Category Archives: Friends

Kids’ birthday parties at playgrounds and the fun question I got when I arrived

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My neighbor friend let me know that her friend’s daughter was having her fifth birthday party at a local playground just half a block away today, so she suggested that I bring Kaia. I had met this friend and her daughter two months ago at my neighbor friend’s son’s birthday party, so I had previously met them. I told her I wasn’t sure we should come given it was a birthday party, and we didn’t know them that well and weren’t explicitly invited. But she insisted, saying it was a public playground and open to all, and she was sure her friend would be glad to welcome us. My friend said it would be a good last opportunity for both our kids, who adore each other, to play together this month before we go on our respective summer trips.

So just after 3pm today, I brought Kaia to the playground. We saw the picnic tables covered with endless food, snacks, drinks, and decorations. The area was streamed with banners, huge prints, and balloons. We came over to say hello to the mom, and we made some small talk. Her daughter, the five-year-old celebrating her birthday, also came over, and she had a very large frown on her face as she sized Kaia and me up.

The mom asked her to say hi to us as we wished her a happy birthday. The girl looked us up and down and then down and up, wrinkled her brow, and finally said, “So, you didn’t bring a present for me?”

Her mom scolded her, first in English then in Bulgarian. “D! That is so rude,” her mom admonished her. “You aren’t supposed to say things like that! Be nice!”

“You came without a present,” D rephrased herself while continuing to frown at us. It was as though she wanted to stare holes into our faces.

I didn’t say anything. What was I supposed to say? It’s true that we came without a gift, but frankly, we don’t really know this kid or her mom. And to my neighbor friend’s point, this is a public playground and anyone is welcome to come to the freaking playground regardless of whether a birthday party is being held in the corner of it! But this was also a reminder to me that once kids hit the age of 5-6, this is generally when they become more bitchy, bossy, demanding, and flat out openly rude… and unlike in earlier years, at this age, they know they are being rude. This is really when parental discipline becomes extremely crucial.

The kid never apologized even after getting scolded at in two languages. To be blunt about it, she sounds like a total brat, and not a kid I’d want Kaia to spend any time around. My neighbor friend warned me about her and said she thinks this girl is a bad influence on her own son, so I never had my hopes up about this child.

I told Chris that this happened, and he responded, “If Hoji said that, there would be no more birthday parties for the next ten years.”

Supporting friends through the adoption process

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About a year and a half ago, I met a friend, who I like to say I met because of Kaia. We were at a food event in an independent food producer’s backyard. Back then, Kaia was just over 2.5 years old. Of course, she was running amok all over the backyard, trying to pull leaves and flowers off plants while also garnering attention from any person who would look her way. And Kaia kept running to this one particular table where this now-friend and her husband were sitting. This person was so warm, loving, and affectionate with her, and she was also quite friendly and personable when I came over to get Kaia. So, I thought it would be a good idea to exchange numbers with her and see if she might be potential friend material. So we started meeting up for coffee and lunch dates. She and her husband came to my 40th birthday party and Lunar New Year Party this year. And now, I’ve spent the last week gathering clothes, blankets, crib sheets, books, and toys that Kaia has outgrown to pass on to her as they adopt a 2-year-old girl into their family. Given the timing, I also cleaned Kaia’s high chair, which she started refusing to sit in this past February, and wiped down the Babi-Deal stroller Chris got last August to also hand down to them. So, that was a good four bags worth of baby/toddler stuff, plus some random things I almost forgot about but thought would also be helpful, like a cleaned snot sucker (yes, really!), handkerchiefs, and practice toddler chopsticks. They came over tonight to pick up all these items and to hang out for a while on our roof. And of course, Kaia lapped it up and put them to work for her own enjoyment!

The second time I met with this friend one on one, she told me about her long and painful fertility journey, how she went through four egg retrievals, two surgeries, multiple miscarriages, and endless doctor appointments. And finally one day she looked at her husband and said she didn’t want her life to revolve around IVF anymore, that she wanted her body and life back. And so that’s when they started seriously looking into adoption, and now here they are, about to welcome this little girl into their life. Her whole journey brings me to tears, but it makes me happy because while all our journeys to parenthood look very different, this feels like a happy ending — or rather, a happy beginning of yet another journey.

Kaia has been so cute and sweet in all this. We told her that these friends would be bringing a baby home soon, so she started proactively gathering books and clothes that she doesn’t want or need anymore and setting them aside for Baby B. Although Kaia will never have a sibling, I can already see that she is extremely loving, giving, caring, and willing to share, and that warms my heart even more.

I love my child, but I do not necessarily love all children

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I have never been one of those people who have said that “all children are beautiful/cute,” or that I love kids. The truth is that I actually do not love kids at all, and that’s probably a huge reason that even when I was a kid myself, I never even for a minute considered being a school teacher (even though it’s fed to you as a [female] child that being a teacher is cool!). I know myself, and I know that I just don’t have the patience it takes to deal with kids and their tantrums, their constant irritating questions, their outbursts, and even things like peeing or pooping in their pants, even if it’s by accident. It’s obviously different when it’s your own child/children, but with other people’s kids… I could never even imagine proactively babysitting another friend’s child unless they were a baby who couldn’t speak.

Despite this fact, I always knew I wanted to have kids. I always wanted to raise my own child and know what that entire experience was like. I wanted to have a family of my own to nurture — I do think that I’m a nurturing, loving person by nature; I love taking care of others. So, now that I have one child of my own, I love her more than I ever thought possible. But that doesn’t necessarily change my original state of being, which is that while I may love my own child (you’d hope so!), I don’t necessarily love other people’s kids, even if they are the kids of my own extended family and friends. Some of my friends’ kids are extremely bratty and entitled. Others, even for their respective ages, are extremely immature and socially awkward and have made it pretty clear that no matter how sweet I am to them, they just will not give me any love at all, even if it’s a simple-high five. One of them has refused, for her entire existence, to ever give me a hug or kiss; in fact, she refuses even to wave hi or bye to me to acknowledge me! And then today, while out with a neighbor friend and her son, who is just a few months younger than Kaia, I was really at my wit’s end at times trying to control this kid and his tendencies.

First, this little friend kept trying to run into the street (and he actually did when there were cars coming and the light was red). This drove his mom crazy, as she’d obviously worry for his safety. I had to grab him a few times before he actually got into the middle of the street. Then, when I took out our Bluey bubble machine, he randomly started sticking it in strangers’ faces to blow bubbles just a foot or two away from their noses — this was not good at all. Then, he kept insisting on running into people on purpose while walking simply because he thought it was funny. And there was a good stretch of time when any time I tried to open my mouth to say anything, he’d talk over me and say that ‘Kaia’s mom isn’t listening to me.” I kept pretty calm overall, but I did have to shut down the bubbles in people’s faces, plus the “running into the street when cars were coming” situation a number of times.

Everything finally came to a head when we were just a block away from our building, and the little friend decides to try to run into the street yet again during a red light. This time, his mom finally lost all her patience and screamed at him while simultaneously pulling him back onto the sidewalk. Predictably, he started sobbing, and she had to carry him across the street and sit him down for a good talk. I mean… he kind of deserved it after being warned literally all day long?

In these moments, I always think about early childhood educators, and it’s really hard for me to comprehend having to deal with other people’s young children all day long. Their job is so, so tough. And it’s a very unappreciated job. These little kids are growing into their own selves, they are discovering their emotions and what their bodies and minds are capable of, and they are… simply growing. And that’s a lot to deal with, especially when there’s an entire classroom full of these bursting little personalities. I have moments with Kaia when she’s screaming and sobbing into my ear so loudly that I can barely hear my own thoughts, all over something innocuous when I wonder how anyone could ever willingly decide to deal with this more than once.

Amen to early childhood educators. I just don’t have the patience to deal with most other people’s children.

Honduras bound for an extended Memorial Day weekend

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We’re slowly but surely making our way through Central America. Tomorrow, we leave for Honduras — specifically, about three days in Roatan, the largest of the Bay Islands right in the Caribbean, and then about 1.5 days in the San Pedro Sula area on the mainland. I hadn’t shared with that many people that I was going to Honduras this weekend. But the very few times I did, I was either met with total crickets as though I said nothing, or “I don’t normally say this, and you know me. But… just be careful when you’re there.” I felt excited to be going to a place that not a single person I knew had been before.

Roatan is actually a major stop for massive cruise ships that go through the Caribbean, so for Westerners who like cruises in the Caribbean, it may be a known spot. It’s the largest of the Bay Islands, which were once a former British colony (and before that, inhabited by the local Paya people, and decimated by the Spanish). Though the British colonization was relatively brief, that had a lasting impact on the islands, as English proficiency is extremely high there relative to mainland Honduras. Roatan is also known for having crystal clear waters and having beaches where you don’t have to swim too far out to see parts of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the Western hemisphere.

Honduras is also very famous for its biodiversity, as well as its coffee, which we’ve grown to love and taste more and more since our 2019 Colombia trip. Honduras is the largest coffee producer in all of Central America and the sixth largest coffee producer in the world. Oddly enough, though, we rarely see Honduras on coffee bean bags we’ve seen or bought. From Central America, at least here in the U.S., we’re more likely to see the bean origin being from Guatemala or Costa Rica. I added a bunch of coffee spots to our saved maps list, and I’m eager to see what Honduran coffee is all about.

Baleadas, which are thick tortillas that are cooked on a griddle, usually stuffed with refried beans, mantequilla (their version of sour cream), cheese, and different proteins like fried pork, beef, or eggs, are an unofficial national dish of Honduras that I’m looking forward to trying. I’m waiting for us to have it for the first time and for Chris to predictably remark that it’s like a chapati or paratha… because he likes to think all flat breads cooked on a griddle were stolen from India. And Central American fruit — here we come again!

I have a feeling we will see some American tourists in Roatan, but likely few if any in San Pedro Sula. And that is a real thing to look forward to.

Osmanthus flower tea

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Today, my friend came over for an afternoon catch-up, and I suggested that we grab milk tea from TP Tea, which is owned by Chun Shui Tang, the original Taiwanese shop that is reputed as the original creators of bubble tea. It happens to be just a few blocks from my apartment, so she picked up an order for Chris’s parents and me on her way over. I chose the osmanthus oolong milk tea with house-made lychee jelly, 30 percent sweetness, and less ice.

I was thinking about my milk/bubble tea choices in the last year or so. I don’t get milk tea that often, though New York City has exploded with endless Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese franchises, with the biggest being HeyTea. But one type that has always been popular among Asians that I only recently got into was osmanthus tea. Osmanthus is a yellow fragrant flower that, similar to jasmine, is oftentimes added to tea or drunk on its own (like chrysanthemum). It’s very aromatic and oftentimes infused with green, black, or oolong tea leaves. It has an almost fruity taste. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it’s known for promoting relaxation, supporting digestion, and also delivering a high amount of antioxidants. I’m getting more into the non-tea fruity, floral flavors as of late. The tea isn’t always enough for me anymore, even if it is really good, fresh loose leaf, and high quality!

One seemingly little decision that paves a very different future — forever

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Today, I met up with a friend’s friend I met for the first time at a kid’s birthday party several weeks ago. We met at a coffee shop on the Upper West Side and talked about our backgrounds, work, kids, and families. This friend grew up in the Dominican Republic, but she is fluent not just in Spanish, but also in French (and English). Her two young daughters are at a French daycare and school. So I was curious to understand how she learned French, and then how she decided to have her daughters immersed in French language.

She said that her mom wanted her and her two younger siblings to learn English. But when her mom started looking into the schools, she found out that while the private American international school’s fees were extremely high, the private French international school was just a fraction of the cost. With this school, her children would learn not just English, but also French — at a massive discount! So it was a no brainer for her to send all three kids to the French school. That French K-12 led to all three kids moving to France to study and eventually work. This friend lives in New York now with her husband and two daughters, while her two siblings are still living and working in Paris and the south of France.

I wonder if her mom ever envisioned the future of her three kids not just being tri-lingual, but also moving quite far away from home and in their daily lives, speaking a different language than their native tongue. That one seemingly little decision changed her kids’ paths in life forever. It makes me wonder what Kaia’s young adulthood and adulthood will look like — merely because of seemingly small choices that Chris and I are making now.

Mother’s Day breakfast at school on Friday

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Every year around Mother’s Day, Kaia’s preschool hosts a Mother’s Day breakfast/tea event where they invite all the mothers/mother-figures to school for a little party. Last year, I missed it since we took a long weekend to Rhode Island. But this year, I was able to attend. Since the classes are all quite small (Kaia’s class has THREE STUDENTS in it, with two teachers, one who teaches in English, the second in Chinese!), they combine all the kids and parents in the same classroom for this event. And while it was beautifully set up with food and hot tea and drinks for all, the parents just didn’t really want to interact with each other. It didn’t matter if you were on either end of the table or in the middle. Not a single parent wanted to proactively talk to anyone else. Every parent was mostly eating or interacting with their own kids. On the 4K side of the table where I was, I attempted and failed at small talk with the two moms of the other two 4K kids. It was mostly a lot of question, answer, question, answer, with me doing most of the questioning. Very occasionally, I got asked, “What about you / you guys?” questions back, but that was only because I asked first. It honestly felt like pulling teeth. And when it was time to go, I was more than ready to leave. Kaia was sad to see me go and started crying, but I really had to get away from these parents who seem to have zero desire to socialize even for the facade of being friendly.

I have really hated the lack of community at the last two schools Kaia has been at. I hope that we are able to feel some sense of community and camaraderie with the parents at her new school come September.

Costco shopping – including the clothes!

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For the most part when I think of Costco, 90 percent of the time, I am thinking about what interesting food items they have in stock, whether that is fresh, frozen, or packaged goods. I have staple items I always buy, such as the organic boneless, skinless chicken thighs, beef chuck and/or grass-feed ground beef, the individually frozen organic salmon fillets, and the bags of frozen, raw, wild Argentine shrimp. I love their massive bag of spinach. I always get whatever fresh mushrooms they have — the baby bellas are Kaia’s go-to staple mushroom that she will gobble right up. But in the fall if we are lucky, I can get a good haul of wild chanterelles.

Occasionally, I also think about deals they may have on things like skin/body care (Kirkland Signature shampoo and conditioner is most definitely the best! I also think the Cetaphil face cleanser is an incredible steal). I also make it a point to always pick up a massive bag of their baking soda (we use it for all cleaning and laundry, plus baking!), so much so that Chris always makes fun of me about my favorite Costco buy being a ridiculously large bag of baking soda. My colleague watched my Costco Yvonne meets Food video and insisted there was no way I would finish the full bag. I let her know that at that point, I’d already finished MULTIPLE. When you use it to clean your toilets, add to a homemade all-purpose cleaner solution, and to freshen up laundry, you will most certainly use it all up in good time — assuming you actually clean your house.

However, what has been on the radar since right before the pandemic has been looking more closely at their clothing deals. It originally started with restocking on athletic, good-grip socks and sports bras. But then, I started noticing they have pretty good deals on shoes. The slip-on pair of walking shoes I got in 2019 right before the world ended were the most-worn shoe of mine in the 2020 pandemic year; I finally had to retire them last year and replace them with a pair of All Birds. At a Melbourne Costco, I got a set of Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas for myself, and I’ve gotten Kaia and multiple relatives/friends’ kids plenty of children’s clothing sets. The clothing is mostly known name brands, the quality is high (at least from what I can see — they wash well!), and the price is so cheap! And then yesterday while at a Costco in New Jersey en route back from the Finger Lakes, I got a new pair of name-brand slides I will be using as house slippers. They were cheaper than a similar style I was eyeing on Amazon, and they are extremely cushiony and have great arch support! I also picked up a set of eight pairs of no-show grippy socks, which will be needed for this summer.

Once another Costco-loving friend was over, and she noticed we had the same pair of athletic socks on but in different colors. She asked me if I got them at Costco, and I said yes. She started laughing, saying, “See? This is how you know we’re getting old. We buy clothes at Costco now!”

My response to her was, I don’t think it’s being “old” that is what’s driving the Costco clothing purchases. I think it’s that our age has made us realize what good, high quality deals we can get, and that we should prioritize comfort, longevity, some style, and value all in one. And Costco does a good job of that! And there’s no shame in that at all — more pride, actually!

Mutual friend outreaches in the last couple days

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On Monday afternoon, I went out for a coffee catchup with a friend of a friend who lives in Hong Kong. She used to be a friend’s roommate way back in 2011-2012 when my friend temporarily lived in New York. I haven’t seen this person since my friend’s wedding in 2012. While we hung out in larger groups of mutual friends, I realize that I never had a clear picture of her personality because I’d never had a real 1-on-1 conversation with her before. She contacted me about a month ago to let me know that she would be accompanying her husband on a work trip to New York and wanted to see if I’d be free for a catch-up. I agreed, figuring it would be nice to chat with a familiar face and actually get to know her for her as opposed to group chat. It’s been 14 years, so a long time had passed! And I’m always happy to give people a chance and time assuming nothing negative had previously transpired between us.

It was actually a really good catch-up and filled my cup. We talked about what we’d been up to since 2012, including work, relocation for her, change in partners, marriage, and IVF and a baby for me. We ended up chatting for nearly two hours, which I wasn’t expecting. She said that she’d likely be back more in New York given her husband’s work, and she insisted that I reach out the next time I’d be in Hong Kong.

It always feels good when someone else takes the initiative in your life to organize a catch-up. A mutual mom friend I met at this last Saturday’s birthday party emailed me to follow up on something she said she’d share with me about Chinese immersion programs in the city (how thoughtful that she’d remember and ask our mutual friend for my email address!). In her message, she asked if I’d be open to catching up over coffee or a drink in the coming weeks. So we exchanged numbers, and we’re planning to meet for coffee in a few weeks.

For a long time, I felt like it was really hard to make and meet new friends in New York City outside of work; in my 20s, it was pretty much impossible. But now, in my late-30s and early-40s, it seems to be happening a lot more naturally for me. And it feels really nice. I’m always happy and willing to meet new people as long as we have similar interests and values, and I’m even happier to meet with them if our backgrounds are nothing alike because it means that I will likely learn a lot I’d never previously been exposed to. And that is always exciting for me.

A 4-year-old’s birthday party

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Even though I am a parent to a four-year-old, in the grand scheme of early child parenting, I really haven’t attended or taken Kaia to that many birthday parties. Most of the “birthday parties” she has been to have been held at her school within classrooms, and the kids get some version of a cupcake or cake/ice cream, along with a goodie bag of toys/treats to take home. A friend in our building, whose son turned 4 today, told me that she really hated kids’ birthday party setups here, such as the ones at places like kids’ gyms and play spaces because it was really all about the kids playing and goofing around, along with some crappy “included” food like cheap, greasy pizza and soda — none of which grown parents would enjoy and would just suck up since it was part of the overall fee. And the fees are quite expensive: they are not something to sneeze at, especially when your kid is so young and will barely remember most of these things — other than through photos.

So she said that she preferred intimate gatherings with local friends and their kids. If they were traveling, they’d have dinners and cake cuttings with family. Today, she hosted us at her place just several floors down, where along with some local friends and their kids, we ate Popup Bagels (today, I learned these are for dipping, not for slicing and filling!), drank champagne, and also enjoyed two delicious, very “adult” cakes from Delice Macarons, a local French bakery on the Upper West Side. One was chocolate mousse cake (gluten free!) shaped like a mini chateau, while the second was another chocolate mousse with a very delicious and refined raspberry gelee. While I chatted with the other parents and kept a casual eye on Kaia to ensure she didn’t break anything, I thought to myself — this is such a refined birthday cake for a four-year-old child. Most kids of his age would never appreciate or even know how good they had it to have a cake this meticulously made — and probably very, very pricey! What a little dream to have a chocolate chateau as your birthday cake!

But that’s also what I think of Kaia Pookie: she has no idea how wide and refined of a palate she actually has. She doesn’t realize that she has such a breadth of cuisines, and has really only been exposed to fancy, gourmet chocolate — with the exception of that Twix she ate last October. ‘Tis the life of little kids who have food-appreciating parents as their mamas and daddies.