Strength training before cardio or cardio before strength training?

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Unless I was heading to an outside gym for a class at a set time, when I do my workouts, I usually have always done cardio before strength training. For me, strength training can be anything from weights, pilates, or barre. The logic I always had (that I had heard from others) was that you want to increase your heart rate and get your muscles warmed up before you go into the strength portion of your exercise. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of people at my building gym do the opposite: they start with their strength training, and then they end with a run, elliptical set, or a fast incline walk. I started reading articles about this and realized that there’s really no right or wrong way to go, but what is generally accepted is to at least have a 5-20 minute cardio warmup before your strength set to still get your muscles and body ready for movement. I actually did this today: I did 15 minutes of running, then 30 minutes of strength, followed by another 15 minutes of running. And when I did my second run, I actually felt more energized and like I had more power in my muscles on the treadmill! It was a really good feeling, so I think I will likely continue this approach.

I will say, though, that since I run on a treadmill, that approaching workouts this way is a little annoying from a maintenance standpoint because if I touch the treadmill on two separate sets, that means I have to use the cleaning wipes twice on the treadmill instead of once…

Handmade with love – ceramic mugs flown in from Seattle

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As someone who spends a lot of time thinking of what food to make and then making the majority of foods she eats at home from scratch (or near scratch), I have always deeply appreciated homemade, handmade things. Aside from food, I used to scrapbook a lot before Kaia was born. I also regularly handmade cards for holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day. The rare times I have been given handmade things, whether it was jewelry, cards, and Kaia’s hand-knit and crocheted clothes from Chris’s mom and cousin, I have always marveled that someone would actually want to spend their time and energy hand making something for me (or my child). We live in a fast-paced, fast-everything world, where people seem to value cheapness and mass production over unique, hand-crafted things now. Even the platform Etsy, which historically was founded as a marketplace for unique, one of a kind handmade items made by artisans, has now been overtaken by mass producers in China, Korea, and other parts of the world, touting the facade of uniqueness and artsiness.

Today, I received a package of goodies from a friend in Seattle. It included a few things she got Kaia and me on her recent Japan trip, as well as Rooted Fare black sesame butter (which I’d been wanting to try for ages), and something I was not expecting at all: two unique, handmade ceramic mugs her husband had made at their pottery studio to which they have a membership. While I love and appreciate all the gifts, I couldn’t help but stare at and move the ceramic mugs in my hands multiple times. As soon as I saw them, I was about 90 percent sure they’d made these at their pottery studio, so I texted her to ask. She confirmed that she actually did not make them, that her husband made them, since she was taking a break from pottery. I knew she had been going to a pottery studio, and I was floored that they’d actually share things they handmade with me. I just felt really touched.

I guess it’s my old-fashioned side, but I really don’t think people appreciate handmade items much anymore. It’s easy to look at these mugs and not be impressed; you can get aesthetically pleasing, reasonably priced (or exorbitantly expensive) mugs anywhere and everywhere now. But the special thing here is: I know these were handmade by friends of mine, and they chose to give these to me. And for that, I am grateful. They’re giving me a gift that they actually made with their own hands, and with their precious time. Their time that they put into these mugs is a gift.

And as an added bonus, they’re dishwasher safe! So I am definitely planning to use these regularly now.

Kaia’s caterpillar worries

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After 17 years of living on my own, not in my parents’ house, and no longer in college, I have finally found the optimal way to store basil to keep it fresh for as long as possible: place the stems in a tall glass with some water and position them like they’re a bouquet. Then lightly drape a plastic bag over them. Replenish the water every day, ensuring that none of the leaves are submerged. Somehow, with this process, I was able to keep my Thai basil stems fresh for seven days; on day 7, they looked like they were just as fresh as on day 1!

The basil I had was so fresh that somehow, for seven days, a little caterpillar was able to rest and stay alive on its stems that long. I didn’t even catch it until today when I was replenishing the water in the glass, and I found that the caterpillar was crawling off a stem on my kitchen counter. I immediately looked at it, realized what it was, and then told Kaia to come look; I wasn’t sure she had ever seen a real caterpillar before. The only “encounter” she’d had with a caterpillar was in Eric Carle’s famous book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which she loves and has read on repeat for the last two years. When she came over to look at the caterpillar, she examined it closely and started smiling. Then, Kaia ran into her bedroom, grabbed her copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and then brought it over. She held the book next to the real caterpillar and said, “They aren’t the same!” I told her that they weren’t the same, but they were, in fact, moving the same way.

A bit later, I told her we had to release the caterpillar outside to make sure it got some food and could be free. She waved “bye bye!” to the caterpillar as I released it into a bush. We went about our day outside.

Later that evening, after we had finished bedtime stories and I tucked her in, I kissed her good night and left her room. About an hour later, she slowly opened her bedroom door and had a sad face.

“What is it, Pooks?” I asked her. “What’s wrong?”

Kaia hesitated for a second and then whispered, “I want to know what happened to the caterpillar. Is it okay?”

I brought her back to bed and tucked her in once again, and I assured her that the caterpillar was doing just fine. I’m sure he had something to eat and was probably also getting ready for bed, as well, as all living things had to sleep.

She then did her “side eye” thinking face and said in Chinese, “Does he also need to shower and brush his teeth?”

Yes, I said, I’m sure he does his version of both.

She smiled. “Okay. Good night, mummy! Bye bye!”

My sweet, caring Kaia Pookie. Her empathy and thoughtfulness never cease to amaze me as it appears in different forms. I imagined her lying in bed for that last hour, worrying about the little caterpillar friend we had set free almost 10 hours before. It was so sweet. Her innocence always warms my heart.

Grandparenting in the current era

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The Atlantic recently wrote a piece about how “grandparenting,” or specifically, “grandmothering” is on the rise. When they say this, what they mean is that active parenting by a grandparent, mostly a grandmother, has increased notably in recent times due to the shortage of reliable and affordable childcare, soaring costs of living, and the mandatory need given the soaring cost of living for dual-income households in the U.S. This has made parents of the current generation apply more pressure on their parents to help raise their own children. This is most definitely something I see across a majority of parents of a similar age to me: most of my friends with kids have a parent look after their child(ren) for at least 1-2 days a week, without them there. We have a friend whose in-laws not only pick up their two kids from preschool at 2:50 every weekday, but also take them overnight two nights a week; those same grandparents take the two kids to Michigan during the summer where their other son and his children are — for two months; that is two months that my friend doesn’t see (or have to parent) his own children, time he gets to himself and to himself plus his wife. These grandparents play an active role in their grandchildren’s upbringing, not just having fun with them and getting to know them inside out, but also being a second set of parents to them.

I was thinking about this today as I watched Chris’s parents struggle to wrangle Kaia around, whether it was on the sidewalk, on the street, or in stores. A couple times I told Chris’s dad to walk with Kaia, and as per usual, he would barely hear me, and Kaia would run off on her own without him even noticing. In the end, I’d have to run off after her. In other cases, Chris’s mom struggled to run after her to keep up, and Kaia succeeded at keeping her grandma on her toes. Back when Kaia was in her diapers era, Chris’s dad wouldn’t even want to be in the room when a diaper change was happening; Chris’s mom would only do it if Chris or I wasn’t there. During their very first visit to New York after Kaia was born, when Kaia was about five months old, when I was working from home and Chris was at the office, and they were meant to babysit while our then-nanny was on vacation, Chris’s mom would come into the room when I was working and announce that Kaia needed a diaper change. The implication here was that I needed to stop what I was doing to change her diaper since I was there (who cares that I was actually working… since I was, you know, at home?). Now that Kaia is potty trained (but still isn’t equipped to wipe herself or wash her hands without assistance), neither of them has offered to help with the potty visits, either during our visit to Australia in December, or now. Granted, they aren’t used to being around her all the time, definitely are not used to helping someone during potty time, or seeing exactly how much she loves to run around and be cheeky, but they could in no way keep up with her. I am positive that if they had to look after her for even one day a week on their own, they’d likely leave her in their own house so they wouldn’t have to worry about the threat of getting lost in a store or, in the absolute worst case, the chance of getting hit by a car or bicyclist.

Chris’s mom always used to tell friends, family, and us that if we lived in Melbourne, she would have loved to be a full-time care taker to Kaia once we went back to work after family leave. But the thing is — you can certainly assume you want things in theory, but in practice, it’s never as simple or easy as it seems in your head. In theory, lots of things sound nice. In real life, it’s a completely different story. As we all get older, our physical and mental abilities get more limited. We tire more easily. We have less energy. And frankly, there just may be less stamina to run after a boisterous, rebellious little toddler than you had originally assumed.

Chinese dinner banquet-style eating will never be the same

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Tonight, we went downtown to Chinatown to pick Kaia up from school before heading off to one of our old standbys for dinner, Wu’s Wonton King. We started going here way back in 2016-2017 when I first discovered it. While they are obviously known for their delicious wontons, they are also known for their high quality Peking duck, which pre-pandemic, they used to present whole to you, and then beautifully slice up table side and insert each carefully cut piece into a little hot and steamy mantou bun, then dress it with a bit of hoisin sauce and thinly sliced scallions. They would place all of these pieces in a neat steam tray, then also give you a plate on the side with the whole duck legs. Chris said that his parents being in town was a good opportunity to take advantage of ordering more things given we’d have more mouths to feed.

Yes, in theory, that is the case. But alas, with age, all of our appetites have declined, especially his parents’. And well, Chinese dinner banquet style eating will never quite live up to the same memories or expectations I had when I was growing up, when we’d have semi-regular Cantonese feasts out with my grandma, parents, Ed, three cousins, and their parents. My grandma would always do all the ordering. We’d always start with a hearty soup, followed by various massive platters of seafood, meats, and vegetables, along with a huge family sized portion of rice. And the meal would always end with a complimentary dessert soup. It was usually red bean, but if we got lucky, it was taro sago. You would never leave this meal hungry.

Tonight, we ordered a whole Peking duck, a whole steamed fish (which I think was rock cod), egg tofu and vegetable casserole, and a platter of stir-fried pea shoots with garlic, plus rice. Was it more than we usually order when it’s just Chris, Kaia, and me? Of course. But the variety of food will never hold a candle to the variety I had as a child in my ten-person-family meals out. You really need more hungry mouths to feed, as well as mouths that appreciate variety. Plus, the things I really crave, like ginger garlic sauteed lobster or crab, his parents wouldn’t really appreciate much.. and frankly, neither would Chris. His dad always says he doesn’t “take” crab or lobster. His mom seems ambivalent to it. And well, the apple never falls that far from the tree: Chris thinks that crab and (lesser so) lobster are never worth the manual labor. Kaia enjoys crab and lobster if it’s fed to her, but she doesn’t quite go “crazy” over any seafood that much.

Who knows — maybe one day in the not-so-near future, we’ll have a group of friends who would be willing to indulge like this. And with prices on literally everything rising and inflation going nuts, that time seems like it’s quite far away. For Lunar New Year this year, I spent about $22 on a whole fish and steamed it ginger scallion style as I usually do. This whole fish at Wu’s, which was about twice the size of the LNY one, was almost $70. Are we paying for the labor? Yes. But while it was nice to have someone else make it for me, I couldn’t help but feel like I was kind of being price gouged.

Haw mok and Thai cooking fun

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Today as part of our dinner at home, I made haw mok, also known as Thai red curry custard with fish. I’d never heard of it until I saw a video that Pailin posted on her YouTube channel, Hot Thai Kitchen, but it sounded easy enough with ingredients I either already had or could easily source, so I decided to make it. It came out tasty and had a nice presentation, as it was steamed in a cake pan on top of banana leaves, which added additional fragrance to the curry custard.

While steaming the haw mok, I realized I had come a long way with my comfort with Thai cooking. I remember when I first moved to New York and how intimidated I was by Thai cooking in general. I lived in Elmhurst at the time and was surrounded by endless delicious and fiery Thai restaurants with lots of chilies and spices. I didn’t realize then how straightforward Thai cooking could be. Now, it seems like I’m always tinkering with some Thai recipe at least once a month. My comfort with Thai cooking and ingredients has grown to a point where we almost regularly eat something Thai or Thai inspired at home. And after Chris got me a bunch of Burmese ingredients, I’ve been learning more about Burmese cooking and techniques, as well. In the last week, I’ve been reading Burma Superstar’s cookbook, which has gotten me acquainted with different ingredients I’m not used to as well as ways of cooking that are most definitely a fusion of Chinese/Southeast Asian/Indian cuisines. This makes sense given Myanmar’s geographic location. Who knows – maybe I’ll get super comfortable with Burmese ingredients, and they’ll also be regularly on rotation at home, as well.

A friend I made recently who is also really into cooking said that people like me aren’t very common — people who not only are adventurous eaters, but also actively learn about different cultures’ food and cooking techniques. To be honest, I don’t even know what I would do with a lot of my spare time if I didn’t spend it reading and learning about this stuff. Food is an important part of our lives to live (duh, you have to eat), it’s a key part of our health and well being; it’s an integral part of our cultures and identity. What else would I do with all my time outside of family, travel, and work, if I didn’t spend it thinking about food?

“Daddy, clap my butt!” and other fun toddler moments with Kaia Pookie

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We were on the train coming back home from Bensonhurst on Saturday, and Kaia was sitting at the window seat on the train. Then, she decided to stand to see the view (she loves the “view,” even when we’re underground in the tunnel and can see nothing. But she does get very excited when she sees trains passing us and tries to identify which train number/letter it is). Kaia started acting cheeky, as per usual, and wiggled her butt and danced on the seat. And while we’re having mindless chit chat, she suddenly started sticking her butt out very conspicuously and said, “Daddy, clap my butt! Mummy, clap my butt!” And she started clapping her butt with her own hands and giggling hysterically.

There are a lot of things you can get away with as a child of her age in both behavior and speech. If I said the same thing at my current age, it would likely elicit confusion and annoyance. This is one of those moments that not only elicited lots of smiles from surrounding passengers, but it even got a rider sitting in front of Kaia to text her friend to tell her about the “adorable toddler” sitting behind her who was singing and dancing (I just happened to see this when Kaia was leaning over towards this person’s side, and I saw her text message very clearly near Kaia’s face as I gazed over).

Another fun thing that Kaia has been doing with me is we’ve been “eating” each other. Ever since she was a newborn, I’ve been obsessed with her little fingers and little “toesies,” and before she lost a lot of her baby fat, I could not get enough of staring and lightly squeezing the rolls that were her little “wrists” and “ankles.” When I’ve given her a bath or shower, I always say, “Mumma loves Kaia’s toesies! I’m going to eat your toesies.” And then, I say, “Mumma loves this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie, and this toesie!” after reaching her last toe on a foot. Then, I go onto the next foot and their set of toes. I occasionally say, “Mmmmmm, Kaia’s toesies are yummy! I’m gonna eat your toesies!” To which she always shrieks and giggles with delight. Lately, she’s been answering back: “Mummy! You can’t eat me! I’m not food!” And then I say in response, “Haha, yes, you are! I’m gonna eat you right now!” Then, I nibble her hand or fingers or toes or foot. She goes into her hysterical laughter. But then she tries to eat me. She insists that her mummy is food! So, she’ll take my fingers or even my face and lips and start nibbling away. I love this pretend mummy-and-daughter-eating-each-other session. Yes, it sounds slightly cannibalistic. Yes, I can also see how it can come across as sexual. But either way, it’s done with lots of fun and deep affection.

Today while riding back home from school, Kaia was in a really happy and chipper mood. In her after school program, they are learning lots of nursery rhymes in Chinese, and one of them is the Chinese version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” She decided to loudly start singing Chinese “Twinkle Twinkle,” and then I joined in and we sang it together. It became apparent very quickly that there were at least four other female riders, all separate, who started taking an interest in looking at and listening to Kaia. All were smiling and some were even humming along. And when Kaia finished the song, they all started clapping and telling Kaia, “Good job!” Kaia did her usual thing: out of nowhere, when she realizes that she has attention, she starts getting “fake shy” and starts burying her head into my stomach or chest. She did this a couple times when people started waving to her and saying hi, and then she started giggling hysterically and waving back to them.

When we first decided to enroll Kaia at her Chinese immersion school downtown in Manhattan Chinatown, a part of me dreaded the daily subway commute. It obviously wasn’t going to be as convenient as anything walking distance from us. But now I realize that this decision was beneficial in so many more ways than just having more exposure to Chinese language and culture: she just loves everything about the subway and people watching. She has more practice walking, running, and going up and down stairs. It’s great for her to be around so many different people and seeing people like this every day. And for me personally, I love observing her on the train and watching her interact with others on the subway. I love these moments of watching her grow and mature and getting comfortable with subway travel. She’s a true New York City baby.

The times when tough love is necessary: when you make the same mistakes during your workout twice

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As long as I’ve been living in our current building, I’ve had a friendly relationship with our building gym trainer. He’s a trainer who works at multiple sites under the same building management company and also has his own personal training business. We have gotten along and had some interesting conversations over the years. Sometimes, when he has a free moment and sees I am struggling with something or could improve my form, he will stop and help me. He’s not officially my trainer; I’ve never paid him (though I did give him a Christmas tip this last year), but he’s given me endless good advice and is just an overall fun, smart, good person to have around when you’re exercising.

Currently, I’m wrapping up a strength training program via my Alo Moves app, and yesterday, the session had some kettle bell-like movements. About five years ago, I injured my lower back using kettle bells. After that incident, I decided to swear them off, and I haven’t used them since. I told our trainer about this then, and he told me it was most definitely a form issue. He showed me the movement and the parts to focus on. But I shook it off and just avoided them like the plague. Then this week, I figured since it had been a while that I could revisit the kettle bell motion. Well, I messed up once again, even after five years: I woke up this morning with a back that just… did not feel aligned, and I knew immediately what the culprit was. I wasn’t in pain, and there was no clear tweak or pinch, but I definitely felt like I was walking around with something crooked in my lower back. I did lots of stretching and twisting to try to get my back in line.

I walked into the gym this morning and told him, “I’m never using kettle bells ever again.” He gave me a concerned look, but he was in a training session with a trainee at the time. I got on a treadmill for my cardio session. Once he was done and I was near the end of my cardio session, he walked over to me and stared me dead in the eye. He snapped his fingers and motioned for me to get off the treadmill, stat.

With that fierce look in his eyes, I knew that shit was getting real. And I had a feeling that if I didn’t get off that treadmill in that instant, he would have probably stopped my machine and pulled me off.

First, he told me he knew what I was doing wrong. And when I did the kettle bell (or, well, what I thought was the kettle bell) motion, he confirmed what his suspicion was: my form was wrong. And when he observed more and touched my abs, he declared that not only was my form wrong, but I wasn’t engaging my core enough. “A kettle bell swing is a hinge, NOT a squat!” I tried again. “What did I say about the squat? No squat. HINGE. Too much bend in the knees. You need to feel this in your hamstrings. Squeeze that core. SQUEEZE. IT. I NEED THOSE HIPS MORE SOLID!” And then, if that wasn’t bad enough to identify two things I was doing wrong, he said he could tell from my hips that I was neglecting my pre-exercise glute-strengthening exercises he taught me that he insisted I had to do as a warm-up before any, any exercise moving forward. Geez, he’s like my mom; I can’t hide anything from him…

“This is not just to address an injury: this is to warm your body up so that you have a strong foundation,” he admonished me as I sheepishly admitted I hadn’t done the pre-exercises in a month. “As we approach 40, different things in our bodies just get a little weaker, and we have to give them extra love to prevent injury. You have to focus, focus, focus, engage your core, and do the pre-warm up before all else. This is for your health, your wellness. Don’t just mindlessly exercise without thought. You need to focus!”

He said we’re all guilty of mindlessly exercising, of not engaging our core, of getting lazy with warming up. But we needed to do this things even more as we get older. He’s totally right. I probably needed this scolding, this “tough love” wake-up call to call out that even if I am working out 5-6 days a week, none of that really matters if my focus is off or if my form is incorrect or if my stability is a bit wobbly. Sometimes, we really need to get back to basics to get to where we want to be. And it’s really easy to forget the basics when you’ve been exercising so regularly for decades.

When hosting becomes an excuse to make dessert

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I grew up in a large household, in a duplex where my parents, brother and I lived on the second floor unit. My three cousins and their mom and dad lived on the third floor. Until age 9, my grandma lived in the basement/ground level. We had 9-10 total people to share food with, so whenever I baked anything, whether it was cookies, brownies, or bread, there was always lots of people to share the food with and eat it. There was never a worry about “who is going to eat all this?” or “are we going to have too much sugar/fat?” because when you’ve got at least eight or nine people around, that food is most definitely getting eaten one way or another, and pretty darn quickly.

That all changed once I moved to New York and just had a roommate. We shared food only occasionally, but not always. It’s pretty hard to make food just for one person or meal. I still baked, but when I did, I’d usually share it with her and even my colleagues. The food had to go somewhere, and I would never want to waste the food. And even now with Chris, I can’t bake too much because we probably shouldn’t be eating that much sugar and butter, anyway. We’re also trying to limit Kaia’s refined sugar intake. So whenever I know I am hosting friends or relatives over, whether it’s just for one meal or for an extended duration of time, like with Chris’s parents staying with us on and off for about three weeks, I look at these as opportunities to make dessert: what kind of sweets can I make? What have I been dying to make for the last several months that I haven’t had an excuse to make?

So the short list for now looks like this:

Mango and coconut sago, maybe with coconut milk and juice agar agar jelly

Gulab jamun nut bread/cake

Brown butter chocolate chunk cookies (The Food Lab)

Lemon ricotta cake

Orange blossom almond cake

I was chatting with my friend about this, and she could completely relate. She lives alone, and she sees her brother a lot since he lives nearby. Once, she made cookies and he inhaled the entire batch in a single sitting. When she has friends or family over, it’s also her excuse to experiment with baking, especially since she’s more comfortable cooking and has shied away from baking. Yesterday for Easter brunch, she made egg yolkless tiramisu, which turned out really well, so this has given her more confidence to bake other things. It’s been fun to have a friend who is really into cooking and food and to have them around to share food fun stories (and the nightmares of the last several days) and know that they can empathize and understand your situation from experience.

Differing approaches to parenting regarding choking hazards

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Today, Kaia and I met up with a friend and his daughter, who is about eight months younger than Kaia, for lunch and an outing to Central Park. As we were getting settled in and after we ordered our food, Kaia asked for a snack. So I whipped out a bag of unsalted peanuts that I packed for her. I laid some out on her plate, and she started grabbing them and stuffing them in her mouth.

As soon as my friend saw the nuts on Kaia’s plate, his eyes widened, an apparent frown showed up on his face, and he raised his voice. “Wait, you’re giving her peanuts?” he exclaimed. “Really?”

Initially, I wasn’t sure what he was reacting to. Did he object to peanuts or legumes as a snack? Did he think it was unhealthy? Or did he perceive it to be a choking hazard?

“Yes… What’s wrong with peanuts?” I said, confused, handing Kaia more when she asked for more. “They’re unsalted, and they’re a healthy source of protein and a whole food. What’s wrong with peanuts?”

“All right, then,” he said. After I pushed him for his objection, he said he thought nuts were a choking hazard up until age 5, so even though most of the peanuts were halved, he still didn’t trust giving them to his daughter. I offered to share some with his daughter, and he vigorously waved his hand to indicate he didn’t want her to eat them. I tried to tell him that every child is different, and obviously you need to know your own child and what they are capable of…. plus, you also have to be comfortable feeding your child of a young age whatever it is they are eating. He waved me off, clearly not wanting to talk about this. He told me he knew of a kid in another classmate’s previous class who had choked to death on a whole nut. He cited another article he read about another kid choking on other similarly sized foods. And he said he’d only allow his child to eat a peanut if I broke it into a sixth of a piece. I think at this point, we were nearing the point of insanity, but I refrained from making this comment. His daughter is almost three years old, and I’d seen her eat far larger things in my presence. I think this level of overprotection was just too much, but again, I said nothing to contest it.

“I didn’t realize you were this cautious with her eating,” I said, still confused. “I have offered nuts to her before when (your wife) was around, and she was happy to let her eat them. In fact, she ate them back then! I think they were cashew halves.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m not having any more kids, so this is all I’ve got!” I looked at him with a slight eye roll; yeah, because I’m planning to have boat loads more kids after Kaia!

In general, I’ve never really said anything with friends who have young kids when I don’t agree with their approaches or what they do with parenting or feeding. I never said anything when I’d seen him or his wife previously spoon feeding their daughter purees even though I strongly believe in baby-led weaning; granted, I am biased, though, because Kaia ultimately decided on that path. I offered her miniature versions of our food and purees at the same time when she was sixth months of age; she categorically refused the purees and leapt right into hand held foods and never looked back. I never said anything when I saw their pouch consumption be pretty frequent, or when they refused to let even a grain of refined sugar into her diet (at least, to their knowledge).

Parents have to make their own choices for their kids, and I totally respect that; but what I get confused about is when people think that I am in some way being reckless or irresponsible in my own parenting choices, or as though I am trying to put my kid at risk of choking and dying. I started preparing for introducing my child to solid foods before I was even pregnant! I did so much research, and I read so many studies. I coached my own child through eating solids from day 1 and watched and observed her like a hawk. Frankly, I am the reason she is the great little eater she is today. I know my child better than anyone else when it comes to food preferences and eating abilities. Kaia was hand feeding herself at age 6 months. She was eating hot spices at age 7 months. She was eating chicken off the bone at 7-8 months and navigating all the bones and cartilage at age 1-1.5. She was devouring pretty much every vegetable in her baby months. She was eating whole grapes at age 2; she started picking around a cherry pit at age 2.5. With eating, she has always been advanced for her age both in skill and in wide preferences for what she will eat. Food has for obvious reasons been a huge priority in my parenting with her, as I want her to flourish in her tastes and abilities with eating. So I think I’d be the best person to make the call on whether she can eat whole or half peanuts or not. I also think you kind of have to put your kid in somewhat challenging situations so they can learn and figure it out. When Kaia started picking out cartilage and bone pieces from bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks, that’s when I knew that she could handle more “questionable” foods. Plus, it’s always with our supervision.

I am not a fan of helicopter parenting and strongly dislike overly cautious approaches to parenting in any form — food or non food. But hey, I’ll let my friends do whatever the hell they want — as long as they let me do what I want with my own kid.