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Last day with family in San Francisco for this year

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My family tends to go through the same behavioral patterns in the last day or two when I am home. My mom goes through an anxious, angry period where she is either aggressive or passive aggressive with me, getting mad at me for innocuous things or accusing me of having feelings or intentions that she makes up. If I am not home during a given period, she will call repeatedly and ask when I am coming home; this is her way of actually saying, you need to come home now. On Monday, we planned to have dinner at my aunt’s upstairs, and my uncle would also be joining us. She asked us to come at 5 since my uncle needs to leave early since he cannot drive in the dark. So at around 3 while in Mission Bay with Chris and Kaia, I called home to let my dad know that we’d be back before 4. I could hear my mom in the background saying I was late and that I needed to come home right away. I could hear her angst, but I shrugged it off.

We went to pick up ice cream (black sesame and mango!) from Joe’s Ice Cream, a neighborhood ice cream shop that’s been around since I was a kid. Then we walked home from there. When we arrived back and I came into the kitchen, that was when I could feel my mom glaring at me with her eyes burning. “It’s almost 4 o’clock now. You are late,” she hissed at me. “You should have been home a long time ago! They are already upstairs waiting for us and eating.” Um. It wasn’t even 4pm. Who the hell was going to be eating dinner at this time? I said nothing and did as I promised, which was to help make a steamed eggplant dish to bring to the dinner along with my purchased dessert. She proceeded to get mad that we went out at all today and didn’t tell her, as she was hoping we could “talk more” together. I did not have that same hope.

As 4:50 rolled around, my mom started yelling that we’re all late and that we all needed to get upstairs, pronto. I was still cleaning up and washing dishes in the kitchen. Kaia was running around happily. My dad was doing something somewhere in the basement. Chris was lying on my bed, asking what the rush was. The reason she wanted us to go upstairs as soon as possible was that she wanted us to be done with this family dinner as soon as possible. She can only keep up her “family dinner” face for so long, and she had nothing to say to my uncle. While at dinner when we were asking my aunt questions about her potentially changing living situation, my mom got mad at me for asking questions and insisted we “let her eat her dinner.” I told her that it’s normal to have a conversation at the dinner table, and that shut her up; not everyone wants to eat in silence and call that a “family dinner” for god’s sake. It’s almost like she is in pain being at a dinner table with any wider family members and she needs to find a way to make it stop as soon as possible. When they invite her, she feels a need to “return the favor” and invite them back right away, which is “suffering.” Thinking about this is so exhausting.

There were some nice moments, though. This morning before we left, Kaia kept insisting to my dad that he show her his worms in his compost pile before leaving. Obviously this made my dad beyond thrilled, so he was happy to comply with her ask. Then as he rummaged through random junk in the garage, she insisted she wanted to stay with him to watch what he was doing. This attachment she’s developed to my dad has been really endearing. Every time she yells, “GONGGONG! GONGGONG!” and runs after him, it makes me smile and chuckle. Chris commented that my dad has probably never felt more desired or more affection from another human in his entire life before now. He is probably right.

And as we packed up the car to go to the airport, while she was being a little bratty and refused to give my mom a hug and kiss until the very last minute, she had zero problem giving my dad endless hugs and kisses and grabbing onto his leg until she had to let go and get into the car. My dad’s big goofy grin in this moment was pretty epic… and this is coming from someone who never uses that word.

When we got to the airport lounge and sat down, I asked Kaia if she missed Popo and Gonggong. She nodded her head and quietly said a drawn out, “Yeah.” Then, she didn’t say anything for while, but out of nowhere looked at me and said, “We never got to see Jiujiu… because he died.”

Yes, that is true. At least she waited to say that until after my parents were gone because I am not sure how they would have reacted to hearing Kaia say this.

Presidio Tunnel Tops: nature-inspired and a great outdoor gift

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A couple years ago, my friend with kids told me that at the San Francisco Presidio, a large outdoor children’s play area had opened with sweeping views of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the entire city skyline. Built on top of 14 acres right on top of highway tunnels in San Francisco, Presidio Tunnel Tops connects the historic Presidio military base to the Crissy Field waterfront. It’s It’s open to the public, has clean, well maintained restrooms, and has a whole line-up of rotating food trucks just steps away from it seven days a week.

I originally wanted to organize a meetup/play date there last year, but we ran out of time. So assuming the crappy San Francisco weather cooperated with us this time, I insisted we go today to meet my friends and their kids. Luckily, the weather worked out in our favor, and we ended up having a beautiful, high-60s F, blue-sky day! Presidio Tunnel Tops has been open for just over four years now, and I was really impressed: the playground is nature-inspired, with areas for kids to play featuring boulders, logs, and lots of different water features. And unlike many children’s play areas, this is specifically designed to be interesting for kids ranging in age from two to 12. That way, if you have kids of varying ages, you can rest easy knowing that one won’t get bored faster than the other.

I also really enjoyed the variety and quality of food options available at the nearby mobile food trucks area. The Mess Hall just steps away from the Tunnel Tops recently opened, but only one major food vendor was operating, so that limited our options. The food trucks were the obvious place to go. The food ranged from Chinese, Filipino, Mexican, Hawaiian shaved ice (!!), to Swahili (they called it “East African cuisine”), burgers, and fried chicken. I chose food from the Mexican truck Mestizo and the Swahili Spot trucks; both were delicious and things I’d order even not from a truck!

Given we met up at 10:30 and stayed in the Crissy Field area until about 3pm, we essentially were outdoors for over half the day. When I thought about this and how nice it was to maximize time outside during good weather, I realize that this is one of the very best qualities of Bay Area, or even specifically, San Francisco living: you don’t need to travel too far or even outside of city limits to get truly fresh, crisp air, beautiful green landscapes, and ocean/beach views. Hiking and easy walking trail opportunities are countless. As long as the weather cooperates with you or you can tolerate the cold, outdoor access is just easier and better here than in New York City. When you walk the trails of the Presidio Tunnel Tops or watch kids playing on these massive wooden structures there, you kind of forget you’re even in a “city” because of how natural the whole setup feels.

It makes me happy that I can not only expose all of these great things about San Francisco to Kaia, but also that she can have opportunities to play with my friends’ kids while here. Now that she’s 4.5, I have a feeling she will start remembering more and more of these experiences and recount them. I hope when she remembers and talks about these moments that she shares them with great joy.

Entering the fog – literally and figuratively

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We woke up at the eye-burning hour of 3am today to take the 6am flight to San Francisco this morning. Miraculously, I got upgraded last minute from Business to First Class, which has only ever happened once in my entire life — four years ago, in August 2022. This was when Kaia was a wee eight months old and on a plane for the very first time. We can forever and a day say that her very first flight was a transcontinental, first-class flight from JFO to SFO. I pumped milk on that flight, and she had to go between First where I was and Business where Chris was.

After we got our one checked roller bag and got into a Lyft, off we went on the freeway north to San Francisco. And as we got onto 280, all I could see was a massive layer of grey fog descend upon the skies. We were about to enter the damn fog and pathetic 60s F weather — right in August, a SUMMER MONTH. It doesn’t matter how many times I come to San Francisco, but the sight of this has never failed to annoy me to no end.

We arrived at my parents’ place. We had a usual early lunch together of takeout dim sum and some jook/congee my mom made. My mom barely said anything at the table other than to try to get Kaia to eat more food. My dad barely said much unless I asked him questions, and he promptly left the table, with his plate still there, after he finished eating. When my mom asked him why he was leaving the table, he simply responded, “I’m done eating.” That was fun.

From what I can see so far in the house, not a whole lot has changed in the last year. There’s still endless clutter and things they should not own. It’s dust galore in most places, and likely even more cob webs on the walls and ceilings. But I did notice that two shelves in the living room were completely cleared. It annoyed me a little to realize quite quickly that the contents of those shelves were previously my and Ed’s VHS and CD/DVD collections. I suppose it’s easy to declutter stuff when it’s not yours versus yours, isn’t it?

I spent about two hours after lunch vacuuming the floors and cob webs from the walls and ceilings. I also dusted the dining room surfaces and the shelves in my old bedroom where we are sleeping. I filled the bathroom sink with water and used a damp sponge to remove the heavily caked on layer of dust that was on the bedroom surfaces. When I had finally finished reaching all the surfaces I could, the water had turned completely black.

I want my parents to live independently for as long as possible, but when I look at this house deteriorate year after year, with many areas completely not maintained at all, I wonder how much longer they will feasibly continue living here. It’s not like they live in complete filth: the bathrooms and kitchen are clean. The stove is safe. I don’t think anyone has cleaner, brighter, more mildew-free bathroom tiles than my parents do. The walkways are relatively clear and you can get through doorways easily. The beds and sofas are clean and clear, able to be slept in and sat on just fine. I have offered to get them a cleaner, but of course they were adamantly against it. And to be frank, you must remove the clutter before a hired house cleaner could really do much to be worth the added expense.

A once-a-year clean that I do for them isn’t going to make a huge difference because another year will pass until the same level of cleaning happens. But I feel better doing this for them because I can clearly see they are both much more tired than before. My dad is walking with a little hunch. He gets tired more quickly and has even admitted it after being on a ladder for over 1.5 hours today to fix the kitchen overhead light that went out this morning (to be honest, I was pretty impressed he was agile enough to get up and down that six-foot ladder!). My mom is slower to move around and even process things that I say to her.

It’s sad to watch your parents get more frail and elderly right in front of your eyes.

The joy of rainbow popsicles

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A couple of weeks ago, we were at our neighbor friend’s place several floors down, and my friend offered Kaia a cream Jonny Pop. She asked if it was okay for Kaia to have it, and I said okay reluctantly… given that she was giving both her son and Kaia the pops at the same time (with their ages, it’s pretty obvious that if one kid got a popsicle and the other did not, a meltdown would ensue). She told me that it’s her son’s favorite type of popsicle that she lets him have once a day after dinner. She loves them because she can pick them up easily at Target nearby. They have no artificial colors, flavors, or ingredients. When I heard this and saw the design of the popsicle, I thought…. Hmmm. Well, Kaia is turning 5 at the end of this year. And while to date, the only popsicles she’s had are the ones I make at home from blended fruit and sometimes yogurt/milk, I figure that she deserves the occasional real treat as long as it’s not too sugar-laden. Plus, Kaia is slowly but surely outgrowing these little popsicle molds I have (from Buy Nothing!), as she is a growing Pookie with a bigger appetite now; these tiny molds were really intended to be for toddlers.

So when I saw Jonny Pops listed as a sale item this last week at Whole Foods, I strongly suggested to Chris to get a box for her as a treat. As we all know, little kids (and adults!!) work off of incentives, so this could easily be used to get her to do things she needs to get done when they need to get done. I scrolled through the potential options, and as soon as I saw the RAINBOW POPSICLES, I knew she’d go crazy for these and asked him to specifically get those. After listening to the insanity-inducing Cocomelon “Rainbow Popsicle” song endless times, Kaia had been asking me for months if I could make her rainbow popsicles. While I am always about homemade, from-scratch food and treats, I knew I had to draw the line here. There was absolutely zero chance I would ever have the patience to not only dye (from natural sources, of course) fruit-based purees six or seven different colors, but then also have the time to freezer each layer and then layer a new flavor layer on top, then repeat 3-4 times!

Chris was a good husband/father and dutifully picked up a box of Jonny’s rainbow pops. To see if she’d spot them, earlier in the week I told Kaia to go into the freezer to grab her favorite ice pack (she likes to sleep with an ice pack…). Well, this kid never misses a beat. When she went into the ice bin, she squeaked and pulled out the rainbow popsicle box.

“Mama! What’s this? What’s this?” Kaia asked me eagerly. Her eyes were glimmering and she had the biggest grin. The excitement was about to burst out of her face.

“Go ask Daddy,” I responded. “He got them for you!”

Kaia asked where Chris got them, and I told her from Whole Foods. She loves her occasional Whole Foods excursion with Chris, so I knew this would psych her out even more.

Chris confirmed to her that yes, he did get them from Whole Foods, but she has to be really, really good to get one, otherwise they’re all going to her neighbor friend downstairs.

Since we have to wake up super early on Saturday for our flight, that would mean we’d ideally want her to finish dinner earlier on Friday night. So I had planned to let her have the rainbow popsicle on Thursday night as a “end of summer” celebration. Friday is also her last day at summer camp, her last day at her school of the last two years. So it’s truly an end of an era.

I told her tonight that if she eats her dinner quickly, she can have one rainbow popsicle. My child operates heavily on incentives, so she ate her dinner probably 15-20 minutes faster than she normally does… and then grazed for ages on the glory and deliciousness of this rainbow popsicle that it started dripping all over her placemat. She kept marveling over all the different colors, which colors corresponded with which fruit flavor, and then every few sucks and bites, giggled and shrieked, “yummy!” or “so tasty!”

So while I got what I asked for, which was for her to finish dinner early, we ended up staying at the dinner table much longer than I had planned because of how much she wanted to savor literally every single bite of this freaking popsicle. I didn’t get her tucked into bed until 45 minutes AFTER we usually aim to get her in bed, lights out. But honestly? It was so worth it for me to see how much she relished this sweet, colorful treat, and to see how happy she was enjoying the “small things” in life. I am currently living with two polar opposites: there is Chris on one end of the spectrum who downplays everything and has annoyingly muted reactions to everything. For him, all good things are “not bad” or “pretty decent.” It reminds me of when French people say “Pas mal” and expect you to think they fucking loved something. Then, there’s Pookie, who when she gets excited, it’s written all over her face and body. She just loves, loves loves.

I am more on Pookie’s side here. You only live once. Show your damn feelings and be proud of it!

Requests from mom before coming home

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We’re flying back to San Francisco this Saturday and will be staying with my parents over two weekends, with some hotel time and a drive further north in between. Usually before I go back, I gather some basic things as gifts for my parents and my aunt. Per my mom’s request, I’ve also made banana bread — a full loaf — and brought it back for her repeatedly because she loves it so much. But this time around, I did not plan well with banana buying, as I don’t usually buy bananas every week. Bananas are an occasional buy for us, usually when I am planning to make pancakes for Kaia, or if I want to make a specific cocoa-powder/tahini or peanut butter/banana protein smoothie for myself. I have only 1 frozen banana left in my freezer, and it’s better to use fresh bananas (and at least 3-4) for a good banana bread. So this year, I won’t be making it and bringing it home.

My mom asked me on the phone today if I could make it for her. I told her I was doubtful it would happen because I don’t have any more bananas, and if I did buy new ones, I’d have to wait for them to ripen. Given I have just two more full days here, this is not realistic at all. So I said that if she had bananas at home and all the right ingredients, I could make it when I am home with her. She seemed to be satisfied by my suggestion as an alternative.

She also reminded me of her request for me to dust all the photo frames in the dining room. In the last few years I’ve come home, I have done this without her asking because I was always so disgusted over how thick of a layer of dust had developed due to zero cleaning they do on these surfaces. My parents keep areas like the kitchen and bathrooms clean. But when it comes to dust, vacuuming, and general clutter, they are absolutely horrendous at this and only seem to do things to make it all worse. Sometimes, I genuinely have no idea how they can live the way they do. It’s beyond frustrating for me to witness even for just the handful of days I am home each year nowadays.

Chinese yam, pork, and carrot soup – a Cantonese soup standby

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It’s a bittersweet week this week for us, as it’s Kaia’s last week at summer camp at the same school in Chinatown for the last two years. She spent 3K and 4K/Pre-K at this Chinese immersion, dual language school, as part of New York City’s UPK program. It’s been a gift (and quite the savings…!) to not have to pay for school for the last two years, other than after-care fees and summer camp. What this also means is that this is our last week having daily trips to Chinatown… a very sad reality I have to spend time mourning. So I started going through my list of things to stock up on and also remembered a couple of things I wanted to make with fresh ingredients while I still have easy access to them.

This year, I was able to achieve my goal of making soups more frequently. According to TCM, soup is a nourishing component of a meal. In Chinese culture, it’s often noted that a complete meal should be “san cai yi tang” (三菜一汤), or three meat/protein/vegetable dishes and one soup, served alongside rice. I had a lot of bone broth in the fridge I made from chicken wings and chicken feet I got from Chinatown. And I ended up using it today with Chinese yam (or huai shan), pork shoulder (also from Chinatown!), carrots, red dates, ginger, goji berries, and shiitake mushrooms. Chinese yam is a pretty traditional Chinese vegetable. It’s used both fresh and dried; today, I bought it fresh for this soup. It’s considered a nourishing root vegetable that supports digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, and boosts overall vitality. I remember my grandma using it in soups growing up. The texture once cooked is almost like taro. When Chinese yam is raw and fresh, the stalks are long, hard, and thin. It has a really tough brown skin with lots of “hair” on it — definitely not the first vegetable you’d pick up when adventuring to explore new produce, as it’s on the “ugly” or even borderline “scary” looking side. And once you peel the skin off, the white flesh is hard to grasp firmly, as it becomes very sticky and gummy. On the plus side, the fresh root has active digestive enzymes; supposedly when you have mucus, it can help clear it for you!

So I made this soup today. I even served it for Chris and me with a tiny little shallow dish of high quality aged soy sauce for dipping the shredded pork pieces into — super traditional and like we had it growing up. And inhaling the familiar aromas and eating it really did remind me of home — at least, the happier parts. It’s funny that it’s taken me to age 40 to really understand and appreciate how much love and care my grandma put into all the soups she made for us almost every single day. I actually cannot remember a day living with her when there was not a huge pot of traditional Chinese soup on the stove!

And while I dipped some pieces of pork shoulder into the soy sauce, I could also faintly remember watching Ed try to fish out the biggest, most tender pieces of pork out of the stock pot so that he could eagerly dip and eat them himself. I always just ate and drank what was served to me and didn’t care about which pieces I got. Most of my happiest childhood memories are tied to food.

Mufi and her five other siblings

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Given Kaia’s growing vocabulary and more complex sentence structure, she’s been having more and deeper conversations. She retains information really well and remembers things from long ago that you’d assume would be long forgotten… or that you have forgotten. And she just loves sharing information with everyone who will listen. At school, they do lots of drawing and painting. In the last few days, she has been coming home with illustrations of our “home.” Lately, she is very obsessed with Mufi, aka Mufasa, the robot-vacuum-mop that Chris calls her “little brother.” Chris told her that along with Mufi (she nicknamed Mufasa this), she has Irene, Simon, Henry, Lychee, and Maddie (some of her favorite stuffed animals) as siblings, as well. So Kaia drew a very colorful picture of our home, showing Mufi mopping our floors (the blue streaks indicate when he’s in “mop” mode). She even drew the little black bristles to show the mop! She reported to her teachers that she had Mufi as a little brother, and five other siblings, for a total of seven babies that I have had.

“Mama has SEVEN babies?” I said to her, completely baffled. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Kaia responded matter of factly. “You have seven babies, and I have six siblings!”

Hmmm. this is very interesting.

The protector of my baby tooth: Kaia

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This morning, Kaia woke up and promptly checked under her pillow for my tooth. Seeing that it was still there, she quickly grabbed it and brought it to my bedroom and proudly presented it back to me.

“I have your tooth, Mama!” Kaia exclaimed with pride and delight. “Here you go, Mama!”

In the evening, it was my turn to read bedtime stories and put her to bed. She asked me if she could keep my tooth for another night under her pillow. To see if she was really attached to my tooth, I told her she couldn’t have a usual toy to bring to bed and could either have the miscellaneous toy or my tooth. She hesitated for a brief second and said she wanted my tooth! She placed it in the exact same spot under her pillow and said she’d guard it for me.

Motherhood is all consuming in both mind and body. It can be completely exhausting and wipe out all your mind space. These little, random moments, the ones you could never foresee, are always the ones that surprise and get me, though, because they come from a place of pure curiosity, youth, and love. No one else would ever care that Kaia insisted on guarding and protecting my lost baby tooth for two nights in a row. But for me, my heart just gushed and I couldn’t help but squeeze her a little tighter when I gave her a good-night hug tonight because I just loved this so, so much. I love that she has this strong curiosity. I love that she cares so much. And I really love that she has a desire to take care of and protect. This is my sweet baby, slowly but surely growing up right before my eyes.

Mufasa, our new robo vacuum-mop

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Chris and I don’t really see eye to eye on cleaning. And when I say that, what I really mean is that my slightly impossible standard of cleanliness can pretty much never be met. And it doesn’t help when said husband doesn’t consider things dirty unless they look dirty. Years ago when I was trying to get him to commit to cleaning more, I suggested that he vacuum and mop the floors of the apartment every month. He completely balked at this and refused. So, we settled on every other month, which I was never happy with. Lots of spot / area cleaning had to be done, especially in the kitchen and around Kaia’s eating area (the inevitably little person messes!). Within days of mopping, the floors always felt sticky to me once again. It’s a huge reason I prefer wearing slippers; the slippers prevent my feet from knowing how dirty the floor beneath me is.

So when I saw Chris’s parent’s robo-vacuum, which they named Modi (“we have to put Modi to work!” his mom said), working their house back in December, I was intrigued. I was even more intrigued when they told me it actually had a mop function. The vacuum was one thing, but a combined vacuum mop would be a total game changer. I asked ChatGPT Pro to research the best options for us here given our living situation — in a NYC 2-bedroom apartment with two adults and a 4-year-old — and it gave me this suggestion that also had its own wood cleaner. Amazon Prime Day came in June, and we bought this thing. And Chris decided to name it Mufasa, after the son he never had. He also told Kaia that this was her little brother. She now calls him “Mufasi!” She also enjoys watching him in action. Given how much it cost, I told Chris that we better be running it at least every week as a vacuum with water, and every other week with the proper wood cleaner!

After cooking today, I used one of the pre-set programs to have it do a moderate vacuum/mopping of the kitchen floor. If you must know, the pre-set program, which Chris named, is called, “Post YThi Cooking Mess.” And while Mufasa did miss one small caked on spot, I will say that my bare feet walking over it were pretty satisfied with the results afterwards. I am very much looking forward to what the floor looks and feels like once we finally use the wood cleaner in the mix!

“Why is it just three of us?”

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Kaia woke up this morning to see that her paternal grandparents were not in the house anymore. As they usually do, Chris’s parents left on one of several side trips on this trip: for the next week and a half, they are off to Utah, Nevada, Toronto, and Maine. She came out of her bedroom and peered at our bed where Chris’s parents would sleep and did not see them. Instead, she saw a fully made up bed. She also saw me lying on the sofa bed, still under the covers.

“Where did Suma and Topa go?” Kaia asked, as she got into sofa bed with me.

“Remember we told you they’d leave this morning for about a week and a half?” I said to her lightly. “They’ll be back next Wednesday! They’ll be back before you know it.”

She gave me her contemplative look. She was clearly sad and did not like that they weren’t at home with us anymore.

As she ate her breakfast, she said to me, “Why is it just the three of us?” And when I told her that Suma and Topa couldn’t stay with us forever, she kept asking me, “Why? Why?”

Kaia wants everyone she loves with her all the time – forever. Like most kids her age, she never wants the fun to end, and she always wants to be loved and cuddled and given attention to constantly. It’s hard to explain to her in a way she will understand why some people she loves live so far away, and why these same relations (like grandparents) can be closer in proximity like her classmates’ grandparents may be. But I guess that’s all the things you start learning and understanding the older and more mature you become.