Daycare sickness woes

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It is never fun to see your child suffering in any way, especially when they are ill, and there’s little to nothing you can do to take away the pain. As a parent, it’s almost ingrained in you to want to do something to alleviate the pain, but when kids are as young as Kaia is, there’s not much you can really do. You can’t take most medications to alleviate things like cough or congestion. You just have to “ride it out,” which really stinks. And it’s especially frustrating when not only your child is sick, but YOU are sick with the exact same illness. Every time Kaia coughs her very phlegmy cough or her nose oozes with endless boogers streaming down her face, I think: that’s what I have! I have that, too! I’m basically the same, except I can do things like clean up my face that she doesn’t really know how to do yet.

People warn you a lot about daycare sicknesses. It’s not just the issue of your child getting sick and needing to be pulled out of daycare; it’s also the fact that they will get you sick, and then you have to take time off work not just to care for them, but you’ll be miserable and ill yourself the entire time. And there’s really no break when they’re at home, whether it’s day or night. Last night, I probably slept only 1-2 consecutive hours at a time, if I am being generous. I was constantly being woken up by my own coughing and phlegm, or her coughing, phlegm, and crying. Plus, because I was constantly drinking warm water to soothe my throat, I was making endless trips to the bathroom. And, I also had to suck her nose and offer her poor throat some water.

I always tell myself: it’s okay. It’s better that she build up her immune system now when she’s really young than have to get super sick all the time once she starts kindergarten and the “real” school years, when missing class will become more critical. And it’s not like we were ever going to have a nanny that long, anyway. But even when I say this to reassure myself, all along, I still know that either way, it still really, really sucks. I say this all while I am coughing violently, hacking up endless phlegm and on the verge of vomiting.

When in-laws can see the bigger picture for the sake of their grandchildren

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When my friend gave birth for the second time in May, both her mom and her mother-in-law came from out of town (Louisiana and Texas) to where they live in Atlanta to not only help out with their toddler, but also to help them out once they came home with the baby. My friend was having a planned second c-section due to her baby being breech, and so both moms wanted to come help support with the older toddler, cooking, cleaning, and general house maintenance. Both my friend and her husband were a bit worried about what the dynamic would be like. These two moms had never lived under the same roof before for even one night, so what would it be like for them to live together in the same house for two weeks straight? Her mother-in-law would be with them just for two weeks and would go back, but her mom would stay with them for about two months to help out. Let’s just add: both were not thrilled with the marriage to begin with. My friend is Bangladeshi Muslim, and her husband is third generation Mexican American, but from a very strict, conservative evangelical Christian family. He actually converted to Islam to marry my friend, which his mother was completely disapproving of and disgusted by. They both weren’t sure what they had in store for them, but they needed the help and support, so they agreed to let them come at the same time.

It ended up being a really fruitful, happy trip. Both moms were happy to tag team to help with the toddler, and when the two came home with the new baby, they took turns with different household chores, helped with cooking and cleaning, and of course, my friend’s mom made sure to cook her all her favorite foods and ensured she rested and recovered properly. Both moms actually got along really well; they both told their respective children that they enjoyed their time together and were even pleasantly surprised how well the trip went. There was no passive aggression, no back talking, no cheap jabs. They both did the adult thing and tried to make it work for the sake of their children and their grandchildren.

I could never see that happening with my parents and Chris’s parents. Chris’s parents would be completely fine. His mom would be overly careful and cautious, which would probably come to bite her in the butt. But my parents would find “hidden meanings” in every word and action said and done by Chris’s parents and find even more reasons to despise them. Passive aggression would constantly be present. And as Chris said, “I think I’d rather die” than have both sets of in-laws in the house for two consecutive weeks.

Plus, when I think of it, my parents did literally nothing to help me when Kaia was born. They tried to chalk it up to COVID, but the truth is that they were completely useless to us. They sent $300 (that was enough to pay for one night of night nurse support) as a gift. My mom made sure to call about every two hours to annoy me and get mad at me for not spending time to make the soup my aunt told me to make to help me heal from my postpartum wounds. I didn’t answer all the time because frankly, I didn’t have the time or patience to deal with her toxicity. She criticized the photos I’d send of Pookster and say that I was wrapping her too tightly in her swaddle, suffocating her, or not dressing her warmly enough. Other parents try to help their kids when they’re at this big next stage in their life. Even though my friend’s mom’s physical health wasn’t great and she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold the baby much, she still came to do light cleaning and to cook, which she knew she could do. My parents just tried to make things worse and more unnerving for me. My dad never even wanted to talk to me to congratulate me on the birth, or to ask how my healing was going. To this day, I cannot even remember the last time he’s spoken to me on the phone.

I think about what my therapist said during my pregnancy: “It’s okay to mourn the experience you wish you had but aren’t going to get. You should give yourself time and permission to mourn it. It’s not that you were not deserving of it. The people who are supposed to be key in your life to support you just are incapable of doing it. And that’s a reality for a lot of people in your position. You are not alone.” That’s just another way to say: find it in yourself to forgive your parents for failing you, in yet another way. She’s not exactly telling me to forgive my parents, but she’s saying, find a way to move on.

Daycare bug

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Last week, we noticed a lot of kids being out of the classroom. I just assumed it was due to summer vacations, so I didn’t think much of it until one of the teachers told me at pickup that a bug has been going around, and the kids have been getting sick. On ne day I went in last week, the teacher said that a kid had to get picked up not even at the half-day mark because she was so ill. I braced myself: at some point, that bug is going to get Kaia, and well, eventually me, too. I share food and utensils with her all the time, and because I am hyper anti-waste, I even eat all her leftover lunch food (yes, my parents constantly guilting me about not wasting food when I was little has stayed with me until now).

Kaia was feverish on Friday. It went up to 104 on Saturday night. It came down with some medication on Sunday, but since, she’s had congestion, lots of phlegm and cough, an on and off fever going up to 102 F, and in general, is just not quite herself. She still gets excited about music, but when it comes to food, she just doesn’t want to eat much. Though tonight, she did eat some of my (watered down for her) matzo soup that Chris got me. I’ve picked up pretty much all her symptoms, as well, minus the fever.

I slept for about 3 hours straight this afternoon, and when I woke up, I couldn’t even believe I slept that long in the middle of the day. But I suppose that’s just how tired my body was. In these moments, I just think: I don’t know how people with traditional office jobs do paid work AND parenting at the same time, especially when being sick themselves!

Daycare politics and annoyances

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When Kaia first joined her daycare, she was on the older end of the 12-18 month age range for her class, so we knew that just after a month in, she’d have to switch classes to join the 18-24 month class. This was sad because we really liked the main teacher of her first class. This teacher was really responsive to feedback and suggestions we had, and she seemed overall like an easy-going, well-intentioned teacher who is passionate about kids (she had five of her own!). And at this age, kids tend to get attached quickly. Asking them to adjust after just a month in seemed annoying, but it had to be done.

Now that Kaia has switched classes, the new main teacher seems fine, though it’s clear she has a chip on her shoulder and doesn’t like the previous teacher. When I asked the new teacher to make sure to serve veggies first to Kaia at lunch, then her protein/carbs, along with the request to potentially put feeding instructions on the fridge so that all teachers/floaters coming in and out could carry out the same instruction, as this is the process that worked in Kaia’s previous class, she seemed like she felt insulted. Her message back to me stated, “I appreciate all the feedback. However, I do run my class differently than (former teacher).” Lo and behold, the instructions weren’t followed the next day, and I had to call it out. It’s fine if you have different methods for communication, but I’m giving you a suggestion on what has worked, so if you choose another method, it would be best if you did not fail, which she did.

This new main teacher also has not been shy about giving a stink eye to Kaia’s former teacher when passing in the hallway, which I’ve personally observed. She and her assistant teachers have also been very territorial about having the former teacher float into their class when backup is needed. They’ve made comments like, “They’re not in your class anymore! They’re not yours! You shouldn’t be so attached to them; they’ve moved on! Let them transition into their new class and stop holding onto them.” The funny thing is: the reason they make comments like this is that the kids all love the former teacher. They run to her when she walks into the room; they want to follow her out of the room when she leaves. What’s really driving all the teacher politics here is 1) the other teachers’ jealousy and 2) the fact that the former teacher just has more passion for kids, frankly, that they do not have. Kids sense this, and they gravitate towards the adults they know care.

And I’ve noticed that amongst the assistant teachers in Kaia’s new class that they don’t really have an apparent passion for early childhood education: they’ve been on their phones scrolling through Instagram and Facebook. They do the bare minimum. They let the kids roam around on their own and don’t initiate any play in the multi-purpose room. During lunch, they don’t really assist in feeding or watching the kids; they’re doing their own thing. Kaia’s thrown her food on the floor twice this week, and they weren’t anywhere nearby to even prevent or stop this (yes, we can see it via the live camera). They’re there for the job and the pay check/benefits, not so much because they are passionate about kids… they’re not. So I’ve brought this up to the director of the program and plan on having more conversations about this. This daycare is relatively new, and they are not even close to being at capacity. They are hustling to get more kids enrolled with open houses, referral bonuses, etc. But if you have crappy teachers and assistant teachers, it’s unlikely any of the kids will stay enrolled that long, especially with the high fees that all these places are charging. It’s just sad that the level of care can change so much from one classroom to another, but then again, isn’t that school in general here in the U.S.?

My friend’s second shot at breastfeeding

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A friend of mine recently had her second baby in May. She gave birth to her first in August 2021. While they weren’t actively trying to get pregnant, they weren’t not trying to get pregnant, so she got pregnant the second time around “accidentally,” and realized quickly that she’d be one of those parents who had “two under two” very soon. While she did not successfully breastfeed her first due to lack of knowledge and education, she decided that with this second child, she’d at least try to pump. She’s about 12 weeks postpartum now, and pumping about four times a day. She produces about half of what baby needs and tops up with formula. While we were on a video chat with another friend yesterday night, she was connecting to her breast pump and putting on a hands-free pumping bra, feeling embarrassed.

“Yvonne, did you know that I didn’t even know these hands-free pumping bras even existed until a week ago when a friend told me about them?” she said, laughing. “She told me, and then I immediately ordered it. I don’t know how I pumped this whole time without it! It’s been life changing!”

“Ahhhhh! You should have asked me! I would have told you way earlier!” I responded back, feeling bad.

“That’s the thing: I didn’t even know what to ask! You don’t know what you don’t know,” she replied, sighing and feeling dejected.

She’s totally right, though. When you’re on a journey as black-box-ish as breastfeeding and pumping, you really have no idea what to ask; you just hope that the people and resources who are supposed to be educating you will actually tell you everything you need. You really do NOT know what you don’t know, so how do you even begin to ask? So it’s sad when the experts you (or your insurance) pay money to just don’t arm you with all that information, then don’t give you the adequate time to ask and learn with them. And that’s what makes breastfeeding so hard in this country. We don’t have all the adequate resources to even know what questions to ask. Even though I weaned earlier this year, I still think about how frustrating this lack of knowledge and awareness is all the time and how my journey with breastfeeding Kaia could have looked so different if I just had all the right information upfront before she was even born. I’m happy that my friend is trying this second time, though, and that she has a second shot at it.

10 years.

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Dear Ed,

Today marks ten years since you jumped off that bridge and bid farewell to the world. This past week, all this anger and anxiety was building up in me, thinking once again about how you’ve been gone all this time and how screwed up that is. The world was truly unfair to you. I think about how you never felt safe physically or psychologically in the home you grew up in. Back in the days of our youth, no one ever talked about the concept of “psychological safety.” When we were growing up, people always said physical abuse of children was wrong, but no one ever talked about mental or psychological abuse. They never talked about how the harmful words that are spoken to us can stay with us longer than a bruise or a scratch. But that’s ultimately what hurt you the most in the end.

In the last ten years, our parents have done absolutely nothing to improve their lives. Okay, maybe that’s not 100 percent true: our dad got bypass surgery the year after you died. He probably tacked on at least another 15-20 years onto his life with that surgery alone. Yet, what is he actually doing with all this extra time? Is he trying to become a better person? Is he taking on all the hobbies he used to complain he never had time or money for, yet now he has plenty of time and money to do? Is he trying to be a better dad and actually be a grandparent? Is he treating his wife with more kindness? The answer to all those questions is… a big, fat no. As for our mother, she’s just as angry, resentful, manipulative, and twisted as she was when you were here. If anything, she’s only gotten worse in all those areas.

I’m tired of dealing with it all, Ed. And I hate to say this, but I’m tired of dealing with it all without you here to shoulder the burden with me. I know you always had it ten times worse than I did, especially as the first born and as a boy, but I just can’t deal with it anymore. These are the moments when I truly feel alone in the world, like no one really gets it. You were the only one who ever “got it” and understood how awful they were to us. My patience and tolerance for all this intergenerational trauma has really run out. I’m tired of being the one who has to have all the pressure on her to keep the peace when I am not even the one creating the drama. I am the one trying to make things at least APPEAR normal, but I can’t even get that to work because of their idiocies. Kaia is now over 19 months old. She’s perceptive. She knows when things are off. She gets upset when Chris and I have the occasional spat, and sadly, she was even exposed to an argument I had with our mom when we went back home last August. I don’t want her to grow up thinking that the way they act is normal, that families treat each other the way they have treated us. I want to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma and have her grow up in a loving, caring, empathetic home, one that takes her seriously and treats her with respect. And with all this anger building up in me, I just have zero desire to go back to San Francisco this year and expose her to all of that crap again. I just don’t have it in me. And I know our mom is going to be mad, asking why we aren’t coming, feigning total amnesia to how poorly she and our dad treated me when I came back last year. What kind of mother defends their husband, saying it’s okay for him to call their daughter a bitch? What kind of mother constantly tries to tell her daughter that she and her husband worked harder than any other parent on earth for their children? What kind of person perceives every meal invitation, every family outing, every major event like a graduation or wedding, as “more suffering” that needs to be endured? She will never get the help she needs, but that’s frankly her choice.

I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to deal with their uncalled for childish behavior and anger. I don’t want to see them admire Kaia from across a room and not interact with her. I’m tired of dealing with people’s questions, including Chris’s parents, on when I last saw my parents and when I will see them again. I’m tired of people not understanding the fact that my family is not normal. So I’m not going to deal with it anymore, and I will proactively shut it down whenever presented the chance. This is what I’m doing for myself to move forward and to create a better and more functional life for Kaia Pookie. I do it for her future, but I also will do it for your memory.

I miss you. I miss you every day. Sometimes, it’s just for a minute. Other times, it’s for hours at a time. On days like this, it’s all day long, and then the next few days. I saw you in Kaia’s face today. It suddenly dawned on me this morning that you and I have the same nose, which means Kaia has your nose. You will always live on in her and me. And she will always know it.

I love you, Ed. I hope you look down on us and are happy that we’re progressing, even if our parents are not.

Love,

Yvonne

Family memories through food – stuffed rice noodle rolls

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When Chris and I went down to Chinatown today, I picked up some he fen (long, flat sheets of steamed rice noodle), cha siu (Cantonese-style barbecue roast pork), three pounds of longan, two pounds of rambutan, and four different types of Chinese greens, among a dozen or so other delicious things. When I saw the he fen at 46 Mott, I immediately had a craving for my grandma’s rice noodle rolls, so I decided I was going to make it once we got home. Unfortunately, I forgot to buy the jarred pickled cucumbers, but I figured no one would notice or care about that other than me (Chris wouldn’t mind, and Pookster still has no clue yet).

Somehow, I got reminded of the fact that growing up, my family bought cha siu a bit differently than a lot of other Chinese families. When my grandma or mom would buy a pound or two of cha siu from their favorite Cantonese butcher and have them hack it up for them, it was not so that we’d eat it just like that with rice. They would actually incorporate cha siu into a dish they were making, whether it was my grandma’s famous stuffed rice noodle rolls (stuffed with cha siu, egg strips, minced cilantro, and pickled cucumber), stir fried into fried rice or noodles, or tucked into bao. I never recall eating the cha siu straight out of the container they’d bring home; it was always used as an ingredient or short cut to make whatever dish they were planning to make.

I didn’t realize this until college, when I started going through Boston Chinatown, and I noticed that cha siu fan, or cha siu on top of rice, was a common Chinese male worker’s lunch. It was always advertised in small hole-in-the-walls, and apparently, other families ate cha siu like this, too. When I asked an ex-boyfriend then what “cha siu fan” was, he looked at me like I was the biggest idiot and asked slowly, “what is cha siu?” to which I answered. And then he pressed, “And what is ‘fan’?” and I responded. And he then said, “So… cha siu fan is cha siu with rice.” He proceeded to question whether I even knew how to speak any Chinese or grew up eating any Chinese food. This was after I explained how cha siu was used in my house, as an ingredient rather than a main course. That didn’t really go over well because this guy was a myopic sociopath, but needless to say, this relationship was a total mistake and didn’t last long.

These rice noodle rolls are a happy memory from my childhood. Despite having a lot of issues with my parents to this day, the few happy memories we do have altogether have always been around food.

Kaia gets hit in the face at daycare

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Yesterday, Chris alerted me to the notification in the school app that noted that Pookster got hit in the face with a toy by another kid. I looked at the photo the teacher posted, but because I didn’t see any scratch or blood, I figured it wasn’t much of anything, so I brushed it off. When I arrived at the school for pickup, the teacher had a bit of a nervous look on her face when she came over to me, explained what happened (including the need for an ice pack on Kaia’s nose, apparently), and then asked me to sign a form (which is required by the Department of Education) to acknowledge that I was informed about the incident and knew what happened. These kids are all in the 18-24 month age range, so I really didn’t think anything of this. At this age, kids don’t really know right from wrong or whether they are hurting another person. So I was a bit surprised this even needed a signed form and was a requirement. But the teacher clarified and said that this was the usual procedure that had to be followed, and for the child who actually did the offense, their parent also had to be notified and sign their own version of this form. That child got picked up earlier, and when her mom was told this, she immediately burst into tears and said the kid was going through some issues at home and was expressing it outwardly in her behavior. I felt a little bad that she cried. What could she have really done differently, anyway, and it’s not like her kid was getting suspended or some serious consequence?

People who choose to have kids today are having fewer children than their parents and grandparents. And because of that, it’s almost like we have to pour in every single resource and ounce of energy we have into them to ensure they have these picture-perfect lives. But candidly, I don’t think we should expect perfection from our kids… or anyone. It’s an impossible standard to live up to. Kids are going to have mishaps and mistakes, and we just have to deal with them as we come instead of beating ourselves up over every tiny infraction.

When American Airlines makes something very simple very difficult: not giving my infant a ticket number

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When we have booked international travel on non-U.S. based airlines, it’s been straightforward to ensure that not only both our tickets are issued with ticket numbers, but to also assign Pookster a ticket number, too. While an infant (a child under the age of 2 years) can travel “in lap” with an adult, this is at no extra charge flying domestically, or at 10% of the fare internationally, plus potentially adding taxes in. This entire process, like most modern, normal companies, can be done fully online with competent airlines. But American Airlines has to make this process difficult for the sake of being difficult because if you try to add your infant’s details online, you will be served a message to call AA and have an agent do this for you. This not only defeats the purpose of even having online booking available, but it also reveals the fact that AA just doesn’t have it together when it comes to accommodating babies and traveling families in general. In two instances of booking international travel, American’s incompetent agents, on the phone, have somehow managed to add Kaia to my ticket, but WITHOUT A TICKET NUMBER. When you are flying internationally, every human who gets on a plane needs a ticket number; you may not even be aware of that unless you have flown internationally with an infant. But once you have, you will realize how imperative this is, and what a truly royal fuck-up it is when the infant does NOT have their own ticket number.

This happened on an AA flight to Cancun in May, and again, on both the outbound and inbound flights on Qatar Airways, booked on AA’s site, to South Asia. In the case of the AA flight to Cancun, the agents AT THE AIRPORT made ME call AA on the phone and wait for over 40 minutes before helping me (did they have any realization in their brains that this was time sensitive because we had to board a flight?!). In the case of the Qatar flights, Qatar fully blamed AA on this and redirected us to the AA counter (while it may have originally been AA’s fault, Qatar’s lack of empathy and effort to help was pretty pathetic. When people talk about Qatar’s amazing service, they are specifically referring to in-flight services, NOT to their ticketing counters, clearly). I was terrified we’d miss both our flights to and from. The fear is far greater to miss a flight when you have a baby than if you were child-free. We were delayed 1.5 hours just waiting for AA to resolve this when we arrived at JFK in June for our Kochi flight, and over 2 hours (and barely just made the time before international check-in fully closed) for our flight back to New York. It was frustrating, embarrassing, and a true testament to how incompetent AA continues to be with managing and welcoming families on their flights. They realize this is a known issue, but no one has managed to resolve this. What joy!

So when we booked another international flight last night, I flat out said to the person on the phone (after waiting over 22 minutes for them to call me back, which seemed quite short, relatively speaking, as pathetic as it sounds. Since the pandemic, the phone wait times for AA, even when you have executive platinum status, are just egregiously long): “I’d like to complete the booking I have on hold on my account and add my infant-in-lap and ensure she has a ticket number… because the last two times I have booked international travel with you, my baby was never issued a ticket number, which resulted in almost missing both flights. So I want to avoid this same cluster from happening again.”

It took over 30 minutes for them to get this done. This agent had to put me on hold three times and get two other agents involved to get this fully completed and get a confirmation email sent to me, with all three ticket numbers. And, again, this was after being put on hold for a call back for over 22 minutes. So all in all, this process took nearly an hour, which is nuts. This was a waste of time and a complete embarrassment for AA. American Airlines needs to get their act together and actually be in the 21st century. If all these other airlines can figure it out, why can’t they?

Edit/note: In the end, AA added 15,000 miles to my account as an apology, and $150 flight credit each to Chris and Pookster for the inconvenience. Is it a lot? No. But it IS something.

When Pookster acts like other kids her age and actually eats out of a pouch

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We’d never purchased a fruit/veggie pouch for Kaia even once until we went to Germany. I thought it would be a good time to introduce them to her given that we were on the go there and not in our home base, and so she might be interested in what most of her peers were having multiple times a day. It was a bit hit or miss: she seemed to want them, but when she’d have a taste or two, she’d get frustrated by the squeezing (read: MESS that never ended up in her mouth!) or get bored of the flavor. I tried to buy some more in Australia, and again, it was hit or miss: she ate entire ones with a spoon, while others, she’d reject completely. When our ex-nanny tried to give one to her at home, she’d always reject them, so I eventually emptied them all out and mixed them with oatmeal for her.

“Kaia is the only baby I know who doesn’t like pouches,” the ex-nanny would say, completely astonished. Secretly, I was pretty proud, but I never admitted this out loud.

Well, occasionally at school now, a fruit/veggie pouch is on the snack menu, so I allowed the teachers to give it to her. And occasionally, she’d actually eat them all. It was likely the peer pressure after seeing all her classmates devour them. On Qatar, she was given these pouches, and she would eat one and reject the other, but it’s clear now that she is okay with them and will eat them properly when she feels like it.

I’m a bit hesitant to buy too many of them, though. I don’t want it to be a regular food for her. I want Pookster to eat real, whole food the way it’s meant to be eaten, and pureed food out of a pouch is not regular, real everyday food. I would rather have it be a treat for her. So now, I’m researching different options for this occasional treat.