Brooklyn Children’s Museum

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I actually did not realize this until after I visited today, but the Brooklyn Children’s Museum is the world’s first children’s museum. I booked a visit via Culture Pass, which gets me and three guests free access to the museum — that’s a $30 value for both Pookster and me, so I’d say it’s a pretty good deal.

I organized a visit here with my friend, his wife, and their toddler daughter who is about eight months younger than Kaia. After this visit, I can definitively say that the Brooklyn Children’s Museum is much better than the Manhattan Children’s Museum. And I love that the museum tries to incorporate local residents, local businesses, and local history and neighborhood facts into the different exhibits and play areas. There’s an entire area called World Brooklyn that models different shops, from a Mexican panaderia (bread shop) to even a mini version of L&B Spumoni Garden, a popular pizza/ice cream shop in Brooklyn. Of course, Kaia loved all the supermarket, food, and grocery sections, plus the “air maze” where you can stick in different light-weight balls and scarves into tubes, and they get pushed out with air and fly out another side. But I’d say that her absolute favorite was the fake MTA bus. She loved steering the wheel. And clearly all the other kids of many ages love it, too, because kids were constantly waiting to get a chance to “drive the bus.”

It’s nice to visit these children’s museums with Pookster because I know she will always have something that will engage her, and I don’t need to be 100 percent hands on since she will get excited and enthralled by something she finds herself, especially at her age. I also don’t need to have a hawk’s eye on her since it’s a safe space, and there’s no risk of her getting run over by a car or taken by some creep.

She was certainly comfortable here. She even had a blowout. It’s a good thing that I not only had a change of clothing for her, but also a wet bag to contain the damaged shorts.

Frozen dumplings and our “normal” in New York City

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When I was growing up, frozen dumplings were always a backup food somewhere in the back of the freezer. Like many other Asian families, we only had these when my mom didn’t feel like cooking but needed to get dinner on the table. The dumplings were always fine, but nothing to get too excited about. As a kid, I was always excited because it was one of the very few things in the kitchen our mom would entrust us to do for dinner, other than turning on the rice cooker. The dumplings were usually the large bulk purchases from places like Costco or Ranch 99 and varied in filling, from chicken and cabbage to beef and mixed vegetables. Sometimes, we even got a “treat” and had mixed shrimp and pork ones. The texture was always very uniform and not particularly interesting.

When I moved to New York, I realized that almost every hole-in-the-wall dumpling shop I liked, whether it was in Elmhurst, Flushing, or Manhattan Chinatown, sold their own dumplings to take home — in frozen form. You could get a bag of 50 pre-frozen dumplings for somewhere in the ballpark of $9-14 depending on the filling (and what year we’re referencing). Because of this, I could “vet” how good the dumplings were by buying them freshly made, whether it was boiled, steamed, or pan-fried. And if I liked them, then I’d be comfortable committing to a bag of 50. Some people are wary of the frozen dumplings from little dumpling shops, but I can say, after buying many frozen bags from my favorite shops, that they cook up exactly like they do by the restaurants as long as you treat them properly.

Bibigo beef dumplings were a frozen brand that we found at Costco years ago that was on sale, so we got it a couple times and enjoyed them. So when HMart opened in our neighborhood, I picked up the Bibigo frozen chicken and vegetable dumplings, also on sale. I steamed some of them to supplement dinner tonight, and while we ate them, I was reminded of all those frozen dumplings I ate growing up and how… they all paled in comparison to my favorite dumpling shops here in New York City.

That’s when I realized how lucky I am to live in a city that has literally endless excellent dumpling shops (and with so many different styles!) that can be bought in bulk, frozen, and made at home. I am spoiled for choice here, and when one shop doesn’t have the dumplings ready frozen, then another one will just a few blocks away. Sometimes on Instagram, I get messages from people around the world, people I do not know personally, who tell me how envious they are that we live in such a cosmopolitan city with so much variety for cuisines — and at approachable price points. Some people tell me that they have to drive at least 50+ miles just to get the most basic Asian vegetable, or a good Indian restaurant, etc. We really are so lucky in so many ways to live in this great city.

Weaning off the pacifier, the nuclear way

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When we first gave Kaia a pacifier at around age 1 month, I was a little worried about how she’d be with eventually weaning off it. You always hear these horror stories in parent groups about kids who are 3, 4, even 5 years old who refuse to let go of their pacifier. Pacifier, paci, dummy, whatever you want to call it — it’s not just a toy or another object to a baby or toddler; the paci is a source of deep comfort and attachment. So, if you take away something that provides the child comfort, you are risking a lot. It also made me uncomfortable to know that Chris still had his dummy at age 3; I absolutely do NOT want Kaia with a paci by the age of 3 and really hoped that Kaia wouldn’t be as dead set on hers as her dad was when he was a similar age. If anything, I would have ideally wanted to cut it off by age 2, but given we were doing a lot of travel in that time, I didn’t want to take away a comfort source during a heavy travel/transition period. Last summer, we had mostly weaned her off the paci for daytime naps. So overnight sleep is what she wants her paci for.

Last week, Kaia was being really fussy at every bedtime. She was going through a little teething, as I saw one of her back molars was coming out. She also may be going through a 2.5-year sleep regression. But either way, Chris said that she could have one or the other: one of us on the bed with her, OR the paci. I wasn’t really thinking we’d start this early; I originally thought we’d start the weaning process after we got back from our summer trip. But oh well. In most cases, she chose us, and she’d fall asleep sans paci. At some point of the night, though, she’d come barging out of her room crying, in search of us. She’d come to our bed and indicate she wanted to sleep with us. I get it: it’s hard to let go of a comfort item like the paci, so instead, she wants us to be her new comfort item. I felt so sad for my baby, but I know weaning off the paci is something we want and need her to do. It just came about very quickly and suddenly since Chris just declared it out of nowhere last week. It’s been almost a week now of no paci overnight, except one night when she did choose the paci over us.

Chris has also been telling her things like, “Pacis are for babies. Kaia is not a baby. Kaia likes scooters. Scooters are for big kids.” So because of this, Kaia now says sometimes at bedtime, “Pacis are for babies. Kaia not a baby.” I think she’s trying to rationalize to herself that even though she has an urge for the paci that she should fight the urge and power through without it, and ultimately let it go.

My sweet baby is growing up. It’s trite, but it really does go too fast.

I stepped in Kaia’s shit.

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Kaia has been expressing interest in the potty since the beginning of this year. She loves to follow me into the bathroom when I have to pee or poop. Sometimes, when I need to go, I will tell her and ask if she wants to come. Almost every time, she will enthusiastically agree and come into the bathroom running. She will observe my every move, so I make sure to narrate every step for her understanding, from pulling down my pants, to sitting on the toilet seat (NOT THE BOWL), wiping, ensuring I’m clean, then pulling up my pants and flushing the toilet. And of course, she always knows I have to “xi shou” or wash hands right after.

Unfortunately, she isn’t totally ready to potty train. I tried to get her to sit on a toddler potty that I got off of Buy-Nothing, but she got scared and refused. She still cannot fully pull her pants down and up every time. Sometimes, she also gives false alarms by telling us she pooped when she did not. But one thing she consistently does when she poops is: she will disappear from where we are and go silent, go into a corner or another room, close the door, poop in her diaper, then come back to us, usually walking awkwardly with a big stool in her diaper. She did that tonight. When I opened the door to the bathroom she was in, it smelled like her poop, so I knew she had gone. I brought her to the changing station, and SMUSH. Some of the poop had spilled out of her diaper and onto the floor mat by her changing station. I had poop all over my right toes.

I stepped into Kaia’s shit, literally. It was red (from beets), stinky, and mushy. I had no idea that anything had fallen out of her diaper. I was not pleased.

Chris finished with cleaning her up and getting her into a clean diaper. While he did that, I limped around on one foot while spot cleaning the floor mat before throwing it into the washer to get laundered. I also removed excess poop from her blown-out shorts with a tissue before swishing the shorts in a bucket with laundry detergent for a pre-clean, then finally went into the bathtub to wash my own feet.

Well, that was an adventure. Having a child is truly an adventure in itself, isn’t it?

I yelped quite loudly when I stepped in her poop and realized what it was. She then proceeded to parrot my yelp, each intonation after the other, in what Chris said was a “perfect imitation.” Yes, she’s truly a perfectionist when it comes to the art of imitation now, and certainly at the most opportune moments.

This incident reminded me of when we were in Pennsylvania last month, and we were in the lounge room of the hotel with Chris’s parents. I could tell that Kaia was pooping in a corner because she had gone quiet and disappeared for a bit. When she ran up to me, she smelled of poop. She smiled while looking at me and said, “I pooped over there.” She pointed to the window overlooking the parking lot. Shen then led me over to where she pooped. And right there, I saw a small little blob of human poop — her human poop. I immediately brought her back to our room to clean her up and to ensure no other damage was done to her clothes. Then, I promptly went back to the lounge room to remove her poop and clean the area.

All I wonder now is: how many more little round poops of Kaia’s am I going to keep inadvertently discovering…?

NYC 3K school offer and next steps

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Last month, the offers and wait lists were released for 3K and 4K (preschool) in New York City. Given that 3K is a total lottery and children are not guaranteed a spot anywhere, I wasn’t sure if we’d get anything. But my hunch, based on enrollment at the 3K Chinese immersion school we toured, was that Kaia would likely get a spot at one of this school’s two locations in Chinatown. And in the end, she did: she got an offer at the location closer to the subway stop. This is the location we never toured, so we came here today to see what the space looked like and to meet with the director. Of course, given it’s Chinatown, it’s in an old building. You either go up a small elevator or take some narrow, slightly windy stairs up to the second level to where the school is located. The space looked fine — it wasn’t anything to impress given the old building. But there seemed like there was ample space, plus a large separate room for activities like “gym,” yoga, and play when the weather was not great out. I do like that they prepare all meals onsite and that we would no longer have to pack lunch or snacks anymore unless we wanted to. The meals are a mix of Western and Asian food, so Kaia would occasionally get her Asian greens fix made by someone who wasn’t me. They follow the Department of Education curriculum, and there’s always two teachers in the class at least, one who teaches in English and a second who delivers the same messaging in Mandarin Chinese. In the afterschool program that runs after 2:50pm until 6pm, they also do tracing of Chinese characters and writing — this would have an out of pocket cost.

When we got the offer, I knew we were lucky to have any offer. That’s the attitude of most parents whose children get a 3K spot. That’s why so many parents have commuted from Brooklyn into Manhattan and back for their kids who got into this school. I corresponded with a couple of them over Facebook message, and I get what they mean. Is a double commute going to be harder than taking a 4-block walk to our current daycare/school? Yes — a lot, lot harder. It’s going to take a LOT more time for all of us. Sometimes, I’m sure the subway will be cramped and annoying. It will really, really suck on rainy and snowy days, just as the other parents commuting from Brooklyn told me. We’ll also have to get a monthly Metro card again, which I haven’t done in about eight years. But I think we can do it for at least one school year and see how it goes.

I also thought about the pros: Kaia will have exposure to Mandarin (and better Mandarin…) from people outside of just me — The more exposure, the better, so that the language can stick to her more. She will have the opportunity to speak in Chinese with classmates and other teachers. She’ll see what it’s like to do a subway commute daily. And I’ll always have access to all my beloved Asian greens, baos, and ingredients every single day and won’t even get a chance to “miss” them. Who knows – maybe some Fridays, we’ll even all do dinner down in Chinatown or somewhere else on the Lower East Side. It’ll be a new routine for all three of us.

Kaia incorporates her stuffed animals into our evening ritual of “search and find”

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Since we came back from Australia, Kaia has gotten really into her “search and find books.” We’ve also been using her favorite Artichoke to Zucchini book as a way to “search and find” different foods, with me asking her where the mango is, and then she has to point to tell me she’s identified the mango. Before Kaia turned two, I didn’t actually know that “search and find” as a concept was a very popular 2-year-old activity. Luckily, we have friends and family who have gone through this phase with their children, and so we got gifted a number of these types of books.

So in addition to reading a number of books as part of our bedtime routine, Kaia always insists that she “wants to find,” too. Her favorite book for this right now is Under the Sea: Search and Find. The cute thing she does when she is extremely confident about knowing where something is — she’ll start giggling uncontrollably and use her finger to slap what she’s identifying. So if I say “Kaia, can you find the octopus?” And she’s 100 percent certain she knows where it is, she will shriek and giggle, point/slap the octopus, then aggressively bounce on the bed and lie down, almost jumping.

This past week, she’s also incorporated her stuffed animals, two rabbits named Henry and Peter (Rabbit). She will say “I don’t wanna find. Henry (or Peter Rabbit) wants to find. Then, she will use their “hands” to point to the object I’ve asked her to find. Sometimes, she has them take turns. Other times, she has one do a string of “finds” and then gets the second rabbit involved.

She proudly declared after having both of them participate: “Sharing is caring,” with a huge smile on her face.

I used to have moments when I’d be so sad about her getting older because I loved her as a baby so much. Sometimes, I still get sad about her walking now (as insane as that sounds) because I miss the sound of her hands happily slapping the floor as she crawled, indicating to me that she was coming near. But then I realized that if she were a baby forever (yes, I realize that’s an unrealistic hypothetical, but hear me out), then we’d never be able to enjoy these sweet, cute moments together. A blogger I follow, who has a young daughter just a few months younger than Pookster, recently wrote in a post, “I know I say this every time, but (the age her daughter is currently at today) is my favorite age!” That’s sort of how I feel – minus the toddler tantrums.

Swim school for littles in Manhattan

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After hearing about her bestie at school who started swim lessons just a block away from us back in February, we signed Kaia up for swim classes with the same program for each Sunday morning. I convinced Chris that he should be the one to take her every Sunday. I figured — he’s not working full-time anymore, and I really need Sunday morning for food prep and cooking for the week, so this arrangement just made sense. The swim class itself is only 30 minutes long, but once you factor in walking there, getting ready, getting in and out of the pool, and drying/washing off, the overall process is probably over an hour.

The funny thing that Chris noticed when we signed her up is that even though Kaia was just over two years old when she started swim lessons, most of the kids in level 1, or “tadpole” level, were much, much younger than her. The swim cap for level 1 didn’t even fit her, so she was given the level 2 swim cap since her head was so big. It made me laugh because it made me remember when I was age… SIXTEEN, taking swim lessons at Sava Pool in the Sunset district of San Francisco each morning during the summer after my sophomore year, and being the oldest person by at least 11-12 years in my swim classes. It was completely mortifying. I befriended two of the swim instructors, and one of them became a (temporary) good friend of mine. With Kaia initially being the “old” person in her swim level, it made me realize how involved parents of this generation are and how everyone seems to want their kids to do activities as young and as early as possible. In addition, I still remember how cheap my swim lessons were: each class (so each weekday morning) cost $1.00; it cost only $0.50 to access the pool. So each week, I spent a whopping $7.50 out of pocket on swim lessons for myself. I can assure you that Kaia’s swim lessons are not ANYWHERE as cheap as mine were back then.

Since Chris will be in Australia for his cousin’s wedding the next two weekends, it will be my responsibility to take her to swim class (and go in the water with her, until she reaches Level 3, when the caregiver no longer needs to accompany the child). So I went with them today to the class to see what the process was like to check in, go into the locker room, and get to the pool. Honestly, I do not think having me there observing was helpful: Kaia was very distracted and kept waving at me to get my attention (as though I wasn’t already looking at her…). Chris said the teacher assigned to her was not great. But I was happy I came to observe because it made me so proud to see Kaia pretty comfortable both in the water and with the instructor. There were moments when I was so happy to see her splashing around (even if just playing) that I almost teared up. That’s my little Pookie growing up.

We may not have had all the things we wanted as children, but I do think it’s our job to create a better childhood and life for our kids than we had. I hope Kaia becomes the confident swimmer I never became.

Seis Vecinos and Lechonera La Pirana in the South Bronx

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I’ve spent almost 16 years here in New York City now. It’s funny to think that when I first moved here, I thought I’d be here for 2-5 years and then leave. What the hell did I think I was going back to in San Francisco, anyway?

We came back to the South Bronx today for our annual pit stop since the pandemic at Lechonera La Pirana. We got an entire plate to go of Angel Jimenez’s famous Puerto Rican-style lechon (complete with crispy pork skin) for $20, plus I made sure we did not leave without a photo with Pookster, Angel, and his famous (and terrifying) machete. It’s been cute to see photos of Pookster with Angel and the machete over the years and see how the both of them have changed (and aged).

Given we were just a few blocks away from the popular Central American restaurant Seis Vecinos (which means “Six Neighborhoods” in Spanish), we finally had a sit-down meal here today after the last several visits when I’d wait in line at the lechon truck (in the hot sun, phew), and Chris would take Pookster to Seis Vecinos to pick up freshly made pupusas and our favorite Salvadoran-style horchata.

We have enjoyed endless delicious meals in New York across all five boroughs (and across the world), but I will say that this lunch we had at Seis Vecinos today was truly spectacular; even if we had never stopped at the lechon truck, this restaurant itself would have been worth the train ride up to South Bronx. We ordered a freshly blended papaya smoothie, passion fruit juice (both HUGE!), two pupusas (revuleta, which is a mix of chicharron, refried beans, and cheese, and cheese with loroco, the Salvadoran green herb we were introduced to last week while in El Salvador), and the fried fish filet, which was served with delicious refried beans, Salvadoran crumbly cheese, crema, a thick slice of avocado, maduros (fried sweet plantains), and two freshly grilled handmade corn tortillas.

The portions sizes for all the above were gigantic; all of these dishes are most definitely meant for sharing. The freshness was also extremely visible from the perfect ripeness and softness of the avocado to the rich fragrance of the masa used to make the thick corn tortillas. Another interesting thing about Salvadoran tortillas is that they are always made quite thicker than the average Mexican tortillas. The fish filet was very crispy and brown on the outside, with moist, flaky white fish on the inside, which Kaia happily devoured. We also loved the pupusas, both thick and gooey, also fragrant from the masa used to make the outside layer. The curtido that accompanied the pupusas was not too sour but pickled just enough to give some well-rounded tartness to the richness of the pupusa filling. In the end, we predictably had leftover food to take home.

We ended our meal with a thick slice of maracuya / passion fruit tres leches, which Kaia was extremely excited about, as she got to enjoy this Latin American treat twice during our trip two weeks ago. And we also got a Salvadoran horchata to go since we still weren’t over the delicious creaminess of this nutty drink.

The layout and space of the restaurant was also fun: the bar is long and spacious, and they have a great outdoor seating area (with covering) where we ate. It’s on a corner, so it benefits from that level of visibility. And much to Pookster’s excitement, we were sitting with a full-frontal view of the local fire station, where multiple fire trucks were coming in and out. One of Kaia’s favorite things right now is seeing and hearing sirens, whether they are on ambulances or fire trucks. She always knows the different types of vehicles and gets pumped up when she sees or hears the sirens going off. The fire station is what kept her excited and engaged for the full duration of our lunch, and she didn’t need to have any toys or temporary screen time to distract her thankfully.

There is something delicious pretty much everywhere in New York if you are willing to make the trek. These little gems are what make this city so special.

HMart opens on the Upper West Side today

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I saw in my Upper West Side Neighbors group that it was official: HMart at 70th Street and Amsterdam was finally opening today. So I knew I wanted to stop by to see if there were any grand opening specials or giveaways. I haven’t lived this close to any Asian market since I lived in Elmhurst from 2008-2012, and even then, I was about a 20-minute walk away from the markets along Broadway in the main drag in Elmhurst. With HMart at 70th Street, I am now less than a 10-minute walk from Asian groceries! Granted, I have some mixed feelings about HMart: The prices for a lot of day-to-day items can be very high, and in some cases simply price gouging. The freshness of the produce is not always optimal (I remember recently going to one location where the cilantro looked sad and wilted). I also dislike how a lot of the fruit and vegetables are wrapped and packaged in excessive plastic wrap and styrofoam. But it’s nice and comforting to have an Asian market so close and walking distance from where we live.

So I went to the grand opening today. They had lots of flowers on display to celebrate the grand opening. There were clearly a lot of managers (and even owners) who were walking the floor and watching how people received the new HMart. They also had a lot of security at the entrance, exit, and walking up and down the aisles. Much to my dismay, they did not have that many specials or sales. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the Pulmuone brand organic tofu was reasonably priced — I really like that packaged tofu brand and wondered if they decided to lower prices indefinitely.

I ended up purchasing three items: a bag of dried japchae/sweet potato noodles, a frozen bag of Bibigo chicken and vegetable dumplings that were $2 off, and the biggest find of the day: a yuzu-honey jar of about 450 grams to make an instant yuzu-honey tea (just add water!) for only $4.99! It’s supposed to yield about 42 total cups of tea, and it’s definitely Japanese as all the writing on it is in Japanese, and it’s imported from Japan! I panicked a little when the cashier rang the yuzu-honey jar up and the screen read $16.99. I gave him a sad look and told him that the shelf said it was only $4.99, and if it was really $16.99, I no longer wanted it. He asked another worker to do a price check for me, so I waited at the register patiently. Lucky for me, the shelf was correct and the scanner was wrong: it really WAS $4.99! So I told him I’d take it. I paid for my groceries, and he gave me the grand opening gift: a set of five pairs of bamboo chopsticks with a fun design on the top. Not dishwasher safe, but hey, I’ll take some nice bamboo chopsticks! They’re supposed to be eco-friendly. 🙂

Kaia can bite

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A couple months ago, we had an incident report given to us that said that a child in Kaia’s classroom bit her on her back. It resulted in a large red mark that was in the middle of her back. I didn’t think much of it because after the initial bite, she didn’t seem to have much fuss about it. That evening when I gave her a bath, she told me someone bit her, but she didn’t have any pain when I washed her back, so I let it go since toddlers will be toddlers. But then, I didn’t realize that my own child would actually bite!

Last Thursday, Chris went to some food stalls in San Salvador to get lunch, so Kaia and I were sitting at a booth on our own waiting for him. When I tried to put her bib on her, she refused and said she didn’t want to eat. I told her that she needed to eat, and to eat she needed to wear her bib. I forced the bib on her, and she yelled in protest. Then, she shot me the most devilish look before reaching down to my thigh and taking a big, painful bite. I yelped in reaction and told her, “No biting!” She glared at me and kept whining.

That evening when I had a shower, I realized that she’d actually pierced through my skin and I bled a little. A small scab had formed. So, this is what toddlerhood and raising a toddler can entail, eh?