Bed Bath and Beyond at Lincoln Center goes byebye

In the Upper West Side Neighbors Facebook group I am in, someone posted yesterday that the Bed Bath and Beyond right across from Lincoln Center is not only shutting down, but literally everything in the store is 50-70% off, even the lighting fixtures and furniture inside. With situations like this, while it seems sad that yet another store is closing, it’s not like it’s some independent mom and pop shop that you feel sorry for. It’s more something that we’re used to passing by all the time that is just part of the neighborhood. And frankly, all I thought about was (and here goes my domestic goddess/mama side): maybe I could get some good deals on dish and hand soap there?

Well, I was out of luck. I took a break during lunch today to pop into the store and see, and it was like a desert: shelves completely cleared, with some random cups, plates, and plenty of blankets and bedding of a few shades to choose from. Anything even remotely desirable or useful for our apartment was nowhere to be seen. As for the toiletries and cleaning supplies: it’s almost like they dredged up items from the darkest corners of their warehouse and put them on display in the “cleaning” section, hoping that some unknowing person would just grab it because it was cheap and buy it to fully clean out and liquidate their store. Well, that wasn’t going to work for me.

So, the trip to Bed Bath was totally unfruitful. But I guess on the bright side, I didn’t waste any money on useless junk.

Steaks at home

I rarely buy steak to prepare at home because the idea of it never really entices me. The one time I got really excited about buying them was last year when Kaia started solids, and I really wanted her to gnaw on a big juicy hunk of steak herself. Of course, she really enjoyed it and got good iron out of it, and it also, as an added bonus, made for a good photo and video opportunity. We also were gifted a sous vide precision cooker for our wedding, but alas, I’ve only ever used it twice, both times to make steak, and I feel like I’ve found methods using both the oven and a cast iron pan that yield fairly similar, if not just similarly satisfying, results.

This time, I got sirloin steaks on sale at Whole Foods and marinated them Thai-style. I cooked them at a low temperature in the oven for about 25 minutes, then pulled them out and pan-seared them on my cast iron pan for about 90 seconds on each side. Then, I topped the steaks with a Thai tamarind sauce mixed with roasted and pounded ground sticky rice. It was definitely quite satisfying, and I think it’s also telling that Kaia saw the steaks right out of the oven and tried to grab one before they were finished searing. My baby’s appetite is slowly but surely coming back after this little sick spell, and it’s being helped along with homemade Thai style steak.

Pookster gets sick again

The last thing any parent wants is to have their child sick. So after we learned that one of her friends was sick with an ear infection late last week, and they had spent time together, I wondered if Kaia would catch the sickness. Ear infections are not contagious, per se, but apparently the colds that result from ear infections are. In the last couple of days, my sweet baby’s appetite has not been good; she’s even rejected her favorite things, like oatmeal fingers, mushrooms, and even bread (MAJOR RED FLAG). Kaia has gotten sick a few other times, but only once before, when she had COVID back in June, was her appetite affected. She’s been fussier than usual, especially in the late afternoons and evenings. Luckily, in the mornings, she still seems of good spirits, and she even enjoyed her first music class yesterday and was bobbing her head up and down and “dancing.” And then last night, she kept waking up about every 1-2 hours to fuss when she changed positions. She’s been sneezing a lot, and with each sneeze, her boogers and nose discharge fly everywhere. My poor little Pookster.

I cannot even imagine what it would be like if she were sick literally every week, which is what I hear from many parents regarding their young babies/toddlers in daycare. It would be never-ending exhaustion and borderline worry. I really feel for other parents and their seemingly perpetually sick babies. It’s like you never get a real break.

Second steroid shot on the left wrist

Today, I went over to the Upper East Side for a follow-up appointment with my orthopedic doctor. Honestly, I was hoping to never, ever see him again after my last two visits in October, when I had a cortisone shot on my left wrist and my right wrist, because seeing him again would mean that the pain and inflammation in my mommy thumb/wrist returned. Early last month, I realized that the pain had returned in my left wrist. It would come back quite suddenly and painfully after the most random movements, whether that was slipping my hand through a sleeve or just holding something in a certain angle. That horrible, sharp “snapping” pain would re-emerge, and I’d just think, really? AGAIN? I figured that this time around, I probably shouldn’t wait five months before just sucking it up and getting the shot.

So after a quick chat and examination, the doctor gave me my second steroid shot in my left wrist. He told me that in 80 percent of cases where someone comes in for a steroid shot for mommy thumb/de Quervain’s Tenosynovitis, they are cured fully and never have to come back again. I suppose that means I’m in the unlucky 20 percent that had the pain return… at least for now, it’s just in my left side. The shot helped for the last 4+ months, so a decent amount of time. Now, for those who come in for a second shot, it’s really 50/50 whether the pain will fully go away (please…), or return. He said if the pain does return, while a third cortisone shot would always be an option, surgery to release the tendon would be the more permanent option. A third cortisone shot would usually not be a permanent fix.

I do not want surgery under any circumstances. Please, inflammation, do not ever return. Please…..

Play dates for the Pookster and close neighbor friends

This afternoon, I brought Kaia down to our building play room to meet up with a dad and his 18-month old son for a play date. The little toddlers were a bit shy towards each other, but they eventually traded toys, pushed and threw balls, and Kaia once again got hit on the head. I still need to get her to hit back…

Once she was born, I was hoping that pushing a stroller would attract other young parents to inquire how old she was and arrange play dates. This would help with Kaia getting more socialized and comfortable around other people. And then by default, we could start befriending other people in the building.

The dad who came to the play room with his son suggested that we’re always welcome to their apartment to hang out or even have dinner together. He said they also have some massive play structure that might be fun for the kids to play on together. I suggested the same — it would obviously be very convenient to have some friends in our own building.

Chris has not been that excited about this prospect. “Do I have to?” he whined in response. “Why can’t you go and I do something else?”

The idea of making “parent friends” does not enthuse him because he likes to make the assumption that parents become friends only because of the children’s benefit, as opposed to the parents actually having interests in common that would unite them otherwise. That all may be true, but I do think it’s important to establish some rapport and level of trust with the parents of the kids my own child will be befriending.

April Fool’s pranks at work

April Fool’s Day jokes are one of those things that some companies really embrace, and others just tolerate. For the last 2.5 years, I’ve been working at a company that truly embraces them. Some departments/teams literally start thinking about NEXT year’s April Fool’s Day joke as soon as this year’s April Fool’s Day has passed.

Last year when I came back from maternity leave in May, I was sifting through all the work emails I had missed while I was out for 20 weeks. And I I was trying to flag all the “mandatory trainings” I had missed (I do work at an online learning company, after all, so we do have to eat our own ice cream, too). After my company went public in 2021, we had to do a lot of new required trainings as employees of a publicly traded company. It was a necessary evil we all had to do. So when I saw this email in my inbox from our legal team that said we had to do a 96-hour long training as a newly public company, I completely balked. WHAT – 96 hours, and I still have to catch up on all my ACTUAL day to day work?!! I even complained to Chris about it over text when I was reading the email. And then, minutes later, it suddenly dawned on me the date/time stamp of the email: It was April 1, 2022. I just got angry and made a big fuss about an April Fool’s joke that got me.

UGHHHHHHHHHHH. I blamed that on mommy brain.

This year, I knew I was not going to be taken so easily. April Fool’s Day fell on a Saturday this year, but as soon as I saw the email in my inbox, I KNEW it was going to be a prank. Once again, the email came from our head of legal, and the email was to convey the message that all employees’ feedback have been gathered. We want to be one company and operate on one time, so they proposed everyone, regardless of where you were in the world, had to be online for the exact same set of hours for each quarter of this calendar year. This quarter, we’d start with India time, so everyone had to be online for standard India-time work hours from 8-5pm.

Ummmmm. No. There was absolutely NO WAY I fell for that. I already thought it was a prank before I opened the email, and when I saw the idea of everyone being on “one time zone” regardless of what location you were in, I smirked to myself. I also thought about all the parents of young babies and toddlers gettting infuriated about this, not realizing it was a prank.

I did see a lot of the replies in Slack, though, and I laughed out loud at the number of people who actually fell for this and did believe this was real. 😀

Music class for babies/toddlers

I signed Kaia up for the spring session of a well-known and popular music class in New York City. I originally found out about it a year ago, but I didn’t think it made much sense to pay for a music class for her back then when she wasn’t particularly interactive or responsive; to me, that felt like I would be paying for entertainment for our nanny vs. our own baby, which I did not want. Plus, before the age of 1, she would be exposed to plenty of music at home, on TV, and outdoors when we’d be out and about. So I waited until now to sign her up. It’s 13 weeks, with one class per week. You get two makeup sessions if you are out of town/have to miss a session for any reason. The ones I signed her up for are in Central Park. Her makeup sessions, which I’ve already pre-scheduled, are in Riverside Park, so all are quite close.

The annoying thing, though, is how specific they are about charges. So for example, because I signed Kaia up for the outdoor sessions, if I do a makeup session that’s “indoors,” they will require me to pay a $20 surcharge. Why…? Is it because they are paying for the indoor space, and that space, given we’re in Manhattan, is quite the premium? And they also suggested we purchase a “band in a box,” which is a box full of class props, like scarves, music-related toys, etc., for her to use during and outside of class. That costs $30. And because I didn’t want her to feel left out or like she was getting a half-assed experience, I sucked it up and paid for the box. Yep, I did THAT parent thing and just got it for her. Part of me thinks: this class is quite expensive at $35/pop (assuming you purchase the full season’s session), so why aren’t the props/toys just included? I suppose they are just being capitalists in a capitalist society and want to find every possible way to make more money. And of course, parents like us are going to pay for it because who, in this neighborhood, is going to cheap out on their child’s education? But the other part of me just feels annoyed that seemingly everything “baby” or “toddler” related has to be so expensive and has to have yet another price tag added to it. It’s exhausting sometimes. And when you do find the “free” things (paid for by… my TAX PAYER DOLLARS, like the library), it’s super competitive and cut-throat to get in, or it requires you queue up for hours on end. It’s just another thing to make parents’ lives more difficult, or to make child-rearing itself more challenging and expensive.

Culture Pass NYC

I learned about Culture Pass years ago, but I was reminded of it again through a Facebook parents group I belong to. It’s a New York City program for library card-holding patrons 13 and older of Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and Queens Public Library. With your library card, you can reserve a pass to get free admission to dozens of museums, historical societies, heritage centers, public gardens, and the like. Major museums like the Natural History Museum, the Met, and the MOMA participate; the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Gardens, and Wave Hill participate. And slightly lesser known historical societies and mansions such as The Japan Society and the J.P Morgan Library and Museum are included. Even the Brooklyn Children’s Museum and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan are included. Each cultural institution has its own rules: some require timed entries that you have to pre-book in advance, on top of securing a Culture Pass reservation for a specific day; others are more generous and allow you to take up to 3-4 people with you (the average seems to be you plus one other person). They typically allow you to do one booking per calendar year, so it’s not something you can take advantage of repeatedly in a short span of time. So this would not serve as a substitute for say, an annual membership to the Children’s Museum unfortunately.

After taking a look at the open passes available over the last couple of weeks, I also noticed that the breadth is pretty wide of what’s included: Second Stage Theater shows are occasionally added, as well as concerts held at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. I thought this was pretty generous. Even if the seats are balcony/nose-bleed seats, this would be high quality arts for literally the cost of your time to sign up for a library card! Of course, taking full advantage of the Culture Pass means being diligent on checking for openings regularly, especially at the beginning of each month when things open up and new events like concerts are added, but that seems like a small inconvenience given admission to any of these places would be free.

I’ve already reserved tickets for next month to visit The Japan Society, as it’s not only supposed to be interesting from an obvious cultural perspective, but the building itself is supposed to be architecturally quite unique.

When a first time mom teaches a nanny how to feed baby

This morning as the “treat” at the end of her breakfast, I washed some blackberries and served them whole for Kaia. In general, for berries like blackberries or blueberries, it’s not advised to give them whole at her age…. unless the child has shown advanced chewing/biting abilities. So with both types of berries now, I just give them to her whole (occasionally, I flatten the blueberries slightly), and she’s comfortable and more than able to chew through them and swallow. Our nanny watched Kaia shove one whole blackberry into her mouth after the other and laughed.

“If you told me a year ago that I was going to allow a 15-month old to eat WHOLE blackberries under my watch, I would have told you that you were crazy!” our nanny laughed. “I’ll be honest, Yvonne. I have learned a lot about what babies are capable of with food because of you.”

I smiled. It’s always funny when your nanny relents that she was wrong, and you were right. I’d say that with 8+ months of practice with chewing and biting, it’s partly just practice that led Kaia to being the good eater she is. But the other part of it could also just be luck. Maybe if another kid had her same environment and conditions, perhaps they wouldn’t be as mature as Kaia is with food. Who knows?

“Maybe you will do this same form of baby-led weaning for your next nanny kid at your next job,” I said to her, winking.

She shook her head. “No, no… I don’t think so. I will stick with what I am comfortable with!!”

Play rooms at luxury apartment buildings in New York City

When we first toured our current apartment building six years ago, although we did see the children’s play room, we didn’t think much of it since at that time, we didn’t have any kids, nor were we actively trying to conceive. But of course, since getting pregnant with Kaia and now having her, when we have toured other building’s facilities, I’ve definitely scrutinized the play rooms more in terms of how they are set up, what types of toys and structures they have, and how they are decorated. Another thing about most building play rooms (and gyms, for that matter) is that they tend to be in the basement. I’d assume this is to maximize the windowed areas for actual units people will be living in/renting/buying, but still, this is annoying to think of children playing without any natural light in the rooms they are in; it just seems so dreary. It’s my huge gripe with all daycares that are close to where we live: all the main educational areas have zero windows or view to the outside world. The big windows are one reason our nanny said she really likes our play room. She said that our play room is not too big, not too small, but just the right size. And the large windows on one side of it really help.

Our nanny has been great in finding other nannies who are caring for babies of a similar age as Kaia to arrange play dates and encourage socialization. So while they’ve organized activities together at the playground, the park, and the library, they’ve also taken turns “hosting” the other nanny/child at each other’s building’s play rooms. The thing that was hilarious about the most recent child is how big her building’s play room is. They have these huge cushion/foam structures set up for kids of toddler age to walk up, climb up, spin around, and do all the same “gymnastic” like activities that they have toddlers do at NYC Elite Gym or Gymboree… just without the $50/class price tag, or $200+/month charge.

“That building’s play room has all the same stuff as Gymboree, just without the charge!” my nanny exclaimed one day after sharing photos with me of what the kids did together. “It’s like robbery what places like Gymboree charge!”

I kind of smirked in response and said.. well, make sure to keep in contact with this nanny/nanny kid and do a play date at their play room at least once a week so we can maximize the “value” of this relationship. This relationship is essentially a $200/month value now!!