Ozzie Mozzies’ aggression: you will not escape

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

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

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

Nana’s tradition, in Nana’s honor

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Today was Christmas day, our second Christmas as a family of three, our first Christmas back in Australia after three years; Chris’s 41st birthday; Chris’s second birthday as a daddy. And of the wider family, it was the second Christmas without Chris’s Nana, his paternal grandma. Three years ago when we were last here, Nana was still here. And that trip in December 2019, Chris had an eerie feeling that that would be the last time he’d see Nana. Sadly, he was right. Nana had a tradition every Christmas Eve of gathering all the grandchildren at the cemetery where Appa (grandpa) is buried to honor him, then hosting everyone for a meal at her house. Now that she’s gone, the cousins are trying to continue the tradition of visiting Appa and now also Nana at the cemetery on Christmas Eve. We missed it because we had to feed Kaia dinner at the time they gathered. So instead, Chris, Ben, Kaia, and I went to the cemetery to visit Nana for the first time this morning before heading to a relative’s house for Christmas day festivities.

In past visits, the cemetery visits were happy gatherings of the cousins altogether with Nana, honoring Appa’s life. This visit, though, was sad: it was the first time the three of us (plus Kaia) were seeing Nana’s grave. The inscription looked fresh, shiny, and new. I laid down my Santa headband, which she loved, along with Kaia’s Christmas hair clip on her grave, and took a photo of her and Appa’s epitaph. We took a few photos. We stood there for a while looking at the grave site and just didn’t say anything.

Staring at her grave, I thought of all the years we came to visit and how much I admired Nana for how strong and independent she was. To think that she lived independently, out of her own will, after her husband died for 20 years, until age 90, before moving into an aged care facility was just mind boggling to me. I thought about how she appreciated all the little things in life and always expressed gratitude for the tiniest things; if all we did was just visit her, she always said how happy it made her and how grateful she was. I also thought about how I wished my own parents could have a fraction of her happiness and the tiniest smidgen of her gratitude, as well. In an ideal world, yes, I would spend more time with my parents. We’d actually do activities together and eat meals together where I wouldn’t constantly hear them criticizing me and my life choices, where they weren’t constantly criticizing my in-laws, my cousins, my aunt and uncle, my friends. They wouldn’t pick fights with me during the limited times we have together, they wouldn’t call me a bitch. They wouldn’t do all the toxic things that drive me away and then afterwards, wonder why I don’t want to rush to book my next trip to see them; or even worse, wonder why I wouldn’t want to spend a month with them and work remotely. Even though my parents are a generation behind Nana, I always thought: why can’t my own parents be a little more like her? I suppose Nana didn’t have much intergenerational trauma to pass on.

She’s passed on now, which is so sad because I always thought given Nana’s strong mind (she literally remembered the most minute details of her life and recalled them with stunning accuracy) and relatively good health that she’d live until she was 100. She lived a long, happy, full, good life. No one would debate that. But per passing is a further reminder of how the time we spend on this earth is finite. And given it is finite, we should spend time with people we love who love AND treat us well. Who wants to spend time with people who make them feel bad about themselves or make their lives miserable? The moments we spend with the ones we love — at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters, as Nana always said. All the things we love and accumulate in our homes will eventually become rubbish that will be tossed or donated, as the things we cherish won’t be cherished by those who outlive us in the same way. Nana did love things a lot; she loved a LOT of things, resulting in a lot of donating and rubbish collecting after she passed. It felt so sad to hear about that as the siblings were sorting through all her things to distribute to family members and/or donate.

At the end of our lives, we won’t be wishing we worked more hours or earned more money. We won’t regret that work trip we didn’t take or working over a holiday period to meet some stupid deadline dictated by a corporation that looks at us just as another number. We’ll have wished we had spent more time with our family and closest friends.

Permissive parenting: what I am reminded of Chris’s parents every time I come down to visit them

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Every time I come down to Melbourne and have a daily observation of how Chris’s parents interact with him and his younger brother, the more I am reminded of exactly how permissive they are in terms of their parenting style. “Permissive parenting” is also called “indulgent parenting,” where parents are not only warm, nurturing, and encouraging of their children, but also reluctant to impose strict limits. Granted, at this point, Chris is almost 41 years old, and his brother is 37, so it’s not like they are young anymore, but their parents still basically are fine with whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it, whether it’s in their house, with any of their random belongings, or with one of their cars.

Here’s what happened this past Monday: Chris wanted the three of us to go to the Yarra Valley, which is about an hour’s drive away from Melbourne. Since his parents didn’t have plans that day, I thought it would be nice for all five of us to go together, especially since they obviously want to spend as much time as possible with Kaia and us while we’re still here. So I suggested all of us go. The issue, though, is that we would need to take two cars; Kaia’s car seat takes considerable space, and so the middle seat of the back of the car would not be comfortable for a fifth person to sit in for more than a 15-20 minute ride. They didn’t want to take the second car because Chris’s brother Ben would need it to go to the gym, they said.

Ummm, what? His gym is about a 10 minute ride away, he’d be there for just an hour long workout, and his parents were willing to give up an ENTIRE DAY of fun and drinking in the Yarra Valley with us… JUST so that their youngest son could get access to their car and stay away from public transit or Uber?? I thought the idea was completely absurd.. they were being so lenient with him. And need I remind you: it’s THEIR car, not his!

I lightly suggested paying for an Uber to go to the gym, or even to take a bus. His dad didn’t want to ask and said just to let it go, and perhaps just their mom could come with us. It still did not sit right with me. Plus, I knew his dad would be sad about not going, and his mom would enjoy herself more if her husband came. I still thought it was dumb. I didn’t know this until afterwards, but Chris ended up going upstairs, saying a few choice words to his brother, and then his brother changed his mind and said he didn’t need the car anymore. I have no idea what words were spoken, but the goal was to guilt him into not insisting on using the car that day.

In the end, we all went to the Yarra Valley in two cars together and had an enjoyable day. But the impression still stayed with me regarding how absurd and permissive they were being. Their parents are WAY too good to Chris and his brother. I already know how this would have gone in my own family, and I can guarantee you: neither Ed nor I would have gotten the car, ever, regardless of the situation!

Observations of food naming in Aus vs. US

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Some interesting things I’ve picked up over the years shopping for produce and food in Australia vs. the U.S. in terms of what different food items are called:

Australia: capsicum; U.S.: bell peppers

Australia: rocket; U.S. arugula

Australia: coriander (well, most of the world); U.S.: cilantro

Australia: wombok; U.S.: Napa cabbage ** (I just learned this one during this trip!!)

Australia: (meat) mince; U.S.: ground (meat)

Australia: biscuits; U.S.: cookies

Australia: soft drink; U.S.: soda (apparently, the term “soda” is never used in Australia)

Australia: tomato sauce; U.S.: ketchup (what is ketchup in Australia…? :D)

Australia: silverbeet; U.S.: Swiss chard (new finding!)

Home alone in a big house that isn’t my own

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When I was little, like most of us probably imagined, I thought I would eventually “grow up” and own my own home. I fantasized about how each room would have a different theme: one would be Chinese themed with Chinese calligraphy and landscape paintings; another would be Vietnamese with Vietnamese imagery; another would be beachy; one room would have a Moroccan theme (I just liked the Moroccan decor in restaurants). My dream house had large windows overlooking a beach, was two stories high with a staircase, and had at least one balcony on the second floor. And even back then, I imagined I’d have a massive kitchen. In my dreams then, it was a very white kitchen with large granite counters. I’d have a huge king size bed with a canopy over it. It would be dreamy and relaxing.

Well, I’m almost 37 now, and I don’t own a house. I don’t live in a house and live in an apartment. The idea of owning a house seems very daunting to me, not just from a cost standpoint but from a daily maintenance standpoint — cleaning, dusting, making sure everything’s working and not broken, updates and renovations, repairs — it sounds completely exhausting. But the other thing I think about is: how much space does a family of three (us) REALLY need? In the U.S. over the last several decades, homes (in suburbia) have gotten larger and larger, but the actual footprint of where family members go in their homes is actually quite small. What that results in is a lot of wasted space (and way too much clutter that gets accumulated since the more space you have, the more you think you need to fill it).

I thought about this as I walked around Chris’s parents’ large house this evening, all by myself. Ben was out with friends. I don’t think I’d ever been at their house alone at night before. Chris’s parents went out for dinner with their friends. Chris and Kaia went to a relatives’ house for a catch up, and I decided to stay behind because I just felt exhausted and wanted some quiet, alone time. In some rooms, I heard an echo as I walked through. It felt a little spooky to be in this huge house with so many rooms and things all by myself. Is this house old enough to have ghosts? What bugs are lurking around trying to get me? Oh, I did kill a huge fly that was buzzing around and driving me nuts that evening, plus 2 mozzies. It would be really overwhelming to have to manage and maintain a house of this size for myself and my own family. The space and the comfort of the space certainly come at a cost.

Mexican food in Melbourne

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

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

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

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

Neighborhood exploration in Melbourne

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

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

“Vacation”

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I was asked a few times if I felt relaxed during this trip to Australia, and my immediate answer every single time has been “no.” It’s not that I don’t like being here. I love being here in the Southern hemisphere summer. I love exploring new areas, going to new places, eating different things. I like spending time with Chris’s parents and the rest of his family (at least, most of the rest of his family). But given I have still been working East Coast US hours and am also in full-time childcare mode, it hasn’t been that relaxing. Back in New York, I used to rely on the nanny five days a week to do Kaia’s solid feeds 3 times per day, most of her diaper changes, and her baths two out of three times a week. Now, I do all her baths, a lot of her diaper changes, and the majority of her solid feeds. And while the nanny had the controlled environment of a high chair in our own home, I’ve had to deal with her solid food eating in the company of many family members, plus at endless restaurants, which means… distraction, distraction, distraction.

Chris’s brother commented on the amount of food she was eating and said, “That’s going to take at least 45 minutes to an hour for her to get through!” He was in shock.

And I said, “Um, yes. She usually eats for 45 to an hour at home. And that doesn’t include the time to prepare the food and warm it up, set her up in the high chair, clean her up after, and then clean all the dishes, the tray, and everything she got all over the splat mat and floor after.”

“No wonder you say you don’t have any time to yourself on the weekends at home!” his brother lamented. “Once you finish feeding her and cleaning her up, she’s ready to eat AGAIN!”

She can’t self feed as much outside because Chris doesn’t approve of the mess that she makes (well, she’s a baby? She doesn’t know how to eat cleanly or with cutlery yet!). And while eating out is occasionally fun with her, after a while, it gets a bit wearing, and it makes me empathize with parents who just kind of give up and eat at home most of the time and don’t go anywhere. Do I agree with their choice to be boring and not go anywhere or let their young children experience new places and things? No. But I get why they would be totally exhausted and just avoid it as much as possible because I’m exhausted.

“There is no such thing as a real vacation if your baby is with you,” said one of my mom friends.

She isn’t totally wrong.

Pumping: the end grows nearer

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In the days leading up to Kaia’s first birthday, my milk supply suddenly decreased quite drastically without any warning. It had already plummeted a little in October once I had my first postpartum period, and then again in November when I went down to three pumps a day. Around her 1st birthday was when I planned to drop to two pumps per day, but when I realized the Thursday before that my body had its own plans for my milk supply, I decided to do it the day before her 1st birthday. What’s an extra day? I thought.

The drop was over 200ml, nearly overnight. When it happened one day, I thought it was just a fluke. But in reality, it was real… because it kept happening every single day after that. Now, I am lucky if I pump even 300ml in a day, and even that seems a bit of a stretch. I originally thought I would keep going until 15 months, so the 10th of March, but at this rate, if my supply keeps dwindling, I may just need to fully wean and hang up the pumps sooner than that. I can’t continue to pump for two hours a day and not even get eight ounces of breast milk total per day. I know she loves my milk, though. So that also is another reason I want to keep going. But if the numbers keep going down, it’s just too much time for too little return at this point, especially since she does not really need my milk anymore now that she’s over 1 year old.

Dropping down to two pumps per day is quite bittersweet. I worked so hard to get my supply up, and now to see it dropping so drastically in a short space of time really hurt. It’s like I could almost feel the pain in my boobs and my heart when I saw the numbers consistently stay so low, day after day. Granted, it was my choice to drop pumping sessions when I did, but that’s the issue with exclusive pumping: it feels like a constant love/hate relationship where you are really battling with just yourself. The emotional roller coaster continues, even at the end of the journey. Can’t I just keep going? Why can’t I be one of those mothers who breastfeeds until 2 years? Chris keeps trying to make fun of me, saying that the “udder isn’t working anymore” and “the cow isn’t keeping up.” It’s easy for him to make fun; he never put in the blood, sweat, and tears into this maddening process. He’s never pumped milk; no man really has. And even those women who nurse and have never pumped… they don’t get the sweat and toil that goes into this. Chris’s cousin’s wife, who breastfed (nursed) all three of her babies and pumped occasionally for overnight bottles — she told me that what I did was the most intense work of all forms of baby feeding. And her husband said, “Pumping — it’s so many bottles to wash, so many pump parts to clean all the time!” Yep. He sees it, at least as an observer.

I love knowing that my body had given my baby so much sustenance and more in the last year plus of her life. I am grateful for what my body allowed me to do and the food it provided my baby. But I also look forward to the day when I no longer need to pump any milk at all and have my body fully back to myself. I will admit, though: two pumps per day is so liberating compared to 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 pumps per day at the insane beginning. I may not even know what to do with myself and all this newfound free time as my nanny keeps making fun of me about. I may even put my Spectra breast pump on display in the apartment to remember my long, hard-fought journey to feeding my baby via exclusive pumping.

Water pressure in the bathroom down under

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Chris’s brother is now back in Melbourne for Christmas from Sydney. He got back on Thursday night, so the family house is packed with all six of us now for the very first time. The family house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, so all of us comfortably have our own bathrooms to use. Chris’s dad told us that they had recently had the water pressure reduced across the house, which was most notable in the shower heads. The reason they did this was that they were advised by their plumber to reduce it, otherwise it may cause future problems for all their machines that use water (washing machine, dishwasher, etc.). Everyone in the family loves their water pressure in the shower; in fact, Chris says that one of his absolute favorite things to do when he gets back to Melbourne each year is to simply turn on the shower head in his bathroom and let the water stream down on him… because the water pressure is optimal, and he loves that feeling on his skin. When their dad mentioned the water pressure had been reduced, I hadn’t noticed it at all in the shower we used; it still seemed quite strong to me, other than the fact that the shower head is different in this bathroom given we switched bathrooms with his brother, as his brother’s bathroom has a full bathtub, which makes it easier to bathe Kaia.

Well, Ben noticed the shower pressure had changed immediately. He asked his parents what happened, and they explained. Yet somehow, oddly enough, the shower pressure in their parents’ master bathroom had not changed much, if at all. So now, instead of using his own shower, Ben is now going to continue using his parents’ shower while he is here! His dad had asked me if I had noticed a difference, and I said no.

The reason this is even a topic for me is that all it reminds me of is exactly how weak and terrible my parents’ water pressure is in their shower. In fact, I know, for a FACT, that it’s gotten weaker by design over the last 10-15 years, as my dad has not only changed the shower head multiple times, but he’s actually reduced the water pressure. He did not do that because it was too strong, but rather because a) he wanted to save money on water, b) there was a drought which advised all residents of California to reduce water usage… but hey, it ended!, and c) he insisted it was just better for the environment. It was never a discussion. He just did it and didn’t even tell my mom. No one else’s opinion or comfort mattered. It was his executive decision, and it was never going to get reversed no matter what.

The water pressure is so weak in that shower that my showers likely take a longer time there because the water feels like it’s just dripping out — slowly, painfully, meekly. Yet the few nights I actually do spend at my parents’ house nowadays, because my dad is so cheap, he occasionally will try to lightly ask me to shorten my showers. My showers are actually quite short when I am not washing my hair, and given I am only there for at max three days at a time now, it’s truly amazing that he would even ask me to do this.

The other reason this is so triggering for me is that it doesn’t seem to matter what it is, whether it is day to day living, traveling, once in a blue moon events… my dad’s cheapness seems to apply to everything. In some way, it’s almost like he wants to prevent himself from truly enjoying the experience of anything… at seemingly all costs, not just financial. He cannot even learn to enjoy the simplicity of a good shower head and water pressure. Part of me wonders if it’s just because of his upbringing, because his parents had so little and thus he had so little, and so he really grasps at every last penny he has as a result of that childhood in fear it will all disappear into thin air suddenly, despite the fact that he has more than enough now. But there are plenty of immigrant stories of families who had nothing, yet when those kids grew into adults, they managed their finances well and were able to enjoy. So the more I think about it, the more I think he just has a mental block that prevents him from enjoying or liking anything.

“Do you think your parents are capable of being happy?” my therapist once asked me.

“I suppose that depends on how you define ‘happy,'” I responded back.

It seems the older I get, the less I can give a straight “yes” or “no” answer to ANYTHING, which is so aggravating sometimes.

Because perhaps for some people, “happy” means always complaining about the most minute things; maybe it means doing the exact same things in the exact same routine every single day and not veering away from it. It can be sameness all the time. Maybe it means always comparing your kids to other kids; maybe it means always looking at people who have far, far less than you (read: are truly living in poverty) and using that as a reason to not make your own life a fraction more comfortable. And if that is the case, then there’s not much else you can say or do for them. But then… if I really wanted to know, maybe I could just flat out ask my dad the simple but very loaded question: “Are you happy?”

Well, to be honest, I am not sure I want to hear the response to that.