Category Archives: Preschooler moments

When parenting is not fun

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Kaia has been in a mood today. She was pouty at drop-off when Chris brought her to school. Then when I picked her up this late afternoon, she insisted that we had to wait for a little friend in the 3s program since she saw his mom outside waiting. I annoyingly complied and waited. When the mom and kid wanted to wait for the elevator and Kaia did, too, I insisted this was ridiculous. She yelled, so I waited for about two minutes, then finally had to nearly drag her down the stairs because the elevator was too slow, and I refused to put up with it. Whenever she is around her “peers,” she wants to be with them and do whatever they are doing (e.g. waiting for the stupid and slow elevator) for as long as possible. Most times, I humor her. Today, it was just frustrating me.

We got on the train uptown, and I gave her a pack of seaweed to snack on. Kaia refused to give it back to me when we got to our stop, so I (dumbly) let her hold it as we walked up the stairs. She then proceeded to predictably drop the seaweed box, wasting about five strips of seaweed. I hate food waste. She knew she did something wrong and yelled, “It was an accident!” And I brought her to the trash bin to throw the wasted strips away. The irritation was just growing.

But then the cherry on top really happened: instead of holding my hand to walk up the stairs out of the train station, Kaia haphazardly started running in front of hoards and hoards of people trying to enter the subway entrance because she wanted me to take a different stairway than she did. When she ran into one person and they stopped, she would back up and try to run into yet another person. It was as though she had suddenly stopped comprehending that she was in other people’s way and had to walk up where there was no one in front of her. After calling for her multiple times when she refused to listen, I eventually had to grab her and carry her up the stairs and across the street. She was kicking, screaming, and crying the whole time. I rarely care when people stare at me carrying or disciplining her when she’s fussy. But I really, really hate it when she inconveniences other people or gets in other people’s way because it’s so inconsiderate. If she wants to throw a tantrum, fine, but do not do it in the middle of a chaotic subway station with people trying to get by us. No one in New York City wants to be slowed down by anyone else.

She screamed and cried for the entire two blocks home. Part of that time I had to carry her. Part of that time, I was nearly dragging her. And all of that time, she was crying and yelling. I stayed as even keeled as I could. I rarely even raised my voice. But the entire time, I just thought: Really? This kid is almost 4.5 years old. When do the tantrums over things that make zero sense ever end? Do they ever end…? My goal is that Kaia will not grow up to be some self-centered, “me me me” person and think the world should revolve around her. But in these moments where she is physically running into other people and expecting them to make way for her, I am so tempted to just slap some sense into her.

Yes, 36 years ago, my mom would have done just that: she would have slapped, hit, or beaten me into submission, even for the tiniest infractions. In fact, I still remember once when I was the same age as Kaia today, 4-year-old Yvonne did something my mom did not like, and she immediately pulled me into a public restroom stall, beat me, then yelled at me to stop crying and wipe my face, “Otherwise people will think I am abusing you!” I am not doing that with my kid. …Though I’d be lying if I said I never thought about it in these moments of total chaos.

Well, it’s a good thing there aren’t thought police out there.

Buttermilk Falls State Park

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Our last stop in the Finger Lakes region before heading back home today was at Buttermilk Falls State Park. The park is named after the foaming cascade (little waterfall) formed by Buttermilk Creek as it flows down the steep valley side toward Cayuga Lake, one of the eleven Finger Lakes. It was named for its “frothy” appearance of its churning waters. Similar to the rock formations at Taughannock Falls State Park, the rocks form in endless horizontal layers, creating flat slabs and angular, even sharp edges as they erode and fracture. The gorge and waterfalls formed since the last ice age, within the last twenty to thirty thousand years.

We did the gorge trail at Buttermilk Falls this morning, which was quite wet on and off throughout the walk up and down the stairs. There were times when we actually just had to walk through large puddles, which soaked our shoes and socks (Pookster was not a huge fan of this, but she was a good little trooper and sucked it up). After going through three of these gorge trails already, I am so impressed with how well maintained they are. The paths are very clearly defined; it would be impossible to take a wrong turn or get lost (…unlike the Mount Jo debacle I caused back in the Adirondacks in 2014 when I thought I would be disowned by my then-future in-laws). There’s really zero way for you to get lost on any of them, and all the stairs are sturdy and taken care of.

While the main Buttermilk Falls is impressive at this park, I would actually say that my favorite part is along the gorge trail further down, where you can see all the pinnacle-like rock formations with layers upon layers of stone etched out. The pinnacles flank all the little waterfalls that keep flowing into each other. When you look at the pinnacles, it almost appears as though a human etched them to look this way; it’s so beautiful and scenic, just asking to be stared at and photographed!

After this trip, I would say that the state parks in the Finger Lakes region are likely one of the most underrated, lesser known, and lesser appreciated public parks in the country. While I’d always been aware of the Finger Lakes region for wine and hiking, I didn’t actually realize how “gorges” the area was until doing research for this trip, and then finally going on it. I’d love to come back and see Watkins Glen State Park and some of the other gorges in the area. Who would have guessed that scenery like this existed in upstate New York?! We’re still always learning about the state, country, and world we live in.

How long are we allowed to be kids?

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When we were getting ready to go to Kaia’s friend’s 4th birthday party in our building yesterday, out of nowhere, Kaia decided that she wanted to wear her cow costume (from Halloween two years ago, as it was oversized!) to the party. Originally, Chris was not a fan of this and insisted that she just wear regular clothes. But Kaia is stubborn (just like both of her parents), and she continued persisting that she really wanted to wear it. I thought about it for a minute and just told Chris that we should relent.

“We should just let her wear it,” I said to him. “She only has so much time when she can wear a costume like this when it will be considered ‘acceptable.'” Plus, she’s already slowly getting too long for this oversized costume, and she won’t be able to wear it soon anymore. So we should just let her get more wears and fun out of it as long as we can.

Of course, Kaia was thrilled. She insisted that the cow be fully zipped up, and that she even wear the cow “head” (the hood part). Knowing her, I had a feeling she’d last only a short time at the party with the outfit since it would get quite hot and stuffy, especially with so many people in the apartment. So predictably, the cow costume eventually came off. But of course, all the adults marveled at her cow costume initially. One of them even asked me, “So, is this her weekend outfit of choice?”

Kids can get away with so many things that adults could never get away with: making beelines and cutting people off for seats on public transportation; constantly angling for freebies at stories and restaurants; simply smiling and getting free candy from doormen in buildings; wearing single-piece full length costumes on just any average day. I love that about childhood, and I wish we could all learn to embrace it more. Childhood is finite — it will all come to an end, and then we will no longer be given grace on so many things. Well, I can’t really personally embrace it since I’m quite far from my childhood years, but I want to let Kaia embrace it for as long as possible. I want her to enjoy her childhood and not have her rush to become an adult. There’s so much fun and magic in childhood that gets lost when we focus too much on the future and “getting big.”

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.

Proof that my child will become an omnivore (or stated differently, will not become a vegan)

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I’ve been clearing out most of the meat-based proteins in the freezer ahead of our upcoming Costco trip, and I found that I still had two packs of bone-in chicken thighs from Butcher Box. So I marinated them last night and roasted them, Vietnamese garlicky-style. I pulled all the meat off the bones and assembled what my mom would call a “cuon cuon” station: a shallow bowl-plate for dipping rice paper, a stack of rice paper, bowls with various herbs, lettuce, sliced cucumbers, pickled daikon/carrot, cooked rice noodles, crushed toasted peanuts, scallion oil sauce, a plate of just roasted garlicky chicken, bowls of nuoc cham for dipping. And because I had a random single egg remaining from the carton I just threw out, I also ribboned an egg omelet into strips to add to the cuon (rolls).

Kaia had her own vegetables and chicken on her plate at dinner time, but she was watching as I rolled chicken cuon for Chris and me. For the first time watching me do this, she was actually very fascinated. First, she asked if she could do it. Then, she realized quickly how finicky it was (these rice papers are very sticky and pliable for a 4-year-old!), so she asked me to make some cuon for her. And then, she happily tore into them and chewed them vigorously. She was very excited to finally “participate” in her cuon cuon station that her mama made. She instructed me on exactly how much of each filling she wanted in her cuon. I was so proud that she was embracing this for the first time, at age 4. There’s a first for everything!

Then at bedtime, we read a book together that included a unicorn and lots of food. And as per usual, Kaia likes to “pretend eat” all the food by “grabbing” all the food on the pages and pretending to chomp on and eat them. For the first time, she “grabbed” the unicorn and pretended to eat it.

“Pooks!” I exclaimed, a bit confused. “You can’t eat the unicorn!”

She smiled mischievously at me in response, then her face went blank. “Why not?” And then she paused and giggled. “I’m just pretending, mama!”

Unicorns are mythical animals. But my Pookie insists that she wants to “eat” them. I guess this may be a sign she has zero desire to become vegan anytime soon.

“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.

Chamber Music Society – Tuneful Teamwork for littles

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Whenever I can, I try to check the Lincoln Center and Chamber Music Society kids event calendars to see what’s upcoming that I could bring Kaia to. As she’s getting older every year, this means that there are more and more events that could be age appropriate for her. A lot of the Lincoln Center/CMS events are for elementary-school-age children, so she’s in a pretty sweet spot now as she’s getting closer to kindergarten. Months ago, I snagged some seats for us that were pay-what-you-choose for the Big Umbrella Festival CMS event called Tuneful Teamwork, where the kids get to see a string quartet play different pieces by Haydn, Grant Still, Beethoven, Borodin, Mendelssohn, and Bridge. I took her this afternoon to the Rose Studio for this performance. During each piece, the performers show a different way to lead, follow, and play as a team. All the performers were really interactive and sweet with the kids. Kaia was immediately mesmerized by all the string instruments, but of course as the hour went on, she gradually got distracted by other kids being distracted. She did jump at the chance to play with one of the instruments at the end. After the performance ended, child-sized violas, violins, a cello were brought out so that the kids could take turns touching and playing it with a CMS performer. Kaia chose the cello, and she really enjoyed holding the bow and listening to the “music” she was making.

I would love for Kaia to play an instrument, and I wonder which one she will choose if she does end up playing? In the back of my mind, I always think that if I were to learn an instrument now, I’d want to do something seemingly basic — the piano – an oldie but a goodie. I never learned how to read music properly during my two years (miserably) playing violin in elementary school. And it’s never too late to learn!

Chè Thái (Vietnamese fruit cocktail)

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I grew up eating many variations of chè, or traditional Vietnamese sweet soups and puddings. As a child, I enjoyed them just as much as I enjoyed western desserts like cake or ice cream. Plus, I didn’t have easy access to these Vietnamese desserts unless we stumbled upon a Vietnamese bakery or were in San Jose or Orange County. My mom never made very much Vietnamese food given our favorite Vietnamese dishes can be very laborious, and there was no way she’d ever go to the great lengths it takes to put together a Vietnamese dessert like these.

I never realized when I was younger how much healthier most of these Asian desserts were because they actually had good-for-you ingredients like real fruit and even beans — yes, beans! The one my mom got for me most often in my early years was che dau xanh, or mung bean pudding. It’s a pudding-like che that has mung beans cooked down until soft with some sugar, and sometimes flavored with pandan. Then it’s topped with a very luscious, whipped coconut cream. Another one I enjoyed occasionally was che ba mau, also known as “three colored dessert.” This one has layers of pandan jellies, mashed sweetened mung bean, red beans (sometimes even kidney beans), and a thick layer of sweetened coconut cream.

One version of che that I’ve been thinking about a lot since we were in the Philippines (halo halo!) was che thai, which is translated to mean “Vietnamese fruit cocktail,” in the style of many Thai desserts, hence the “Thai” in the name. I suppose that to describe it a a “fruit cocktail” is fairly accurate given it’s a few different types of fruits and jellies served in a sweetened “soup” that uses coconut milk/cream as its base. So I decided that once the weather got warmer and we had company over that I’d make it. Chris’s parents have arrived for their annual visit, so this will be their first dessert at home with us. It’s pretty straightforward and easy given most of the ingredients are from cans: canned longan, lychee, jackfruit, toddy palm seeds, young coconut flesh, and even aiyu jelly can be used. If you don’t want to use aiyu jelly from a can, you can either make your own, or make a pandan jelly. I made and cubed pandan jelly this morning using agar agar (seaweed) powder – it took less than ten minutes! I also sliced up some jackfruit and toddy palm seeds, and then peeled and cut some fresh mango. I added some canned longans whole. And as the last step, I mixed the “soup” base, which was about a cup of coconut milk, some coconut water, and added some jackfruit syrup/juice from the can until the sweetness was just right. I mixed everything in a big bowl and put it in the fridge to cool.

The che thai was a success: everyone enjoyed it! Chris’s mom even had seconds. And Kaia finished the little bowl I prepared her; she was especially fascinated by the pandan jellies and got so excited she was able to eat jellies with her mama’s approval ( did make them, after all!). If it were in season, I would have liked to include pomegranate seeds to give the che thai a red color to make the soup “pop” more, but I guess I can save that for another time. Some recipes, to add a “red” fruit, will take canned Chinese water chestnuts, chop them into small pieces, coat them in tapioca starch and red food coloring, and then boil them to infuse the red color into the water chestnuts. But I am trying to avoid artificial colors and flavors as much as I can, so I nixed this. And I don’t think anyone would have thought that could enhance tonight’s dessert. Sometimes, it really is the simplest desserts that are quite delicious.

When Kaia wants to choose her clothes, even the under garments

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The last couple of weeks in the mornings, Kaia has had strong opinions about what she wears to school. She’s rejected a few of the pieces I picked out and insisted that she pick out her own t-shirt (which no one would see since it’s still cold, and she wears a warm sweater layer on top…) and even her own socks. I know that at her stage of development, allowing her some level of autonomy is key so that she “feels” like she has a sense of control. So in most of these cases, I relent and just let her choose… assuming she doesn’t take more than three minutes to select the substitute clothing.

But she’s actually shown preference for clothing since she was as young as 2.5 years of age, if not younger. She does not like plain tops of any kind; she needs to have a design of some sort on them. So when it comes to layering pieces, I often have to force her to wear a plain shirt underneath. She’s always loved lighter, summery clothing over the thick layers of winter. She loves colorful printed dresses and is completely obsessed with tutus. And she really does not seem to be a fan of warm winter dresses at all. She refuses to wear anything black, with the exception of a black t-shirt we got her that has a spider web fully made of rhinestones. And she needs to be cajoled into wearing black pants (everyone needs something basic, even at that age, right?).

Today, she asked to wear her Mickey Mouse and mango shirt we got her while in the Philippines. This t-shirt was part of the Uniqlo location-specific collections: this one was themed “Mickey goes to the Philippines.” But on top, she wanted to wear her Elsa sweater. Chris watched her undress this evening and said, “Isn’t that kind of a waste to wear that underneath since no one will be able to see it?”

Yes, it kind of is. But at the same time, Kaia wanted to wear it underneath, and she knows she is wearing it underneath, and that makes her happy. And sometimes, if not all the time, as long as she knows she has it and is wearing it and likes it, then that’s all that really matters, doesn’t it? I think of it like nice, super comfortable or fun-printed (and oftentimes expensive…) underwear or bras. Most of the time outside of maybe your partner or kids, no one will ever see you wearing these under garments. But they make you happy and feel good. Therefore, your happiness, knowledge, and comfort are all that should matter when deciding to wear them.

Kaia wrote my name correctly for the first time

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On our Sunday slow day at home two days ago, I spent the afternoon going between playing with Kaia, cooking, and cleaning in the kitchen. She’s gotten a lot more into coloring lately, so she’s been using the princess coloring book I got her from Asheville on the weekends and self-restricting her coloring to one page per day. When she does activities like this where we can’t really do it “together,” she’s been asking me to simply sit there with her and keep her company.

“Sit with me, mama!” she says in her sweet little voice.

It’s been really sweet — for her to just ask me to sit with her and just be with her. It’s also been an exercise for me in truly just being in the moment with her and not preoccupying my mind and body in thinking about or doing something else. When I sat there watching her color on Sunday afternoon, I thought about how the years will go so quickly and soon, she will not want me anywhere near her while she’s sitting doing anything. And while I thought about it, I just smiled at her.

Another activity she wanted to do was to use this digital doodle pad that my friend got her. She loves trading it back and forth with me while we write and draw different things for each other. After I drew several objects she requested, Kaia then said, “I’m going to write your name!” And she started spelling my name out loud, writing each letter very slowly and intentionally. And while she did write very big and run out of room writing from left to right a couple times while using capital letters, when she finally did it, it looked really good! I smiled so hard that my face almost started hurting.

“Pookie, you did it!” I yelled. “Very good, Pookie Pie! I’m so proud of you!”

She beamed at me. “This is Mama!” she shrieked back at me.

Soon, she’ll be writing full sentences, then paragraphs, then even essays. She’s getting bigger and more mature every day. I guess I am getting more “mature” every day, too: I looked down and saw two aging 40-year-old hands. The older she gets, the older I get, too. These are the special moments of witnessing her growth that hopefully will stay with me — even when she’s driving me mad by running like crazy on the street or refusing to hold my hand in big crowds. All these moments feel so fleeting.