Whether we have been aware of it or not this whole time, Kaia has been an amazing sleeper. She was pretty much sleeping through the night, in her bassinet or crib, at around 3 months of age. She’d been a great eater. She is generally always jovial, curious, and in a good mood. We’ve had a relatively smooth experience as parents to date, and we’ve been extremely lucky and grateful for it. However, during the few nights we were in Orange County at a hotel, she refused to sleep in her pack and play, and instead, we let her sleep on top of our bed between us. We needed her to sleep. We needed to sleep. So we just let it happen and hoped it would be temporary.

Well, we are back now, and she refuses to sleep in the crib. It’s likely separation anxiety related, but it doesn’t matter how tired she is or how late it is. She will NOT sleep in the crib. She either needs to be on the bed with us or in our lap/on our chests. And the nanny is not pleased with us, as she just came back today to help us adjust back.

“This is not the Kaia I let you go to Australia with,” the nanny said sternly to us. “What happened to my Kaia who always sleeps and naps well…?!”

Well, I guess this is a rude awakening to what a baby sleep regression can look like!

In previous trips to Southern California, we’d always flown in and out of LAX since it seemed like it was the most direct way to get there. But Chris found out that there actually was a direct flight from Orange County (via Santa Ana) to JFK once a day, and so he booked our return flights to New York via Orange County. This gave us more time to explore in further depth the Orange County area and places we had not yet seen much of. You could truly spend years exploring Orange County and never get through it, but this segment of our trip gave us more time to do so.

I already knew that Orange County had a big Central/South American and Vietnamese/Filipino population, but I was unaware before doing a quick search on Google that Anaheim is actually known for having an area called Little Arabia. Most people who are aware of Anaheim know that it is home to Disneyland California. Little Arabia would be news to most people, though, even those who are local to Southern California.

Earlier this week, we ate at an Iraqi restaurant that had delicious kebabs, tender, fall-off-the-bone lamb shank, and even an interesting grape soda we’d never tried before. We stopped by a Syrian bakery that had plenty of Western and Middle Eastern sweets, but a hidden item on the menu was bouza ice cream, similar to Turkish dondurma ice cream in its chewy/stretchy texture, which it gets from mastik and orchid flour. When you order it, it’s churned to order and rolled with ground pistachios. It was super stretchy and fragrant of rose water. Our last stop in this area was a Palestinian bakery, where we had cream kanefe (the first cream version we’d ever had, and not too sweet!) along with Turkish coffee, and a delicious spiced and sweetened milk tea, fragrant from caradmom and cloves. The coffee and tea were made to order and with a lot of care from the owner of the bakery, who was extremely warm and hospitable. All were in strip malls, so very much a classic SoCal experience.

We could spend ages exploring SoCal for all its delicious ethnic food and never get through it all. But at least we had a good taste of it, though brief, this segment of our trip.

Most people who have interacted with us while traveling with Kaia have been extremely kind, friendly, and praised Kaia for how well-behaved she’s been on flights. She’s been told how sweet and cute she is, how well she has slept, how good she’s been. It’s been glowing reviews all around, and I don’t say that just because I am her mother; I say that because I have also been shocked at her behavior and how she’s handled so many changes, as well as how nice people have been to us, cheering us on and encouraging us. So many kind strangers have expressed empathy to us and insisted we’ve been doing a great job managing. It’s been quite heartening to experience.

Well, the first rude couple encountered us on our flight from MEL > LAX. They wanted to sit together and away from the baby (yeah, maybe 5 feet more away…), and they asked if Chris could swap seats with the wife sitting next to me (my seat is where the bassinet is set up). When we declined their offer (TWICE), the wife kept making passive aggressive remarks to me, saying, “it’s going to be disruptive for me, yeah? The baby will be making noises and disturbing me, and that’s not quite right, yeah?”

Actually, not “yeah.” My husband and I paid for these fucking seats in business class, so stay the fuck away from me and my baby, you entitled, overprivileged twat.

Then, the husband tried to complain to a flight attendant, which then prompted her to go to Chris to ask him to move. And of course, Chris responded with something along the lines of, “I don’t care what other people want!”

They lost, and we won. And well, Kaia was actually quite quiet throughout the whole flight, with a few small outbursts, and that was it. Part of me wishes she was a bit more disruptive just to piss off the woman and her husband, but then that would have been disruptive for us, too.

I looked at all the stuff scattered on the bed, floor, and across multiple bags with a high level of anxiety today. I couldn’t believe how much stuff we were bringing back. Granted, everyone who gave Kaia a gift was very thoughtful and made sure to get her small things, ranging from clothes to smaller toys and books. But despite that, the volume really added up quite quickly. Her clothing and toys were spread across two checked bags, and along with all the snacks and alcohol Chris insisted on bringing back, it ended up being three checked bags, one backpack for each of us, one diaper bag, one pumping bag, one stroller to fold up, and one car seat. I had no idea how we would manage this, especially with a five-day stopover in Southern California (what visibility would he have, even with an SUV, with that many bags?). But looking at it all made my head hurt. It’s not like we have an entourage to help us cart all this stuff everywhere. I just had to hope and pray that nothing would get broken or lost, especially the bottles of liquor and wine we were taking back with us.

I have rarely lost anything while traveling. Okay, let me rephrase that: before I had a baby, I never lost anything while traveling. I prided myself on being organized and having everything together. And I knew once we had a child, we’d probably take a while to get into a groove of how we travel and get from point A to point B. And in the end, that’s resulted in a few lost things along the way.

Just on our way from Melbourne Airport to the car park to meet Chris’s dad on arrival in early December, Chris was pushing our trolley of luggage, in which my sweater/ open jacket was in the front pocket. Somehow, some way, that piece of clothing fell out, and was never to be seen again. We didn’t realize we lost it until the day after when I was looking for it. Chris tried to contact the airport lost and found, but to no avail. The most vexing thing about that was that I rarely care much about any of my clothes, but that specific piece I really loved because it was versatile, could be casual or dressy, and could transition easily from warm to cool weather. Plus, it was lightweight, not bulky at all, and had pockets. Ugh. I hope I can find a replacement for it at some point soon. I already checked the J. Crew website and they are out of stock. At least I got just over two years of use out of it.

While at Main Beach in Byron Bay, I got caught in a wave while holding Kaia, and we both went under water for about three seconds, during which my prescription sunglasses, which were on top of my head, got washed away. Well, I thought to myself, I may have lost my glasses, but most importantly, I didn’t let the ocean take my baby away!!!! It took Kaia a few minutes to calm down, and then as though nothing had happened, she babbled and played in the sand.

In a grocery store while pushing the baby in the stroller, Kaia threw her pacifier in some aisle when I wasn’t looking, and I never found it again. That was really annoying, mostly because Chris is the paci police and made me go down every single aisle and check the floor everywhere to try to retrieve it. That was a futile exercise that yielded nada.

We were eating at a restaurant with Chris’s parents and brother when the wait staff cleared the table… along with Kaia’s reusable silicone straw. I didn’t realize this happened, as I had to get Kaia to the bathroom to change a huge poop nappy, so I didn’t see this happen, and Chris and his family were just trying to get out of the table booth. At least we have about 6 or 7 of them back at home.

You can try to control everything… but at the end of the day, you just have to let some things go. Oherwise you will just go crazy.

A few nights ago, we were at Chris’s friend’s house and spent time in his backyard because they were setting up a surprise basketball ring for his son’s Christmas gift. His friend warned me about how aggressive the mosquitoes or “mozzies” get out there, so he insisted that I put on mosquito repellent. I did this, but regardless, the mosquitoes always get you in the few spots you miss. So I left with four very itchy and uncomfortable bites, including on my left little toe and right by my left elbow. The bite on my left elbow swelled up so big overnight that it was nearly the size of a golf ball when I woke up the next morning.

The next day, we went to Chris’s aunt/uncle’s home, where I barely spent 10 minutes in their garden in the early evening. His aunt was giving me a garden tour of all the trees, shrubs, and flowers they had spent the last three years growing. I was wearing pants, yet somehow… a mosquito was so aggressive that it bit me right in the center of my left butt cheek! How the heck did it get through my PANTS and bite my butt??

The weird thing is that pretty much everywhere we travel, I have always been a mosquito magnet, but in Australia, I’ve never once before gotten bitten by a mozzie before this trip. The Ozzie mozzies, according to Chris’s parents and relatives, have gotten quite aggressive this season, and everyone seems to try to stay away from them in areas where they wait and feast. This year, they lurk outside the doors of homes, and as soon as you open them, they immediately fly in! They don’t even buzz the way they do back in the U.S., so you cannot hear them. And when they’re in, they’re IN. As of today, I’ve probably already killed about 17 mozzies just in our bathroom!

In all previous trips to Australia, we had actively avoided eating any Mexican food. The logic was: why would we eat Mexican food here when we can have great Mexican food (for obvious reasons, like proximity to Mexico) back in the U.S.? But in recent years, there’s been a huge surge in Mexican restaurants in Australia. Each time we’d come back, I’d notice more and more. I never seriously looked at the menus, but it was clear that the interest and trend were growing here.

Chris’s cousins organized a cousins dinner nearby for us, as they were being considerate and thoughtful that we had a baby, so they wanted to pick a restaurant that would be a quick drive back in case Kaia got too fussy with Chris’s parents on their own with her. I knew it was Mexican and didn’t really think much of it until we got to the restaurant. It was certainly outfitted the way you’d stereotypically imagine, with sombreros, brightly colored paintings, and cactus everywhere. When I opened the menu, I thought… oh great. There’s lots of things I’d expect on the menu, so I stuck with what seemed safe — two tacos, shrimp and fish, plus a nonalcoholic coconut/lime/pineapple drink.

Chris got jackfruit tacos, so we sort of shared our food. The tacos were absolutely horrendous – at least, the jackfruit ones were. They were mushy, the sauce was disgusting, and they were clearly canned jackfruit pieces. The shrimp and fish ones were decent, but considering how much they cost, I feel l like I could have made better Mexican food as a child than this. And the service was even worse than the food: they took our orders but warned us that the kitchen AND the bar were closing in the next 15 minutes (at 8pm?! We had just arrived at around 7:15!), so we had to make up our mind on regular food, drink, AND desserts then and there. The food took ages to arrive, and they arrived with our drinks and jugs of water. We had nothing to drink, not even basic water, until all the food arrived. I couldn’t even remember experiencing service so awful at a restaurant until that evening.

I normally never say anything about restaurants when it comes to Chris’s family’s gatherings because the main focus is not really the food — it’s about all of us getting together and catching up. Plus, I’m not technically a cousin, so why should my opinion overrule anyone? But after that experience… the next time someone tries to suggest Mexican here, I’m definitely going to have to chime in and veto it.

Most afternoons during our stays in Melbourne, we’ve still been exploring different neighborhoods this time around, just with the baby with us. While it is always enjoyable to see family and friends here, it’s also fun to be able to revisit old favorites, like Lamb on Chapel and Shandong Mama, and also try new restaurants and bakeries that have opened. It’s basically like an extension of what we do in New York — seeing new and different neighborhoods and trying new cuisines and restaurants. Most people don’t really know their own backyards, and so we actively try to do the opposite and know where we are traveling to as well as our own home base.

We’ve been telling Chris’s parents about all these new places we have visited, and they have laughed a bit, saying this is their own home but they haven’t been to these areas much. The ironic thing there is that they are quite adventurous and have literally spent their lives traveling the world, seeing new places, eating new foods, diving into totally different cultures. But when it comes to their own home base, they don’t really see much of it and say they don’t have much time to do it. In that sense, they’re not that different to the average person who doesn’t go outside of their own neighborhood or surrounding neighborhoods. But when we do bring the foods back home for them to try, maybe that will entice them to go back?