Category Archives: Motherhood

Overnight potty training, part II

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Luckily after sleeping almost 11 hours, I woke up this morning and actually felt much, much better. Though I didn’t have any real body aches, I did have an on-and-off headache yesterday, so I was happy to feel that it was all gone, and my phlegm and cough had subsided quite greatly.

In the last number of days, I checked my Oh Crap! potty training book, and I realized that given Kaia has been staying dry each night for about over a month now, we’re now ready to move to stage 2 of overnight training, which is instead of waking up at two different intervals at night, we will consolidate to one wakeup. We used to wake up at around 11:30 and then 2:30. Now, we will wake up just once, at around 12:30, and then just pray that she holds it until she wakes up to pee. This also means that both of us no longer need to wake up each night, that we’ll now alternate nights.

“It’s like we’re back to the night nanny days, on nights and off nights!” Chris declared, laughing.

We have now had four nights of waking Kaia up at 12:30 to dream pee, and so far, so good. She has a bigger pee at that time, and then when she wakes up between 6:30-7, she has a wake-up time pee. Now, all we have to do is get her to wake up on her own to pee. How are we supposed to do that?

Another year, another sickness

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The most amazing things about years 2020 and 2021 are that I never got sick, even a single time. In 2020, I was isolated from pretty much the entire world, so who was going to get me sick? In 2021, we were technically still in COVID times, but I was still fairly isolated. Then I got pregnant and had Kaia. And I was still in the clear. Then 2022 came and the world was open and free again. Chris went to Chicago for a big work conference, came back and gave baby Kaia and me COVID. My milk supply (temporarily, thank God) plummeted for those days, and I still remember every pumping session was painful and so sweaty that I had to change my top and air out my pumping bras each time. After he got back, he learned that over a dozen of his colleagues went home with COVID. He never tested positive, so he annoyingly claims, to this day, that since he never tested himself, he never had it.

In early 2023, Kaia caught Hand Food Mouth from a friend in the play room, and then gave ME my first case of HFM. I had it worse than she did. In the spring of that year, she got sick, and I got really sick, too, AGAIN: I was sick on and off for at least a month. I was so miserable, with my violent coughing fits. I went to see a primary care physician, a respiratory specialist, and even a gastroenterologist just in case. I took lung capacity tests and even a scan of my lungs for anything potentially more serious (all came back negative for problems). No one could give me any answers for why I was having these coughing fits. I still don’t know why I get them now.

Then memorably in November 2024, so about a year ago, I got a peritonsillar abscess as a result of getting hit by two rare strains of first the flu, and THEN strep throat. Because both hit me at the same time, an abscess developed on my left tonsil about three times the size of a quarter. Ever since that happened, I told myself I seriously needed to isolate myself and stay the hell away from anyone remotely sick. Although I am not sick anywhere as often as my colleagues who have young children, when I do get sick, I get REALLY sick, and I hate being nonfunctional. Inefficiency is one of the things that pisses me off the most.

About two weeks ago, I could feel a sore throat coming on. I did all the things I was recommended: daily salt gargle, daily evening nasal saline rinse, all the ginger-lemon tea. I even added a few TCM teas into the mix, like apple-fig-apricot kernel and ginger-aged tangerine peel-honey. While I clearly had a cold because I had some congestion and a cough, I was fully functional for the last week and a half. I did everything I’d originally planned to do and worked every day. I just skipped a few mornings at the gym. It felt like a standard, mild cold. I could deal with that. Then, we had two friends over for lunch on Sunday. I thought I’d wake up Monday morning being 100 percent. No, I did not: I woke up with a scratchier throat, a sharper cough, and more phlegm than I’d had the previous week. I had no idea what was going on. Today, I basically moved any meeting where I had to speak a lot, or joined meetings camera-off when I could, because my cough and phlegm were so bad. Chris got me some soup, and I increased my hot liquid intake and took a long, steamy shower.

I keep maniacally checking my uvula to ensure it hasn’t deviated. It has not, fingers crossed. I also keep checking to see if I have any weird spots in my throat. I just want to be a regular person who gets a minor cold and then it goes away. Why is that so much to ask? In my twenties, I almost never took real “sick leave” because my colds were so minor that I’d just sleep them off. Now into my late thirties, it’s as though my body says, nah, you can’t have it easy anymore! Now, you have to suffer because you’re getting older and you have a child, muah hahaha!

Kaia tried to wake me up earlier than I wanted this morning, and I told her to be nice to mama because she’s not feeling well. She pat me on the head and said, “Mama, why are you sick?”

“That’s a good question, Pookie,” I said back to her. “Why am I sick? Is it because of you?!”

A family heirloom passed down to Kaia from a loving, non-blood-related auntie

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A friend and I caught up over coffee last week, and she was telling me about the chaos of moving into her new house. She has endless documents and boxes to sort through, and it’s been a very overwhelming process since they lived in their last place for over 14 years. She mentioned she stumbled upon a few of her wedding items, including a pair of gold and jade earrings she wore for the ceremony that was passed down from her paternal grandma. The earrings were a family heirloom likely passed down to my friend’s grandma, but she said she had no sentimental attachment to them or even her grandma at all. My friend was abandoned by her parents when she was born. Her mom fled and was never to be heard from again after the birth. Her dad made brief appearances in her life, with an outreach in her teen years saying he was ready to be her dad. But that ultimately failed, and she was sent into the foster care system. Out of helplessness and feeling sorry for my friend, her dad’s mother took her under her wing and raised her, but with a deep sense of resentment that was always loud and clear to my friend. When her grandma eventually died about five years ago, my friend said she felt almost nothing because of how bitter her grandma was for having needed to raise her. So, my friend said that given she doesn’t have kids and will not have any, she wants to give the earrings to Kaia.

I was so touched. I didn’t even really know what to say. I was just so shocked at the generosity and kindness that my friend was extending to Kaia — and me. She insisted it was just an object she had that she didn’t know what to do with, would never wear or need again, and she had no family of her own to give it to, and because she loved Kaia, she wanted to give these to Kaia.

“It’s just sitting there!” my friend insisted. “I want her to have them.”

I get what she is saying, but it still felt like a very generous, loving gesture, one that is usually only suited to blood-related family members. To date, this is the most generous gesture that anyone’s given my Kaia Pookie. I’ve only known this friend for just over four years, but I’ve really enjoyed getting to know her. And I do feel we have a kinship that is far below surface. I am always deeply grateful for the kindnesses and generosities that others extend to my sweet baby.

Elementary school applications, tiger parenting, and the desire to “have a happy child”

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Years ago, when the “tiger mom” book was making lots of media headlines, I thought that I might be a Tiger Mom Lite. I’d push my child to be the best that they could be within the bounds of what they actually enjoyed. I’d demand obedience (to a limit) and self-discipline. I’d expect them to do house chores, homework, and extracurriculars. And hopefully all that would culminate in their developing into a good citizen of society and the world — growing into an adult who would be intelligent, curious, empathetic, disciplined, globally minded, and passionate.

Fast forward years later, after a year of futilely trying to conceive, IUI, IVF, and finally the birth of Kaia Pookie, and I think I’ve softened quite a bit. I’m no where as strict as I thought I would be as a parent. I’m a lot more gentle than I ever imagined. And all I can think about is how not to continue intergenerational, “inherited” trauma in her. In my mind, I just want her to be safe, healthy, and happy.

I think about this during the recent weeks’ worth of elementary school tours, open houses, and parent outreaches and conversations. And all these parents seem to say the same thing: we want our kids to be happy and thrive in their environments. But then the big question when choosing a school is: which environment is best for my child to optimize their happiness and learning?

I recently finished reading this culinary memoir called How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert. Bonny’s father survived near-starvation during the Holocaust in Auschwitz-Birkenau, and this legacy of hunger impacts the family’s relationship to food. The book, though repetitive and slightly irrelevant tangents at times, shows how trauma can continue across generations even when the older generations who directly experienced trauma try so hard to shield it from their offspring. In Bonny’s case, her father steered as clear as possible from sharing vivid details of his struggle and survival during the Holocaust, insisting that she and her sisters not worry or think about it. He constantly says over and over to the girls that there’s no need to know about all that in the past. “Just be happy. I want you to be happy.” But the anxiety from not knowing the details but being aware of their father’s Holocaust experience constantly echoes in their lives and causes Bonny an internal instability that she cannot shake. We spend most of the book navigating this journey, which leads her… right back to Poland.

I suppose the reason I thought about this book during this elementary school application process is that it’s not really enough, at the end of the day, to focus on our child’s happiness, as made evident in Bonny’s case with her dad. What does “happiness” mean to kids at each stage of development, anyway? At times, it can seem like an empty, meaningless word. Something actually needs to drive them internally for them to move forward. And all we can do, as their parents, is to be the one to help them navigate through all their options and choose what we think is best for them as individuals.

That feels very difficult (and vexing) right now.

Jeans with belt loops for my very verbal and demanding toddler

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As Kaia has gotten older and more verbal, she’s been expressing more of her wants in terms of actual things she wants. In recent weeks, she has explicitly says she wants a Hello Kitty pink dress with sparkles, a birthday hat (I’m assuming it’s the cone type?), a play kitchen (hmmmmm, I am not sure about this one– we have a real kitchen. Is this really necessary?!), and new ice cream hair clips. In addition, she’s actually said for months that she wants to wear jeans. Earlier in the summer, I made the mistake of going to Uniqlo, being a practical toddler mom, and getting her faux jeans, as in, “jeans” that did not have an actual zipper, fly, or belt loops, but were simply denim in appearance with an elastic waist. When I told her I got her jeans and unveiled them, she was not happy. Her disappointment was written all over her face.

“But it doesn’t have belt loops!” Kaia cried, staring at her new “jeans” with the most horrified look on her face.

Yep, that was a failure. She ended up still wearing them fairly often (because we made her and had already removed the tags). But alas, I’ll have to give them away now because they were already running short back then for 4T (how the hell did this happen at Uniqlo?) and now, they are basically like cropped pants on her. This is definitely not good living in a place like New York City where we experience four seasons. And yes, we are currently in fall and quickly transitioning into winter very soon.

So as I usually do for her once a year, I did some online shopping this month with all the seasonal fall sales and got her a few things she needed. And I happened to find jeans with a “faux fly” and REAL belt loops, so I ordered them. And when they arrive, we shall see very soon if they live up to her standard of what “jeans” should be!

Very “clean” baking mixes

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The neighbor I’ve been hanging out with while having play dates with our kids gave me a Simple Mills box mix for banana muffins or bread loaf. She said she has so many of this brand’s mixes that she’s gotten bored of the flavors, and she thought that maybe I could work my baking magic and jazz it up. The slogan is, “Only purposeful ingredients. Nothing artificial, ever.” The mix is gluten free and vegan (though it does call for three eggs and suggest using yogurt in place of water to increase moistness of the muffins). And when you look at the “simple ingredients” list, it just lists these: Almond Flour, Banana, Organic Coconut Sugar, Arrowroot, Organic Coconut Flour, Baking Soda, Organic Cinnamon, Sea Salt.

Based on the above ingredients list, there’s no weird artificial or “natural flavors.” No dyes or preservatives are listed. No weird names of things that the average person cannot pronounce are here. The average grocery store box mix has preservatives like propionate, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate, and other emulsifiers. Simple Mills really is what it states: straightforward, simple ingredients. I wanted to believe this had to be good, so I decided to whip it out today and see how it was.

The instructions say to use three eggs, 1/2 cup water, and 1/3 cup oil. I used two eggs, replaced one egg with a “flax egg” (1 tablespoon ground flaxseed to 3 tablespoons water), replaced the water with yogurt as the suggestions stated to increase moistness, and used 1/3 cup coconut oil. The mixture seemed really thick, so I added some coconut and oat milk to thin it out a bit. I also wanted to add more spices because the only spice mentioned here was cinnamon, so I added some ground cardamom, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, and mace. I mixed it all up, added the batter into my mini muffin pan, and baked it. The bake time was also longer than I thought by about 50 percent, which was weird, but I’d rather have done muffins than liquidy ones.

Once the muffins were done and cooled, I tried one. It did not poof up the way wheat flour muffins do and was quite flat on top, but the flavor was pretty decent. The texture was soft and on pair with other almond-flour-based breads/muffins I’d had before. The spice flavor was very good. The one downside, though, was that there was absolutely zero taste of any banana. The spices, coconut milk, and oat milk had completely drowned out any banana fruit flavor.

I had one first and didn’t tell Chris what I thought. I did not want to influence what he tasted or thought. After he had one, he immediately said, “Not bad. Did you put something Indian in it?”

Touring schools while checking my Chinese proficiency

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Yesterday morning, Chris booked a tour of a private Chinese immersion school in our neighborhood. We actually visited this school about a year and a half ago when Kaia was getting ready for 3K, but because we found our current school in Chinatown, we decided to give this place a shot (and ended up really liking it). Fast forward, and believe it or not: we’re already looking into kindergarten and elementary schools for my sweet Kaia Pookie. Sometimes I just can’t believe how quickly time has flown. It was like just yesterday when I was still pregnant, nesting and getting everything for her arrival. And then she exploded into this world and made my heart swell more than I ever thought possible. She’s a tiny human with a strong personality making more and more sense of the world every day.

One part of the private tour we were on included observing a kindergarten class, so a class Kaia would hypothetically be in if we got in and chose to matriculate here. We entered and watched the teachers conduct the class. The kids, for the most part, were extremely well behaved, always raised their hands to speak, and their Chinese was quite good; I heard no one speak any English in this class. The teacher had images and Chinese words on the screen, and she was asking the kids to describe what they were seeing. As I looked at the projector and observed all the interactions, I was heartened and relieved by one thing: I could understand and read everything that was written and said in that classroom during that quick visit. So yay, I have at minimum kindergarten level mastery of Mandarin Chinese!

Although Kaia mostly responds back to me in English, occasionally she does surprise me by responding in Chinese. Sometimes, she shouts out the Chinese name of whatever object or thing it is that she sees. And maybe even once or twice, she’s corrected my Chinese. Yes, my almost-four-year-old wants to correct her mama’s Chinese! If she ends up going to this school, I may have to take a deep breath and just remind myself that if she continues to correct my Chinese, it’s actually a good thing, a sign that she’s getting more and more proficient, and way past whatever my level of proficiency is in the language.

Mudita and a mama’s heart swelling

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One of the friends I was planning to see while in San Francisco in August ended up having to cancel last minute. Her brother, who lives with her, had tested positive for COVID, and given their proximity, she figured she could possibly also have it and didn’t want to risk spreading it. I was really sad to not see her since that would mean I would not have any chance to see her in 2025 outside of this. But I knew she was just being prudent. A few days later, she actually developed COVID symptoms so bad that she had to take a few days off work, so it was a smart call in the end. The last thing I would want to deal with is having COVID again after my 2022 experience with it. Plus, the following week Kaia would have started Pre-K, and we wouldn’t have wanted her to miss her first days of preschool.

My friend told me that she had all these gifts she had gotten for Kaia that she’d originally planned to give us in person, but given she wasn’t going to see her, she would send them. She messaged me this week with the tracking number, and it arrived today. When I opened it, I was a bit overwhelmed with how many things were in here, plus the sheer variety of gifts: A Disney picture matching set, a wooden Peppa Pig dress up kit, a Halloween spooky sticker face decorating kit, three Halloween themed books that include Peppa Pig and Pookie (by Sandra Bounton), a card for Kaia wishing her a happy Halloween and apologizing for not being able to see her in person when were in San Francisco, plus some matcha and cookie treats (for Chris and me) from her recent Japan trip.

I laid out all the gifts and took a picture of them together. And then, out of nowhere, I suddenly felt like my heart was swelling. I smiled looking down at all these presents so thoughtfully chosen and purchased by my college friend for my sweet baby, and it just made me feel this intense sense of gratitude and joy. First, I knew that my friend took time (and spent money) to choose all these gifts; they were not hastily thrown together. Second, I was positive Kaia would love all of them. And it just made me feel so happy, so grateful to know that I have a friend this thoughtful, and that my Kaia Pookie would be so happy about these gifts. In the book I just finished reading, The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, they mention the concept of “mudita,” which is a Buddhist term for being happy for others’ happiness. It is a Sanskrit word that translates to “appreciative joy” or “sympathetic” joy and involves delighting in good fortune and happiness of others without jealousy or envy. Mudita is considered one of the “Four Sublime States” or immeasurables in Buddhism, along with loving-kindness, compassion, and equanimity (it is the opposite of schadenfreude, which is the feeling of pleasure at another’s misfortune). In the moment I opened this package, it was like mudita swept all over me. I just couldn’t stop smiling and thinking about happy this would make my baby.

I also just felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude for the friends I have. My college friend visiting this week showered Kaia with special presents especially curated just for her — super sparkly, colorful, and blingy. Then, this second college friend basically did the exact same thing via mail. I’m so touched that after all these years, not only are they still my friends, but they think of my little daughter and want to give her things that will delight her. Before I had Kaia and became a mother, i’d always heard of the term “heart swelling,” but I never knew what the feeling was like. And now that I have her in my life, it’s like my heart swells all the time — at things she says, does, and learns, and also seeing how much love, kindness, generosity, and grace those around us shower her with.

Parent-child events at school, and the disappointment when a parent does not come

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When Kaia started going to her current school, the admins let us know that about once a month, they’d have events where they’d invite parents to participate. It could be arts and crafts, story telling/reading, or holiday/seasonal events like Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, Thanksgiving, or Lunar New Year. For some events, it would be a “lottery” as to which two caregivers could come. Other events would be open to all parents. When they told us this, I figured we would make sure to go to all the major events, and the “lottery’ events, we’d occasionally throw our hat in. I’m lucky that my job is flexible enough for me to do this.

Well, our school isn’t the best at planning ahead. With Mid-Autumn Moon Festival this past Monday, we were told just the Friday before that they’d host a moon festival tea inviting all caregivers in the late morning Monday. I had just asked the admin about this the day before, and she told me they weren’t planning anything. So it was really frustrating to hear that this was happening so last minute. I had already planned a Monday afternoon dentist appointment, and Chris had his calls lined up, so neither of us would be able to go with such little notice. In a class of three, both of Kaia’s other classmates had a parent or grandparent come. When I brought Kaia home Monday early evening, Chris asked her who came to the tea. She reported back (in full, complete sentences) that, “Aidan’s dad came, Bobby’s grandpa came… but no one came for me.” And then she kept repeating that “no one came for me” over and over and over. And I just couldn’t help but “awwwwwww” at that. I did feel a little bad, but it was just too last minute! And of course, you can’t really explain that in terms that an almost-four-year-old will understand.

I still remember going to the Lunar New Year performance and party last January, and one of the kids was crying almost the entire lunch period because he saw almost every other child had a caregiver come for them, but no one came for him. And I felt so terrible. I hoped that Chris or I would always be able to come to these events to support our Pookie Bear. And then, this happened where Pookster got so upset that “no one came for me.”

The mom guilt is real. But Pookster eventually got over it (we think) because Chris offered her an All Naturals jelly belly. So there’s that.

Toddler tantrums and “appeasing” with candy

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Chris and I are pretty strict with junk food/candy consumption with Kaia. Sure, we let her have bites (and sometimes even half or more) of treats we get on the weekends, like croissants or ice cream/gelato. But she never gets her own ice cream or croissant. She rarely has “ultra processed” packaged food. She might have a pouch maybe once every four to six months because we want her to focus on eating real whole foods. But it’s frustrating for us when she see her classmates get packaged junk food almost regularly. Her (natural) thought is: why do all my friends get the “good stuff,” and my parents don’t let me have it? It’s clear that some of her little classmates even get candy every single day. So when I picked her up today and she immediately demanded “Bluey cookies,” I said no, I didn’t have any. And she erupted into a tantrum and almost refused to walk down the stairs from her school with me. When we got down to the building lobby, Ah Gong, the “doorman” of the school building, immediately wanted to go into “solutioning,” and the way adults of his generation do this is by offering candy. He pulled out his metal candy tin (of course, he has one of those at his desk!), and he let Kaia pick out 2-3 pieces to take home. “It’s okay, let her be happy! She is usually so guai guai!” he insisted to me in Chinese as she stopped crying, smiled, said “xie xie” to him, and happily skipped away.

We got on the train, and Kaia asked if she could open the candies (she doesn’t quite have the dexterity yet to open these on her own, thankfully). I said no, and then inevitably, she fought me. “But Ah Gong gave it to me!” she cried.

Yes, he may have given them to you, I said to her, but that doesn’t mean you can open or eat them. The other issue with these candies is that they are hard candies, so they are, by definition, a choking hazard for someone of her size and age, especially while in a moving vehicle.

So, these candies inevitably get hidden somewhere out of her reach… and then I will eventually throw them out. Neither Chris nor I eat almost any of them, and we don’t let Kaia eat them. It kind of feels like a waste, I guess it does serve as a temporary appeasement for a toddler having a tantrum in the moment.