Category Archives: Preschooler moments

Homemade milk bread rolls

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Several months ago, I successfully made a loaf of Japanese milk bread. I originally attempted this during the pandemic, but I didn’t have bread flour and only had all-purpose, and the bread was completely wrong — not the fluffy, airy, super moist bread that you think of when you hear of Japanese milk bread. When I finally attempted it again last year and succeeded, I knew I had to make this bread more often. It’s so satisfying to make, and as long as you have the right ingredients (as in, bread flour for higher gluten development, dry milk powder, and instant yeast as opposed to dry active yeast), then it’s pretty much fool-proof. While cooking and baking (desserts) have always been fun and satisfying for me, baking yeast breads has a whole different level of satisfaction for me. I love every part of the process — measuring out the ingredients, mixing and kneading the dough, watching the two rises, and baking. I look at every bread I’ve made as though it were my little baby — being made, grown, and developed. Tonight, I baked up the milk bread rolls after mixing and kneading the dough last night. I started mixing after I put Kaia to bed last night. She knew I was in the kitchen and kept calling out to me.

“Whatcha doing, mama?” she called out from her bed. “Are you cooking?”

I went back to her bed to settle her down and try to get her to close her eyes. “Mama is making bread, baby!” I said to her. “If you’re good, then maybe you can have some when it’s ready!”

Kaia loves “soft bread.” She loves to remind me of this. When she says this, she means that she loves soft, fluffy bread with a tender crumb — brioche, challah, and milk bread are all in this category. She also does not like a crunchy toast the way I do. Are these the most nutritious breads? No. But they are deeply satisfying to make and eat. And I always get excited whenever my baby enjoys anything I make with my own hands.

Speaking of nutrition, though, I was thinking about this recipe developer/cookbook author I follow and love, who is currently pregnant and was diagnosed early on with gestational diabetes. While I’m sure this was frustrating for her as someone who loves food, one interesting thing she shared was that when she bakes her own bread from scratch, her blood sugar levels do not spike. But when she eats bread not made by her (so bought outside), her blood sugar goes crazy. If you know of anyone or have yourself had gestational diabetes, you’ll know that in dealing with this during pregnancy, you have to prick yourself at least once or twice every day and carefully monitor your blood sugar level to ensure it doesn’t go over a certain amount. So when I heard that homemade bread didn’t spike her blood sugar, I felt a bit better about my love of making these “soft breads” that are not made from whole wheat or whole grain flours. Though i will say openly that I do do slightly sacrilegious things and add whole wheat flour to my brioche and challah to increase the nutritional profile.

“I wanna go to [Australia] where it’s summer now!”

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To my pleasant surprise, even though it was extremely cold on Sunday going to and from the VHC Tet Lunar New Year Festival in Brooklyn, Kaia actually didn’t complain too much about the cold or walking. On both sides of the subway ride, we only walked about 6-7 minutes, so it really wasn’t that bad… even when the icy winds hit us. But while on the train, Kaia had some thoughts to share about the cold.

“Mama, when it’s winter here in New York, it’s summer at Suma and Topa’s house, right?” she asked me with wide eyes.

“Yes, baby… when it’s winter here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere where Suma and Topa are in Australia, so it’s summer,” I confirmed to her.

“Mama! I don’t like winter,” Kaia said with big frown on her face. “When it’s winter here, I wanna go to Suma and Topa’s where it’s summer! I wanna go to Melbourne because I don’t like the cold!”

This conversation was funny to me for a few reasons: 1) I love that she’s putting two and two together, beginning to understand the differences in seasons where we call home versus where her paternal grandparents are, 2) I also love (and laugh at) the fact that she thinks she can just snap her fingers and go to Australia during their summer time just because she wants to. She has no idea behind the financial costs of flying at high times of the year, of flying in general. She also doesn’t understand that it’s a commitment, that it’s a privilege to be able to have a mother who can work remotely for that amount of time and not have her job be in jeopardy (it’s also a privilege, in today’s day and age with soaring costs of living, to have a father who lives a “life of service [leisure]”, but that’s another topic for another day). How many four-year-olds are going to have the luxury of experiencing life in two hemispheres regularly… of flying on a long-haul flight from New York to Melbourne every year of their life thus far, and getting to see how amazing it is to escape the bitter cold of winter here for the summer there? Most Australians in New York I’ve met and known to date, at most, go back to Australia every other year… and that’s on the higher end. Almost no one I know other than Chris insists on going back every single year.

It’s going to be a work in progress to make sure that my only child doesn’t grow up to be some silver spoon, entitled child, who snubs other people for not seeing as much of the world as she has, or for being less worldly.

Vietnamese Heritage Center Tet Lunar New Year Festival 2026

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Today, I took Kaia to the Vietnamese Heritage Center (VHC) Tet Lunar New Year Festival, which was held at the Brooklyn Botanic Ballroom. VHC changes up their location every year since they have to rent event space. I first learned about VHC two years ago right before their scheduled Lunar New Year Festival that year (thanks to my NYC Modern Asian Moms group, the second best group I ever joined on Facebook after my local Buy-Nothing Group!), and unfortunately, the event had already sold out before I could even consider buying tickets. I remember that year, it was held at a really convenient location, somewhere around Union Square or Chelsea. Last year, they held it at some remote location out in Brooklyn, which would have required a 30-minute walk after we got off the nearest train. Given this is obviously held in winter, I really didn’t want to deal with that walk even if I did push Kaia in a stroller. So this year, when I saw that it was at the ballroom just eight minutes’ walk away from the nearest subway stop, I knew I wanted to sign us up. Kaia has had lots of exposure to Chinese culture and Chinese traditions around Lunar New Year, but she’s never been to a Vietnamese cultural event. And so, I really wanted this to happen. I went in knowing that this weekend would be around -8 F with windchill, but I figured it would be fine since the walk on both ends would be relatively short, and this was a fully indoor event. Chris decided not to come because he doesn’t like cultural events (“Why do I have to go to this?” he asked me, looking puzzled. “I just need the food!”), so I asked my friend if he wanted to take his wife and toddler, and they came.

The event was far more diverse than I thought it would be: there were plenty of non-Vietnamese, non-Asian people in attendance. Lots of non-Asians were wearing male and female versions of ao dais. They had a restaurant cater the food for the event, plus they had different Vietnamese cultural vendors, ranging from banh chung/banh Tet vendors, banh mi/Vietnamese coffee/sugar cane juice vendors, Vietnamese photography, books, and even specific artworks like dioramas and paintings for sale. For hands-on activities for both kids and adults, they had a Banh Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year sticky rice) workshop, face painting for the kids, a Lunar New Year card / art making table, and Vietnamese dice games. There were also some performances like an ao dai fashion show, a traditional Vietnamese fan dance, and of course, a lion dance. The whole event ended with a li xi / hong bao / red envelope ceremony, where all the littles could line up to get their own red envelope, each filled with a crisp dollar bill, all sponsored by New York Life.

We arrived early, so Kaia was lucky and got to be the very first kid who had her face painted. She chose cherry blossoms, so the artist painted them on both of her upper cheeks. She enjoyed her noodles for lunch, as well as some arts and crafts. And probably her favorite thing to do was to run around, scope people out, and play with random new friends she made. She kept on asking me about Vietnamese this and Vietnamese that. And she said that a lot was like what she saw at school. So it was nice to see her connecting the dots of what she saw here versus the Chinese versions of Lunar New Year traditions.

I never learned much about Chinese or Vietnamese culture until college, when I really started embracing it and proactively learning about the traditions. It’s easy to eat the food; it’s an additional step to learn why all these foods are important, what they symbolize, and how they contribute to one’s culture. I hope Kaia learns and embraces all parts of her many cultures far earlier than I ever did. I hope all these experiences I expose her to will help in some small way or form.

The kindness of strangers continues in the form of Chinese “paper” sponge cakes

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After pregnancy, childbirth, and becoming a mother, I think I should start a blog series entitled, “The kindness of strangers,” with each post detailing an exact example of the kindness I’ve witnessed being bestowed on myself and/or my child. Because I think that while the world oftentimes feels like it’s getting worse (and the country in which I am living definitely feels like it’s becoming more backwards by the day, especially with this current Dipshit administration), I am deeply heartened almost weekly, if not daily, by the little kindnesses directed towards Kaia and me.

At Kaia’s school, there is a “doorman” who works at the front of the building — we call him Ah Gong (like a polite term for grandpa, but not actually our grandpa). To be honest, he is probably around my dad’s age, is a grandpa of three, and likely could not be trusted as a real “security” guard in a true emergency, but he is the biggest sweetheart. Every since Kaia started going to this school, he has always been very warm, kind, and friendly with us. It’s clear he loves children: he always greets each of them warmly and enthusiastically, gives them a high-five or a hug when he sees them, and oftentimes will even spoil them with candy from a container I know for a fact he refills with his own money. Oftentimes I feel bad for Kaia contributing to the depletion of his candy stash, especially since we never even allow her to eat the candy; we’re simply stockpiling it in the pockets her backpack. But I know he really enjoys giving the kids candy.

So today we came down the stairs to exit the building. And he saw Kaia and greeted us. They did a high-five, and then out of nowhere, Ah Gong whipped out this big plastic takeout container that has three Chinese “paper” sponge cakes — the Chinese lightly sweetened, chiffon-style cakes that originated in Hong Kong. He said he wanted to give Kaia something very special and gave her the entire box! Ah Gong said she deserves it because she is so cute and “guai guai” (well behaved). Kaia excited took the entire container and thanked Ah Gong, and then in her “hehe, I got something special!” mood, almost skipped out the doorway!

Just last week while I was in Denver, Chris told me that Ah Gong gave Kaia a lao po bing (old wife cake/winter melon cake). I think he’s getting a little too generous and fancy. Kaia took one bite of it and decided she didn’t like it (I ended up eating it since I do enjoy them). So this wasn’t the first time he was dishing out Chinese bakery items to Kaia. I just couldn’t believe that he would be this generous. What are we going to do at the end of this school year when Kaia finally leaves this school, and we don’t get to see Ah Gong every day anymore? It’s going to be a very sad, wistful day.

Winter Storm Fern on Sunday, a Snow Day (no school) Monday, and evolving views on snow

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In the winter of 2004, it was my first real, snowy winter that I’d ever experienced in my life. I was 18, in my first-year at Wellesley, and we had a beautiful snow fall that blanketed the entire suburban campus. I was preparing for my first real New England winter: I had bought a thick winter coat and a pair of big, bulky, waterproof snow boots. I was so excited to see the snow fall. My first time watching the snowfall, I really did feel like I was in a snow globe. And when the snow fall stopped, my friend and I immediately went outside to Severance Green, this vast lawn with a huge hill, for some sledding (using dining hall trays we temporarily stole from inside). We had to take advantage of the snow while it was still light and fluffy, and before it froze over into hard (and uncomfortable) ice.

I couldn’t believe how much fun it was to be in the snow for the first time. I was giggling like crazy. A friend and I made snowballs and threw them at fellow classmates. We all made snow angels and went down the hill “sledding” more times than we could count. My friend took lots of photos of my first real snow experience. She’s originally from Arkansas and had seen snow countless times, so she was thoroughly amused at how child-like and glee-filled I was to experience this all for the first time.

Since then, I do not have the same excited feeling about snow. I do enjoy watching it fall… while I am in the comfort of my heated home with a hot beverage in hand. I have very little desire to go outside and play with it. I get grossed out by how the snow is plowed in New York City and how that prevents me from getting into cars when I need to, and the black ice is terrifying to me. I know several colleagues who have had very painful falls from black ice in New York; one of whom actually broke her femur and had to have a very intense (and likely expensive) surgery that kept her out of the office for almost two months. But I do know Kaia likes it. I like how she gets excited by snow, creating snow balls, and getting snow thrown at her. It’s cute and funny. But outside of her enjoyment of it, I stay away from it. Maybe that’s just me getting old and senile. Or, what is more likely the case: I just want to avoid freezing temperatures as much as possible. And if I am making snowmen or snowballs, my hands are just going to freeze over.

Winter Storm Fern came as expected yesterday. The Department of Education announced early on Sunday that schools would be closed the next day (today). Given Kaia is in 4K/Pre-K, she has no ‘remote learning’ option, so this just meant we were with her the whole day and had to find ways to entertain her between work.

I tried to make a couple snow balls and throw them at her this early afternoon when we came back from lunch. It was cute to see her laugh and try to escape. But my hands got so frigid so quickly that it almost felt like the numbness was going to lead to frost bite in seconds. But even with Kaia, while she gets amused by seeing snow falling and seeing snow piled up, we can tell she doesn’t love it. She has said repeatedly she hates the cold. And how can we blame her given we 100 percent agree with her hatred of the bitter cold?

Childcare during a winter storm – no-win for anyone

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We have an impending winter storm coming our way this Sunday. Every major news outlet around the country (and even world) has been talking about a winter storm affecting massive swaths of the U.S., from Texas all the way up to North Carolina and the entire Northeast of the country. Of course, that means we’re affected here in New York City. And so Kaia’s school let us know that we should watch out for emails from them from Sunday going into Monday morning. Our school administrator told me at pickup on Friday, “The latest you will see an email from us is 5am on Monday, but likely before that! That way, you’ll know whether we’ll be open on Monday. But if you hear news before that saying that DOE is closed… well, that means we will be closed, too!”

You think about stuff like this, and you realize that it’s not just that school is closed; it’s that you’ve now lost your childcare on a weekday, which for the vast majority of us, is a work day. Just because our child’s school has closed does not mean we just get a free day off from work. So, childcare becomes an issue. I’m a bit luckier in that Chris doesn’t do (paid) work, so he’s a bit more flexible, but it’s still a time and energy suck for all of us juggling having Kaia home. Plus, she doesn’t want to be stuck at home all day; home is not that fun after a while, and she’d much prefer to be playing with kids her own age.

We don’t have backup childcare options. Plus, given weather, delayed trains, and icy roads, many potential backup childcare options would no longer apply. We’d all be stuck. We end up just having to half-ass childcare/child-rearing and work. And that’s not good for the child, the work, or the parent. In these cases, everyone loses.

Winter is cold, and getting even colder, plus a secret love of boots

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For years here in New York, winter hasn’t been a true “winter.” We haven’t had much snow relatively speaking due to global warming. December through March has been a milder weather period; it has always been cold, but just not as freezing as we expect. Snow has been sparse, so Kaia has had very few times to make and throw snow balls or build a snowman. But this winter, it has most definitely been cold. It snowed last weekend; the temperatures have been in the ‘teens and low twenties Fahrenheit. And Kaia is NOT a fan. As she is becoming more and more verbal by the day, she’s definitely making her opinions known.

She has protested almost every other day of boot wearing. “I don’t wanna wear boots! I wanna wear shoes!” She hates the high-top nature of the winter boots I bought her; she probably dislikes how her ankles can feel trapped in them. I can relate to that feeling, but I have since gotten used to wearing boots since moving to the East Coast.

Kaia told us multiple times this past week, “I don’t like winter. I want spring and summer. I want to wear sandals! I want it to be warm!” We agree with her; we also tell her that neither of us likes winter much, either. But winter does not last forever, and before she knows it, spring will be here, and she can shed all her thick layers and boots and wear regular shoes and dresses again.

I’ve adjusted to living in a four-season part of the country and world. I actually don’t mind it much. It does require more different types of clothing (and a very different skincare regimen in winter due to dryness!), but now that I’ve been here almost 18 years, this is my long-time current “normal.” One thing I have secretly embraced but never said out loud is that the best thing about living in a four-season place is that… I actually love boots! For someone who doesn’t like winter, this sounds kind of funny. But to be fair, most of my boots are autumn/winter boots, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be freezing cold to wear them. I still remember back in 2003 when the Wellesley recruiter came out from Boston to San Francisco, and she told me that she had at least ten pairs of boots — all for different types of cold/weather, occasion, and environment! My mind was boggled at the time when she shared this, but now, I completely understand. I myself have three different pairs of dressy boots, along with one pair of super casual, long Uggs (which I basically live in when it’s cold but not wet outside), one pair of rain/waterproof boots, and one pair of fall duck-style boots (which really need to be retired, after ten-plus years of wear, because I found out while in Denmark that one shoe has a hole in it!). So I have seven pairs of boots myself, which is kind of hilarious. I love all types of boots: I like the leather boots, the suede ones, the heeled ones, the flat ones. I like the Chelsea style boots, the tall knee-high ones, the slouch style boots, and even the chunky combat style ones. I could easily waste an hour on Nordstrom’s website staring at all their boots and wondering which ones would be comfortable and still look good in whatever weather. But then I think that if we end up moving to a warmer weather place, how often would I really wear all these boots, if at all?

Kaia doesn’t currently share my love of boots, but who knows — maybe she will embrace them as she realizes that you absolutely need these in cold weather climates. Or maybe she will shun them and refuse to ever live in a cold weather place ever again.

New B train rides and my sweet Kaia’s twinkling eyes

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Kaia loves the subway, the trains, the buses, the cars, planes — all forms of transport excite her to no end. But in New York City, she especially gets excited about riding on the new B train. It’s always a toss up whether we are able to get on one coming back home after school, but today for the second time ever, we got lucky and got on one. She saw it from very far away and yelled, “It’s a new B train! I get to go on a new B train!” She was all smiles the entire ride home; she kept reciting all the stops we passed, plus the stops that were still to come. She counted down the stops until we arrived at Columbus Circle.

Parenthood is hard no matter what generation you are in, what age you are parenting. But there is a lot to love about it. I still love and get excited watching her get excited over things that as a jaded adult, I think are just mundane, everyday things. It’s like I get to see life through her eyes as someone who is just discovering the world and all the things that make up that world. Sometimes, it feels like a renewal to me, that I get the privilege to see the beauty of life through her eyes. Everyone makes their own life choices. Some people choose to be child-free. Some people who want children are not able to have them because of situations beyond their control. But it’s hard for me to imagine not having this experience of experiencing life through her young, growing eyes. It’s as though a richness of life would be absent from my life. I squeezed her and kissed her extra while on the train today, just reveling in how lucky I am to be able to be her mama.

Dining in the air on Cathay Pacific

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While waiting for our flight from Manila to Hong Kong yesterday early morning, we were at the Cathay Pacific lounge at Manila airport. It was extremely early, so we didn’t get anything to eat (other than Kaia grabbing an apple and eating 70 percent of it, as per usual). I went to make my last cup of freshly squeezed calamansi juice, honey, and hot water, and to see what the breakfast offerings were at the food bar. I noticed a man marveling out loud at all the food options in the lounge. He made his selection, was quickly served, and snapped a photo of his dish. “What could be more amazing than this?” he exclaimed out loud in an Australian accent.

“Few things are more amazing than the food in this lounge,” I said to him, grinning. We’ve had some epic lounge experiences around the world, but I will say that the Cathay Pacific lounge experience from a food standpoint is likely one of the best ever. I cannot decide if I like this lounge more or the JAL First lounges in Japan; it might even be a tie (the thoughts of someone who is obviously overly privileged!!).

We made some small talk. He’s based in Sydney, where he was born, and shared that he’d just sold his company, was feeling “unshackled,” and was heading off to Japan for three weeks with zero itinerary other than starting in Tokyo after spending the last ten days in Manila, Cebu, and Boracay (did he copy our Philippines itinerary, or what?). He told me that he’d never eaten better food in a lounge before flying Cathay. “This food is so much better than Qantas lounge food – their food is the worst!” he moaned.

I wrinkled my brow at him. “Ummmm, the Qantas lounges actually have food,” I replied dryly. “If you were based in the U.S. and flew American, you’d be lucky to even get pretzels!”

He is not wrong that the food is incredible with Cathay. Sometimes when we have flown them and eaten their food, I think that the food could be similar quality, if not better, to some of the best Chinese food we’ve had at upscale restaurants in Asia, Australia, and the U.S. I could feel my cold progressing, so I went to the food bar and asked the server if I could have a bowl of just broth instead of the full wonton noodle soup. He quickly ladled a bowl for me, and I immediately inhaled and took a sip. Mmmmm — this was like a nourishing elixir. It had that nice, clean chickeny, porky flavor, with just a hint of seafood at the end the way a legit, authentic wonton broth should have.

In flight to Hong Kong, we were served a braised minced pork noodle dish, which seemed like such a decadent breakfast. We all ate the entire serving — even Kaia! And on the breakfast on the flight from Hong Kong to JFK, we were served beef and mushroom jook/congee. Without us helping, Kaia immediately started eating huge spoonfuls of congee while engrossed in her Bluey screen time. Once again, she finished the whole damn serving! My child was eating like a little adult!

For lunch, the seasonal Chinese offering was a clay pot rice with abalone (A WHOLE ONE!), Chinese sausage, and pork patty. I was curious to see how they’d achieve the crispy rice bits characteristic of the best claypot rice dishes. Somehow, they were successful! There were large morsels of crispy rice flecked throughout the bowl. The pork patty, sausage, and abalone were perfectly cooked. The abalone piece was not only whole, but huge! Every single thing I ate on these two flights was perfect, whether it was the congee, the claypot, the tea (Hong Kong milk tea on unlimited offer… dangerous), or even the hawthorn berry jelly with Chinese yam (something I’d never order on my own at a restaurant or cafe, but hey, if it’s on the flight, why not?). Even the three pieces of dim sum served with my congee were likely some of the best dumplings I’ve had — regardless of whether it was on land or in the air.

Whenever the rare occasion comes up when I can have abalone, I always think of my dad. My paternal grandparents had a pretty large family and friends network, and so when my dad was growing up, they got invited to seemingly endless weddings all the time, all with huge Chinese banquets and the most lavish multi-course feasts. The dish he remembers savoring the most were the abalone dishes. He insisted that they were the most delicious things he’d never eaten in his life. To this day, abalones are highly prized in Chinese cuisine and command a ridiculously high price tag. A single abalone can go for as much as $125 USD! And as a poor kid growing up in Chinatown when it was considered a ghetto, my dad found these meals life-changing and completely exhilarating. The funny thing was — back then, I never thought much about abalone, but I realized that they are actually large marine snails (gastropods). I always liked abalone shells for their rainbow iridescence. I’ve collected them as gifts as well as from the sands of Brighton Beach in Brighton, Victoria, Australia (sorry, I may be the reason that there is currently a sign there that says “no removing shells”), but I never had abalone until I became an adult. I think abalone is fine, but it’s not worth the insane price tag. I would never seek it out myself or choose it off a menu, and I’d certainly never choose to pay the crazy high market prices for it. It’s mostly a texture thing that makes it unique to me; it has virtually no flavor. Frankly, if I am going to pay a premium for seafood, it better be something like crab, lobster, or Moreton Bay bugs — sea creatures that actually do have a distinctive flavor!

I am sure Cathay puts it on their menu to impress their high-paying Chinese business/first class customers. I am also sure that this tactic works. I know for sure that my dad would have savored every last bite of that abalone far more than I would have. Maybe the next time I call home, I’ll tell him I was served abalone on the flight back to New York just to get his reaction.

Mild food poisoning, but this time, for mama and daddy

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Last night when I came back from the mall with Kaia and her new (and less than $3 USD) sandals in tow, I discovered that Chris had arranged a surprise birthday meal in our hotel room. The staff and the hotel chef were there setting up. They had organized birthday balloons, streamers, and a beautifully laid out table, even complete with a high chair for Pookster. The meal consisted of a seafood soup, wagyu steak with fries, garlic rice (of course), caesar salad, plus several huge slices of chocolate mousse cake. After eating earlier in the day along with some fruit smoothies, this felt like a lot of food, but we tried to do what we could to do justice to this beautiful meal the chef had put together for us.

This morning after brushing my teeth, I could immediately tell that something didn’t feel right in my stomach. I had that strange, queasy feeling that told me that I had eaten something bad. I even started feeling light headed, and a strange, muted pain was going down my neck. After eating a very light breakfast at the hotel buffet, I told Chris that I’d need to lie down while he and Kaia went out to have one last beach outing. At 12:30, we’d need to get on our shuttle, boat, and shuttle back to the airport, where we’d fly to Manila to spend our final night in the Philippines before heading back home to New York.

As I was lying in bed, I kept thinking that at least I got food poisoning towards the end of trip, rather than at any other time; it’s the least disruptive to our days. The last time I remember getting any real food poisoning was in Vietnam during my trip with my parents in January 2008; I was so sick that I was in bed for at least three days at the hotel. Then, I needed to be near a toilet at all times because I had such awful and sudden diarrhea. That was also at the tail end of our trip. My mom got so worried about me that she called our travel agent to shorten our trip by a couple days so that I could go home and “see a real doctor!”

We got our laundry done from the laundry services just across the street from the hotel, and so all our swimsuits were washed and dried. So Kaia ended up having to wear a t-shirt and her underwear to the beach (luckily, she’s still at an age where none of this matters to her). She happily went out with Daddy to have more ocean and sand time. I took some Pepto Bismol, Tums, and lid down on the bed for about two hours. Eventually I was able to get up and feel a little bit better, but I still had this lingering feeling of malaise all over me. I went out to meet them at the beach for a little bit just to get some fresh air and braced myself for the short boat ride that was ahead. I was really hoping that the water would be calm. The last thing I’d want was to vomit in transit.

Luckily for me, the water was very calm (I guess it just gets turbulent at night during high tide). So I was successfully able to get to the airport without throwing up. This was a huge win for me because all I could think of was… the very last thing I wanted was to end this trip covered in my own vomit.

We had a good flight back to Manila. And after checking into our hotel, having a light dinner at the lounge, and getting back to our room, I discovered that Chris also wasn’t feeling well. He spent a good amount of time on the toilet (at least it went out that way and not the other way), and then eventually went to bed. He clearly was not well. Kaia’s stool also wasn’t extremely solid, but her mood seemed to be happy (I’m so thankful to have a happy child). So preventively, we gave her one Tum before bed (she loves these things now! She keeps asking if she can have more medicine…). After a few hours of sleep, I woke up in the middle of the night to get Kaia to dream pee, and I realized that my upset stomach feeling was gone. What replaced it… was a general unwell, cold feeling. My throat was still sore, as this had begun on New Year’s Day. I was still coughing. I had phlegm. And I had a feeling some coughing fits may be in my near future, which is such terrible luck for me because I just had a cold like this back in late October!!

Traveling while feeling unwell is never fun. But being sick on a plane with recycled air is probably one of the worst situations. At least we are flying Cathay Pacific, so if I need hot broth, I have a feeling they will be able to provide me a very good one!