clean and hose down the excess paint, and just Chris’s mom and brother came to the family gathering. I felt pretty terrible knowing that I had not only delayed getting to the family gathering for us, but also created extra work and stress for everyone, and potentially the worst thing was making Chris’s dad feel compelled to stay behind and clean the remaining residue. But after it was all done, we just talked about how lucky we were that a) Kaia and I didn’t fall and get covered in paint, and b) the car closest to the paint didn’t get damaged or have any paint on it.

And really, the moral of this paint story is…. declutter, declutter, declutter. Ugh.

Christmas time: an acknowledgment of families in all shapes and forms

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While many people, like Chris, look forward to the Christmas season as a time to escape everyday reality and catch up and enjoy time with family and close friends, not everyone sees the festive season this way. For many, Christmas is a reminder of the pain and anguish that family members have shared in the past. For some, it’s a reminder of who is no longer with us, whether it’s due to severed ties, death, or distance. For others, it’s a reckoning of what one’s family could potentially be, but will never be.

In the beginning of our relationship when we’d come down to Melbourne every year for Christmas, I think I was a bit shocked at how close and how much detailed information and conversation Chris would have with his relatives. None of my conversations or interactions with my own family were like this. Though I did partake in all those conversations, I felt a bit envious that I couldn’t have the same with my own blood relatives. But he reminded me that I was part of his family now, and thus they were my family. I think we all know that it’s never quite the same, even if we do enjoy the time together. But as the years went by, I realized that I had idealized his family, and they actually weren’t as perfect and functional as I’d originally made up in my head. I suppose in my own mind, they actually did seem perfect relative to my own family. But with each passing year, I’d notice little passive aggressions, strange exchanges and comments, factoids shared of previous events, and secrets shared by family members to me in confidence. And I realized that they were just as dysfunctional as any other family, but that at Christmas time, everyone let things go to have a semblance of family, togetherness, and love. And that was totally fine and was good for everyone. Their level of dysfunction was never as toxic or unhealthy as my own family’s, and so it still all worked. Relatively speaking, I’d take his family, immediate and extended, over my own blood family any day, always.

I’ve referenced this line on my blog before, as it’s a quote that comes to my mind every holiday season: “All happy families are alike: each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It’s the first sentence in the famous Leo Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina. But each time I think about this line, its meaning changes a little bit. I used to think about this when my uncle would try to tell me to forgive my dad for what he had done to Ed and me growing up, as “He didn’t know any better because that was how he himself was raised.” I thought about this when Ed had died, and my parents screamed at me and told me I had no right to tell my aunts, uncle, and cousins he had died. I’ve thought about this when hearing about the double standards that people in Chris’s family have for some people versus others, and the blind eyes turned to this. I have also thought about this when learning of the dysfunctions of Chris’s family and extended family, about those who choose not to be in contact, of those who make excuses not to see each other, and about how many in the family like to sweep issues under the rug instead of openly discussing them as problems. Every family has problems and challenges, some larger and more critical than others.

But at the end of the day, we cannot change other people, especially when it’s already so challenging to change ourselves. We just have to set our boundaries, try our best to put a stop to our own unhealthy patterns, and be our authentic selves as much as possible. No family unit is perfect. How we choose to accept that family unit is probably the outstanding question that will last our entire lifetime. I feel that struggle pretty much every day, and every time I have any interaction with my parents. In the back of my mind, I am fully aware that time with them on this earth is limited; they are, after all, at the latter end of their lives, and we have no idea how much time they have. I feel a little guilt when it comes to how I’ve lessened contact with them. I call my mom now at most once every two weeks; it’s a far cry from calling her every day once upon a time about 10 years ago. I realize it probably angers both of them that I chose not to come home (and let them see Kaia) this past year. But that’s what growing up is about: setting boundaries, even if it means when after their lives end that I may always wonder if setting those boundaries really was the best thing for all of us.

My baby is TWO <3

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To my dearest Kaia Pookie,

Happy 2nd birthday, my little love, my little miracle baby who has filled my life with so much joy for over two years now (including while you were in my uterus). Every time I look at you, my sweet Kaia Pookie, I think to myself… how lucky am I that I get to be your mummy. Even when you are throwing tantrums, breaking things, and making total messes in our home, I always remember that there was once a dark time when I wondered if you were truly a real possibility in my life, and I remember how sad and terrifying that was to me. I am beyond grateful to be your mummy, and I give my thanks every night that I get the privilege of being your mother.

Daddy and I are so, so proud of you, sweet Pookster. When I look back at all the photos and videos of you in the last year, your growth has been so tremendous and stunning in our eyes. A year ago, you were babbling and saying just a handful of words. You were still just crawling. You didn’t have the dexterity yet to do things like open cabinet doors or open pill boxes. Now, your vocabulary is so vast in English and Chinese that you’re speaking full sentences, can express what you want, and sing lots of verses of songs. You are walking (and running!) now! You’re doing well with going up and down the stairs with our help. You’re getting your hands into everything you possibly can and have required Daddy to install cabinet locks. And we have to keep all our pill bottles far, far away from you! You’re also a true little leader at school, telling all the kids what to do and when, and following your teachers’ instructions to the point where you’ve even been nicknamed “Ms. Kaia,” aka little teacher, and are all the teachers’ favorites.

And you are so affectionate, my sweet Kaia Pookie. You love to give hugs and kisses. I just want to eat you up, as I always tell you during bath time that I’m going to eat your sweet toesies! You even show affection for your stuffed animal friends and sleep with your favorite books. You have no idea how it makes me feel all gushy inside to see you be so sweet with your animal friends and even insist on sleeping with your books. We have so my great hopes and wishes for you, our sweet little one. I hope I can always do what I can to make you proud of me. I want you to look at me and Daddy and think, wow, they’re doing a great job! We love you more than we could ever possibly express properly in words. We hope you always know how much we love you and will always love you. To many more happy birthdays and moments together, sweet Kaia Pookie.

Love,

your Mummy Yvonne

“My Mom is Great” book for Pookster

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The other day in our building library, I found a children’s book called My Mom is Great, so I thought Pookster might like it. I brought it to her and showed her the title. When I said the title, she responded, “Mummy book? Mummy book?” And I said, yup! And I asked if she wanted to read it, and she agreed. We read through it once. She asked me to read it “again?” So, I read it a second time. Then, after the second reading, she grabbed it from me and started turning the pages, mumbling things to herself, and then insisted she go to bed with it. I tucked her in, and she made sure the book was lying right next to her, with Peter Rabbit on the other side. She was especially needy that night, insisting I lie down with her, and that I had to be there until she fell asleep. Even when I turned a bit on the bed next to her, she’d panic and think I was leaving, and insist, “Mummy! Lie down! Lie down!”

The next morning, she was fussy when Chris tried to take the book away at breakfast, so he positioned the book so that it was facing her as she ate breakfast. It was too adorable to watch. It made my heart mushy to think about her getting excited over “mummy book.” I hope she always knows I am trying do the best job I possibly can and be the best example to her. It’s one of my greatest goals.

Tweaked my back while picking up my toddler = PAINFUL

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Somehow, I’ve managed to last almost two years of having a child in my house, constantly picking her up and putting her down, twirling her around and around, without ever tweaking my back or pinching any nerves… until today. Yep, today was the fateful day when I finally picked her up to change her diaper, and I immediately felt a tweak in the lower middle part of my back. At first, I thought, aw, that’s okay. It’s just a little nothing. And then, as I started moving and walking around, I realized…. nope. It’s not nothing. It IS something. Every time I sat down and got up from the sitting position, my lower back would twinge, and it was like a nerve was being pinched sharply. We went out to the Columbus Circle holiday market and when I attempted to lift the stroller, that was when I knew: there was absolutely NO way I was going to be able to help carry this stroller up and down the subway with Chris’s help. It was not happening today. So while we had plans to have dinner in Alphabet City with our friends, we asked them to improvise. Instead, we got takeout from a local spot and had them over at our apartment. It also made it easier with things like letting Pookster roam around after she finished eating, getting her to bed, and not rushing our catch-up with them.

Chris helped me with some stretches to work out the kinks in my back and applied and rubbed in some tiger balm. Our friends were gracious and went with the flow (and insisted I take a strong pain killer, which I happily did after we finished eating!). In the end, I felt better than I did earlier in the day. But this made me realize a few things: one, I’d really like to get back into the groove of hosting friends over for meals once again. I miss having big meals to prepare and cook for and more mouths to feed and experiment on. I also love the idea of having people over for dinner on a Saturday because we have no pressure to leave at a certain time to get Pookster to bed. We’re in the comfort of our own home, so we don’t have to think about transport back home. Two, I am thankful for a life partner who helps me with my stretches and tweaked back (and unfortunately, intimately knows what it feels like). Three, I’m also thankful for friends who can change plans with little notice and be sympathetic to ridiculous, unforeseen situations like this. Life is pretty good, even with a tweaked back.

Doll houses – for children and for adults

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Today, I was texting with some friends about my friend’s daughter’s birthday. My friend shared that her three-year-old daughter was gifted a dollhouse, which you can custom design down to the WALLPAPER in each room. Given this, my friend would be taking this on as a mini project for her daughter to fully enjoy playing with this dollhouse. I thought it was really sweet — my friend wants her child to play with the dollhouse, and she’s willing to invest time in making sure the dollhouse looks just like what her daughter wants.

It reminded me that I still have a Greenleaf dollhouse that “Santa Claus” (aka my dad) gifted me when I was five years old, still unbuilt and in its original box down in my parents’ basement. I told my friend that if she wanted, she could have the dollhouse if she was willing to invest time in building and painting it. Otherwise, eventually soon, I’d want to sell it to make sure someone out there can actually enjoy it. I reminded her, though, that it’s not a dollhouse for playing; it’s actually meant to be a collector’s dollhouse for adults. My other friend didn’t understand what this meant, so I explained it to her; there’s an entire industry of dollhouses for adult builders and collectors, and this was one of them.

My friends were super confused: why did my dad gift me an adult collector’s dollhouse? Why wasn’t it ever built? And who was expected to build it and when? Was I expected, as a five-year-old child, to build it?

I’m no longer triggered by the memories of that dollhouse, as I’ve moved on. But for me, that unbuilt dollhouse is just representative of all the broken promises my dad made. He always said he’d build it. He never did. He always made excuses and said he was too busy. Finally when I was a teen, I asked one last time if he was ever planning to build it. He got mad, snapping back, “YOU can go ahead and build it yourself!” When an ex-boyfriend went up to him to ask if he could have it to build, my dad responded and said he was still planning to build it (no, never happened). So it just sits in its box, unbuilt, to be enjoyed by no one.

As an adult now with my own child, I get it: my dad WAS super busy. He was working a day job for most of my childhood along with managing and repairing three different apartment buildings and two rental homes. He rarely rested and was just constantly working to ensure we had financial stability. But part of me thinks he also did all that because he didn’t really want to spend time with us. He never played with my brother or me. We never had any real conversations. He was frequently irritable when we attempted to engage with him. My brother eventually gave up, feeling ignored, and decided to ignore him back…. that continued until the day my brother died. Our dad was usually doing his own thing when he was home. I don’t fault him for wanting a break from life while at home, but his negative attitude towards us as children, not to mention always saying he’d do things for us that he never actually did, informs how I want to parent my own child and how I want to set expectations to never let my child think my words are meaningless. I don’t want to become my mom or my dad with my own child. I want to be and do better… a lot better, so that when Kaia is an adult, she actually wants to willingly spend time with me and enjoy time with me, and she doesn’t do it out of obligation or guilt.

I want Kaia to know every moment of her life how much I love her and how much she is wanted. I want her to know I’m always trying to be better to her and provide her with the best, but not at the expense of quality time together. I want her to hear me say I will do something, and for her to expect that yes, I will follow through on it. I don’t want her to harbor resentment against me or think I’m just pushing her away from me. I want to be an example to her of how to be, both in attitude toward the world as well as actions. That’s my takeaway from my sad dollhouse memories.

Kaia loves her Peter Rabbit

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For the longest time, Kaia did not take to any of her stuffed animals. Over her 23 months of existence, she’s been gifted endless stuffed animals, including a life-sized teddy bear, which is still vacuum-sealed and in its original wrapping in the closet. We’ve exposed her to a number of them, but she’s never really seemed to care about them. She kind of looks at them and then plays with something else, whether it’s a book, a jar, a lid, or another toy she has. The couple exceptions are the stuffed animals that are battery operated and sing or play peekaboo, or Babar, which is her stuffed elephant that has a few parts that either make sounds/noise or squeak depending on where you touch or squeeze it. Randomly the other night when I was putting her to bed, she grabbed Peter Rabbit off the book shelf and took it to bed with her. I laid her baby blanket over her, and she snuggled under the blanket with Peter Rabbit and said, “okay, bye bye! Wan an!” I guess that was a cue that she wanted me to leave, so I told her good night, wan an, and I left the room and closed the door. I wasn’t sure if she’d really fall asleep on her own given that she usually needs one of us to stay there with her until she falls asleep. But somehow, it worked. And it’s now worked three nights in a row. The last two nights, she asked for four other stuffed animals to accompany her to bed, as well. And she didn’t need me to stay with her until she fell asleep. It was incredible.

I love seeing her interact with her Peter Rabbit and her stuffed animals. She tells them to do things like “sit up” and “lie down,” and she even wants Peter Rabbit there at breakfast with her. Chris wouldn’t let her have Peter Rabbit on her food tray given it would be a mess, so he told her that Peter Rabbit would “watch” her eat. And she happily agreed. It’s too adorable. I just love these moments and how she is developing. This age is truly precious… but I suppose I’ve said that about every other stage to date. I just love being Pookster’s mummy.