Category Archives: Toddler moments

A day at LEGO House in Billund

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After a 40-minute bus ride from Vejle train station and less than a five-minute walk, we had arrived at the legendary LEGO House. Kaia cannot read yet, though, so she had no idea where we were going, and she whined and kept saying she was tired, especially when we said we wanted to take pictures outside of LEGO House. When we finally got in, it was like a LEGO lover’s dream come true; endless levels, rooms, and sections to live out all of your LEGO dreams. To be honest, I am not sure who had more fun — Kaia, Chris, or me! While it was originally meant as something to engage Kaia and keep her occupied, in the end, I actually think Chris and I built more things than she did because she kept insisting she wanted us to do all the building!

It was really amazing to see all of these huge structures that people built by hand, whether they were LEGO employees or just LEGO fans from around the world. The LEGO waterfall was particularly impressive, and the description said that if the average person were to build this by hand, it would take them over five years to build! I loved learning the history of LEGO on the bottom level, as I used to wonder where the name came from. It is an abbreviation of the Danish words LEg GOdt, meaning “play well.”

Personally, my favorite area was the LEGO botanicals. I loved seeing all the different flowers and leaves that people had put together. I also tinkered around and made my own purple and blue flower. If we had more time, I easily could have spent hours building endless flowers just in that area. The flowers that really got me were the ones that had not even “bloomed” yet, but were still on the verge of opening!

LEGO really has completed its mission, though: it’s made the world realize how important play is and how play gives way to creativity and problem solving. Adults really need to find ways to do more play, as it should not just be for kids. After all, there is an inner child in every single adult.

Den Gamle By and ableskiver in Aarhus

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Since Denmark is the home of LEGO, we knew we wanted to visit LEGO House in Billund, Denmark. The only issue is that Billund pretty much just has LEGO House, Legoland, and a bunch of offices, so there really isn’t much for tourists to do there that is not LEGO related. So Chris decided to book us a day trip to Aarhus, have us stay in Vejle, and then we’d take a convenient bus to Billund Town Centre and walk a couple minutes to LEGO House. In Aarhus, we visited Den Gamle By (“The Old Town”), which is an open-air town museum focused on town culture across five centuries. They are all decorated in the original historical style, and given we came during Christmas time, they had a lot of festive Christmas exhibits on display. We got to see some displays of elves making toys, as well as see lots of vintage Christmas decorations that were of the time (early 1900s), including the tradition to hang cut-out climbing elves around the living room. There were also some fun indoor and outdoor play areas for littles to run and climb around, including some festive rides and games. Kaia really enjoyed these.

While at Den Gamle By, we also got to enjoy our first ableskiver while in Denmark. The one time I’d previously had these was when I was in Solvang, California, as a child. My parents took me there on a mini vacation; while my dad was not very interested in travel outside of California or the country, he did seem to know quite a lot about little towns all over California. He told us that Solvang had a large Danish population and was known as “Little Denmark” in California. And if you visit, you’d understand why immediately. The entire town looks like a little European village, complete with its own Danish windmill. And at every cafe and corner, you can get your hands on some freshly made, piping hot ableskiver, which are basically like “pancake puffs/balls” made in a cast iron pan. This results in the ableskiver having a really delicious, crunchy outside, with a hot, spongy, pillowy soft inside. They are usually served with jam and powdered sugar. I got some from a little stand inside Den Gamle By where they were making fresh and HUGE ones. I watched the workers fill the round ball-shaped pans over and over with more and more batter, constantly turning them to ensure a deep brown, crunchy crust. The ones they were making here were far larger than anything I could recall seeing in Solvang. And when we ate them — yum. It was so satisfying — crunchy on the outside and almost burn-your-mouth-hot and soft on the inside. I may never want to make them myself (or invest money into buying an ableskiver — or, banh khot/takoyaki — pan), but I will remember these balls of deliciousness as a highlight of our Danish eating.

“I’m going to Denmark!”

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The first time I got on an airplane, I was 13 going from San Francisco to Las Vegas with my parents. It was my first time on a plane and leaving the state, so it was pretty exciting. The first time I left the country, I was 20 going to Shanghai, China, for a month-long study-abroad program. Both times were riveting in different ways. Both times made me realize that I had so much more of the world to see.

Kaia’s first time leaving the state of New York was when she was about 5.5 months old. We took her to Pennsylvania and New Jersey for an extended Memorial Day weekend in 2022. She got on an airplane to San Francisco and flew first-class (on an upgrade with me) at just over eight months old. And just three months later, she got on another airplane and flew to Munich, Germany. Somehow, she has not stopped since! On Friday when she was saying goodbye to her teachers and everyone was wishing each other a happy Thanksgiving (as I was standing outside the entrance to the school listening in), Kaia exclaimed, “Bye! I’m going to Denmark!” I cracked up when I heard this.

“Wait, what? You’re going to Denmark?” Ms. Jenny, one of the administrators, said. “Really?”

Jenny opened the door and greeted me as I came to pick Kaia up. And she said, “Kaia said she’s going to Denmark. Is that really true?”

I laughed and smiled. “Yes, it’s really true. We’re leaving tomorrow and will be there for the week,” I replied, looking down at my cheeky little Pookie, who was giggling and grinning nonstop.

Kaia is just a couple weeks away from turning 4, and I’ve already lost count of the countries she’s visited. Few things get her more excited than being on a train or airplane. Her pure ecstasy is palpable. She just loves the act of traveling, and I just love the fact that she loves it so, so much. It’s also cute how she gets a little confused regarding cities versus countries because I told her we’d be going to Copenhagen, and she’d fight me and say, “No! We’re not going to Copenhagen! We’re! Going! To! Denmark!”

Travel, especially to a different continent, is not always easy on the body, especially a little body like Pookster’s. Once her cousins left and it was just the three of us, we could see how tired she was and how she just wanted to sleep in her stroller in the beginning. But then little things would excite her, from a gingerbread man statue to a Christmas tree to a delicious Danish pastry, and then all that “fatigue” would melt away and she’d be right back in the moment with us.

The reuniting of cousins and cousins, all because of an expensive AF watch

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A few weeks ago, Chris told me that his cousin in London called to chat. I was wondering what big thing had happened: Had he met someone new? Was he doing a big career change? Did he buy a new house? All the above were not the reason for the call. In fact, the real reason for the ring was that he had spent the last several years trying to source a rare Patek Phillippe watch, and alas, he’d finally found it from a seller in the U.S.! But to avoid taxes, he wanted to have it shipped to a U.S. address, so he wanted to send it to Chris. He didn’t have plans to come to Melbourne for Christmas this year, so the earliest he could get the watch was whenever his parents came from Melbourne to visit him since it would make the most sense for Chris to leave the watch with them while we’re visiting next month. But… I guess that would not be fast enough for him. Chris suggested that if he really wanted it ASAP that he come meet us in Copenhagen while we’re on the same continent as him. So he booked a weekend trip for him and his daughter to meet us!

After an overnight flight, then a connecting flight from London to Copenhagen, we were bleary eyed and finally at our hotel this early afternoon. They came to meet us at our hotel. We didn’t tell Kaia that we’d be seeing her cousin, so it was all a very welcome shock for her. Despite whining and whinging that she was too tired to walk, Kaia was happy to walk, hand in hand, with her big cousin everywhere along the streets of Copenhagen, as well as around the beautiful Tivoli Gardens.

It was cute to see them reunited because they both love each other so much and have an attachment to each other. But the most amusing part of their reunion (as well as Chris and his cousin’s) is that all of this happened only because Chris’s cousin wanted to get a hold of his extremely rare and insanely expensive watch as soon as possible. It’s always fun when expensive and fancy things rank higher than family connection, but we don’t have to tell Kaia that this was the real reason for the meetup!

Kaia, the voracious and good eater

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I went to Kaia’s school for their annual Thanksgiving lunch today. All the parents pitched in money, and the teachers and staff put together quite a feast for us. The staff bought a delicious roast turkey with gravy and made numerous sides, including mac and cheese, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, stuffing, roasted broccoli and cauliflower, creamed corn, corn bread, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon rolls. I didn’t realize that all the food other than the turkey would be made either at home by the staff and teachers, or on site at the school. It was really sweet to see that the staff went to all this effort just for us.

While the parents and kids were all sitting together eating, I was chatting with some of the other parents when I realized that Kaia had actually stolen all the broccoli off my plate as I was talking. One of the other parents also noticed this, and he exclaimed, “Wow, Kaia is such a good eater! Look at all the broccoli and cauliflower she just ate! She even just stole all of her mom’s broccoli!”

I smiled. My little Pookie stole all my broccoli. I was totally fine with that. Kaia had quite the appetite at lunch today. Of course, she indulged in her little treat, which were the “veggie sticks” that everyone likes. She dug into the turkey first on her own, then the broccoli and cauliflower, and then the mashed potato and stuffing. Unfortunately, Kaia wasn’t too keen on the sweet potato mash and told me to eat it. She cleared almost her entire plate, minus the mashed sweet potato, cinnamon roll, and some mysterious brownie-like thing that her teacher put on her plate. If you compared the plates across all the kids in 3K and 4K, you could definitely see that Kaia not only ate the most food, but she had the largest variety of food.

“It’s amazing that she eats so much, and she eats all her vegetables,” another parent said to me. “My kid basically just eats carbs, meat, and chocolate!”

I am fully aware of my child and all that she is and does. Even if I didn’t get comments like this as often as I do, I still feel very proud of my Kaia Pookie all the time. Since she was a baby, she’s always been very curious about everything, especially food, embracing new foods and digging in. I can only hope that it continues. I love that she eats a large variety of the same foods that Chris and I eat, and I never feel like I need to make her something different (what work that would be!!). It always makes me so proud. Today, seeing her eat this really well rounded meal on her own just made me feel like I was nearly bursting with pride. All the work I put into her baby-led weaning/early feeding days is most definitely paying off. I loved every moment of that work (when can we say that about any “work” we do?), and I still fondly (with an extreme amount of nostalgia) go back to my video memories of those days, encouraging her to eat and try new foods as a little wee baby. That little baby is not so little anymore.

Our neighbor friend also remarked the day that she stopped by a few weeks ago and saw Kaia eating dinner in her high chair how amazed she was at the sheer variety of food she was eating and what was on her plate. She said she could only dream of her son eating the way that Kaia did.

My Kaia Pookie is setting examples. I just love it.

A very exhausting and annoying play date

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I had scheduled a lunch and play date today with a building neighbor and her son. She asked me the night before if it would be okay if her other mom friend and daughter could also come. They had originally had a play date scheduled the previous Sunday but had to cancel because my neighbor was sick. I figured it would be fine… I’d likely just need to find a slightly roomier restaurant to accommodate three adults, three toddlers, and three strollers.

The first issue came up before we even got on the train to go down to Dumbo, Brooklyn. One of the moms said she couldn’t fold her stroller because it was too big, so she asked if we could use the elevator. I hate using the elevator and usually carry the stroller down while holding Kaia’s hand, so I told them I’d wait on the main level for them. After scanning into the subway, she wanted to take another elevator down to the downtown platform. I waited for them on the platform level… but they took over 20 minutes to arrive because that elevator was out of service, and they had to find another elevator further away to come down to us. My neighbor lightly suggested that we all stick together to prevent getting separated, but all I could think was… I would really love it if people could just be nimble and go with the flow, especially with the person who actually organized this outing. On the flip side, maybe I was actually being the rigid one because I didn’t want to use the elevator? Either way, this was not fun, and we missed three trains and ended up getting to the restaurant 15 minutes later than I’d wanted and had the reservation for.

Once we got to the restaurant, one kid had a face-down-flat meltdown. Then, one of the moms said she was avoiding carbs, and said the words of cardinal sin to Chris: “I don’t really eat fried rice (or noodles).” She asked me what was low-carb on the menu, so I tried to point out more protein/meat options for her. We went back and forth on whether we’d all share, which was stressful because no one could seem to come to a consensus. Finally, we did, and we ended up all sharing. The side order of stir-fried gai lan came to the table, and Kaia immediately said she wanted them. One of the moms said that would be an adult dish because “the kids won’t touch that,” and I had to chime in and say something. “No, my kid will definitely eat that. That’s her favorite vegetable!”

Kaia had a tantrum when I insisted she had to sit near me (and well, not with her best friend). She eventually had the biggest lunch out ever. I think she even encouraged one of the other kids to branch out and eat foods that weren’t just white and beige.

The first Space Club we tried to go to, which was brand new in Dumbo, had a 25-30 minute wait. So we took a quick Uber ride to the Fort Greene location where we finally got to let loose a little and not be so hyper focused on the kids. Kaia and I made some necklaces, and she seemed quite focused. We all enjoyed the large trampolines, which were unique to the Fort Greene location.

We mapped the closest subway, which was a 17-minute walk away. Neither seemed keen on that walk, so we ended up splitting a Lyft home. I wasn’t thrilled to tack on another $20 to my all-day play date, but I guess that’s the cost of being around people you don’t know well and are hesitant to take public transit. When I got home, all I could think was, I’m so glad to be back and not with two other moms and two other kids. My neighbor friend said to me as we entered our building with a smile, “So, feeling exhausted — just a little?”

Yeah, no kidding.

The more is not always the merrier, especially when you are leaving your neighborhood and relying on things like public transportation and everyone’s comfort level taking public transit.

My introspective, empathetic preschooler

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A few months ago, a friend gifted Kaia a book called How We Eat: Celebrating Food and Feeding Tools. The book celebrates all the ways we eat, from birth to adulthood, with vivid vibrant photos of real people, real babies, real families and friends interacting and eating. It covers eating with bottles, directly from the breast, using a breast milk pump, supplemental nursing systems, G-tubes, NG tubes, and more. There aren’t a lot of words in the book, but there are some nice descriptions of what’s happening and how people are eating for each set of photos. And right now, it is definitely one of Kaia’s favorite books. Sometimes when I am cooking or doing chores, I see her sitting by her bookshelf, flipping the pages of this book and “reading” it to herself by describing what’s happening in each photo.

Last night, I was reading to Kaia before bed. She chose this as one of her three bedtime story books. As we went through the book, she asked me to stop and turn back to the previous page. She pointed at a picture of a little kid with no forearm, with a metal tool that was attached to his upper arm helping him feed.

“Where is his arm, Mama?” she asked me.

I explained to her that not everyone is born with all their limbs, so some babies are born without hands or arms or legs, and this is one of those kids. But luckily, we have tools like the metal attachment on the kid’s upper arm that can help them self-feed.

She looked pensive, touching the boy’s upper arm in the picture, then touching her own arm.

“He doesn’t have an arm?” she asked me with sad eyes. “What does that feel like? Does it hurt him?”

I told her that the child likely doesn’t know what it’s like to have a forearm on that side, and that like her, they likely don’t know anything different.

Kaia kept touching the kid’s arm in the photo and rubbing it.

“Can I help him eat?” she asked me, curiously. “I want to help him eat!”

I could feel tears coming on as she said this. It was like she felt this kid’s loss of an arm, and she immediately wanted to dive in and help however way she could. But she just didn’t know how. She expressed fear for this child’s pain, and deep sadness for the fact that this child didn’t have two full arms and hands to eat and play with. My baby isn’t four years old yet, but she has exhibited deep, mature empathy and care for others that I never even knew was possible at this age. I know for sure that when I was her age, I would never have asked questions like this at all if I saw a kid like the one in this picture.

I always hoped for Kaia to be many things. High on the list was that I hoped she possessed empathy and care for others. It appears that she doesn’t seem to have any struggle in this area. I’m so thankful for my sweet baby growing into a real, caring, loving, empathetic human.

A day off with snow flurries, freezing temperatures, lots of cooking, and scooting

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Since I started at my current company, I’ve had Veteran’s day off the last six years. No other company I’ve ever worked at gave me Veteran’s Day off. I suppose it’s one way to be “inclusive,” but what that ultimately means is that other days off I would hope to get don’t happen, such as New Year’s Eve. That is not a federal holiday, but every company before this current one gave that day off. These days, I have to request that day off officially. Now that Kaia is in preschool, she also gets that day off, so she was at home with us today. She woke up in our bed after creeping over to us a few hours before wake-up time and got excited to see tiny snowflakes falling from the sky.

“What is that falling from the sky, Mama?” Kaia asked, pointing out the window.

“It’s snow, Pookie!” I exclaimed. “Tiny little snowflakes falling down!”

Today, I made a bunch of things to feed the family: browned butter buttermilk oatmeal pancakes using toasted and ground steel-cut oats, my remaining buttermilk, and a bit of browned butter for extra toastiness. Both Chris and Kaia enjoyed these pancakes; they are likely the tastiest (but alas, most laborious) oatmeal pancakes I’ve ever made. So these will definitely be on rotation. I am very much in the “clean out the pantry and fridge” mode right now, so that ticked off using up my remaining buttermilk and most of my small amount of remaining steel-cut oats. That was followed by Eleven Madison Park style granola (which Kaia diligently picked out all the dried sour cherries from her portion…), Thai green curry with chicken and tofu using homemade stock from the bone bag in my freezer, leftover cut-up firm tofu, and pre-frozen cubes of green curry that I doctored up; plus, Thai-style papaya salad with the green papaya I got for super cheap at Apna Bazaar in Connecticut weeks ago! I even made the dough for my once/twice-a-year challah and left it to proof in the fridge overnight. I am planning for us to eat one loaf now, and then I’ll freeze the second loaf to await us in 2026 when we return from the Southern Hemisphere.

Kaia impatiently waited for me to finish shaving the papaya so that I could take her to Lincoln Center plaza for some scooting around. She is definitely mastering her scooter (minus some awkward turns), and she is gaining confidence using it. She loves riding it around and around the plaza reflecting pool, and then she likes to take breaks to pick up fallen autumn leaves and pebbles, pretending to “make pesto for mama.” She says she loves pesto pasta and wants to share it with me. This is her new thing whenever we’re in the Lincoln Center plaza together, with her intermittently scooting and then taking breaks to stir the special pesto pasta she makes for me in her imaginary kitchen.

We have about 2.5 weeks remaining in New York City this year. There is a lot left to do, lots of ingredients to use up, and plans still to be made. Every year seems to fly by quicker than the last, but I guess that’s how you know you are definitely getting older. I’m almost ending my 40th year, as Chris would say, yet I don’t feel close to slowing down even a bit just yet!

Cottage cheese as the new high protein food trend that I am not that into

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Before this year, the only time I ever really embraced cottage cheese was for German style cheesecake. Growing up, I remember my dad would make it once a year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and I’d always sit there and watch or help him make it. Real German style cheesecake is made with quark cheese, but given that quark was not readily available in the U.S. then (and barely is now), the closest substitute easily available here is cottage cheese. It takes ages to break up the cottage cheese curds, and you need a high powered mixer to do it, but I always loved it when we got to the final step and got the cake batter silky smooth.

Cottage cheese suddenly rose in popularity this year because of everyone’s obsession with increasing their protein intake (and yes, I admittedly fall into this camp as of late). It’s considered the latest “hack” to increase protein in one’s diet, and it’s been showing up in endless different recipes. I’ve even seen it in some dosa and uttapam recipes! I finally decided I would try it out again, and I’d try using it in things like smoothies and pancakes. I figured that since Kaia likes pancakes, she wouldn’t mind it if I added cottage cheese to her pancakes.

Well, I was wrong. The cottage cheese made the pancakes more spongy, and she did not seem to appreciate this. She’d squish them in between her fingers and declare that she did not want to eat them, that she wanted ME to eat them. I’d have to cajole her to eat at least two before getting something else that she’d prefer. I tried three different recipe variations, some including pumpkin puree (because I like to add pumpkin to as many recipes as possible in the fall). Though I was able to mostly eliminate the sponginess she did not like, I found this to be far too much effort to continue attempting to use it. If trying to incorporate “healthy” or high protein ingredients into our diet ends up becoming more “work” than joy, then I don’t want to keep doing it. I have enough mental load, and this is not something I want to continue.

I finished the tiny bit of remaining cottage cheese in the fridge and mixed it into some just-cut pineapple. And even that felt like an effort for me. So, I’m declaring it now: No more cottage cheese in this house — unless I decide to make German style cheesecake.

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?