Ed turns 43

Posted on by
Reply

This may be the first time I’ve been in San Francisco for Ed’s birthday since he passed, and how funny it is that this time when I am in town for his birthday, Kaia is now here with us. Coming back to San Francisco and leaving have never really been easy for me… pretty much since forever. When Ed was around, I always felt guilt that I was leaving him in the abusive environment of my parents. I always wanted to support him more, but never knew how to. Then, he died. I always have lots of conflicting thoughts and feelings around coming and being home– mostly because of Ed and how he should be here but isn’t; my parents’ mental health; the hoarding and clutter and dilapidated state their home is in. To me, the house is cursed. I still occasionally fantasize about burning it down. But I realize it resembles hell to me only downstairs. As soon as you are on the third floor where my aunt and her roommate live, it actually feels warmer both temperature-wise and in terms of its ambiance. It feels brighter; there is more light. She actually decorates and maintains her home so that it feels pleasant to be in.

In my parents’ home, it does not feel welcoming at all. It feels dark, desolate, and there is literally a cold draft running through the house that you can feel if you are walking barefoot. It comes from the sunroom. The level of clutter and hoarding always seems a little worse every time I come home. In my mind, there are a few times when it’s gotten heightened: the first time I really noticed it was my first visit home a year after I graduated from college; every subsequent visit there has been more accumulation of junk. And it really skyrocketed after Ed died. It’s almost like to make up for Ed’s presence, my dad started hoarding more things and having most surfaces of the house that are meant for sitting… not sittable, if that’s even a word (it doesn’t look like a word). The breakfast table seats have perpetually been covered in food stuff, cans, and appliances. My mom said that my bed and Ed’s are always covered with piles of paper and other random things when I am not there. The physical clutter always makes me feel more stressed and annoyed every time I am there. And when I say even the slightest thing about it to my mom, she gets mad and tells me I am causing trouble and to just stop talking about it.

I always hoped that as my parents aged that they would finally do things to enjoy life and be more comfortable: renovate the kitchen and have it be easier to use instead of having all these random tables and stools everywhere with paper bags and old newspapers everywhere; create fixtures in the bathroom that would make it easier to bathe and shower in; actually make use of all the space they have in their house, which actually is a LOT of space for two people. But instead, they do nothing and seem to only make it more uncomfortable as time goes on. The amount of time my parents spend separating out compost and trash is completely insane. My hope is based in just that: hope. It’s not rooted in anything they’ve ever indicated they wanted. I really don’t know what they are doing with their lives. I wonder what Ed thinks looking down at all this, wondering what the hell our parents are doing. I have no idea what they live for. My mom loves to talk about how depressed she is, but she doesn’t do anything to help herself, and this was even before Ed died, so it’s not just because of that.

I wish our parents the best. I really do. I just wish they’d learn to stop and enjoy life and all the privileges they had instead of picking fights about stupid, senseless things. It probably won’t happen, but I still wish it would.

I wonder if Ed were still alive today if he’d still be at home. It would be an even worse hell in many ways if he was still living there with them, likely getting tortured alive. My mom was never going to be at peace with Ed, alive or dead, as awful as it sounds.

Happy 43rd birthday, Ed. I am happy you are free from the hell that is that house on 20th avenue and that you are enjoying yourself truly, somewhere out there. You are free… free from all the pain, suffering, torture of that miserable house. You are free. But our parents are not and likely will never be.

When baby Kaia comes to the office

Posted on by
Reply

It’s amazing what a baby at an office does. Chris dropped Kaia off at my office at around midday, and when I could barely get the third floor doors open to our office, an entire group of about 15-20 Korean-speaking, female visitors descended upon her, cooing and making baby sounds, playing peekaboo with her, and gushing over how cute she was. Then, our CEO came over and started gushing over how sweet she looked. When I rolled her stroller over to the lunch area, all my teammates gathered around her to admire how sweet and well-behaved she was. One of my colleagues was so obsessed with her that she held her for what felt like ages, and after a little crying and fussing, Kaia felt comfortable with her, too. Some colleagues warned that we may have a babynapper on our hands…

Babies can soften even the hardest, most serious people. Some colleagues who I never thought would care about any baby took a liking to her and tried to interact with her. And Kaia is clearly good in office environments, as she barely cried at all and just seemed to want to stare at everyone (and eat all their lunches, too). I had pre-ordered a falafel salad for lunch, and while chatting with some colleagues, I could not get her to stop trying to grab my plate of falafels! I’m proud that she’s so interested in food, but still do not want her exposed to too much salt too early on.

As we left the office and went back to the hotel, I felt so happy to finally have met all my colleagues, been at a “real office,” and had my colleagues meet Kaia. I kept looking down at her giggly, smiley face, thinking how lucky I am to be a working mother — her working mother. Each moment with her is like a gift to me. While I have many colleagues who are now pregnant with their first or second child and complaining about it, and I get why they are complaining, I’ve never once complained about being pregnant with her or having her because I will always remember my road to have her was not an easy one. I don’t for a second take any of it for granted. And while working does take me away from her, I always remember why I am working — it’s to make sure she’s taken care of and is comfortable and has everything she needs.

At the office in an endemic

Posted on by
Reply

The last couple of days have been fun, intense, and tiring at the office. With team offsites, it’s always socializing on steroids, but with this specific offsite, given it’s our very first time all meeting in person, and many of us have been colleagues working at this company for nearly two years, it was even more intense. We were all trying to make up for lost in-person time, and it felt like almost every minute I wasn’t talking with one person, I was talking to another or getting tapped or waved at by yet another person. It felt almost surreal to finally meet all my colleagues I’ve worked with closely over the last two years… finally in person and not in a Zoom box on my computer screen. It was also funny to see how some are much taller or shorter in real life than I had imagined!

I always knew this before, but this week has made me more aware of it: nothing can ever replace in-person meeting and interaction. While Zoom, Google Hangout, and FaceTime can bridge the gap when in-person interaction is not possible, there is nothing more refreshing or revitalizing as people being in the same place and talking and laughing together. I almost felt like I was a new employee here meeting everyone for the first time even though that was clearly not the case at all. Our team has a really good, healthy vibe, and I’m grateful to work among people where toxicity does not even remotely exist, and where we actually do all have good intentions and support each other both in and outside of work. This is the healthiest, most balanced workplace I’ve ever been in for the last 14+ years of working. It feels good to be an employee here.

(Tech) office work perks: snacks, printers, and more

Posted on by
Reply

At the last company plus my current company where I work, all the offices have had rotating snacks in every kitchen, ranging from healthy to very unhealthy to “I want to seem like I am healthy and also trendy and charge you a lot to eat me” snacks. Because beyond middle school, I haven’t really been a huge snacker at all. I’ve mostly discovered snacks I’ve enjoyed through work, my friend who works at Trader Joe’s, or Chris through his obsession for Australian Arnott’s and other snacks down under.

Well, today was my very first time being in an office in about 2.5 years — since the first week of March 2020, when the last company saw its very first COVID cases, and we shut down every global office. And since I work remotely full time, being in an office will continue to be a novelty for me as long as I work here. So of course, I took advantage of things I normally don’t get, like socializing time with colleagues I was finally meeting for the very first time… plus SNACKS. ENDLESS SNACKS AND DRINKS.

Lemonade that is lightly sweetened with local honey in the Southern U.S., cane sugar, and “not too sweet” in Mark Wiens’s voice? An entire mango dried, or a half pineapple dried into what looks like a strip of fruit leather, with zero additives, not a single preservative and no sugar? Chicken skin “chips” that resemble pork rinds? Endless types of Kind nut bars? I was even reunited with Tea’s Tea jasmine green tea in a bottle, which I used to always have at my last company when I was in the office full time. Going to the office is not only a novelty now to see and socialize with colleagues, but also simply to explore the snack selection to see what is on offer. A comedian I follow on Instagram recently joked that one of the biggest perks of working in an office was free printing; while that is definitely true (especially since we live in Manhattan with limited space where pretty much no one owns a printer) and extremely useful, what is also true is… who is going to turn down free food?

When mother’s box of bullshit is unleashed

Posted on by
Reply

I knew that when I told my dad he had to apologize, otherwise I’d never let them meet Kaia, that my mom would get angry with me for even the mere threat. So I was waiting for her to confront me about it, and conveniently and expectedly, she did just a couple hours after Chris left for the office this morning. It started with, “Do you have five minutes? I need to sit down and talk to you about something. Don’t get offended.” (This is a cue that she is going to unleash her anger). In my head, I told myself that it was definitely going to happen, so I had to mentally brace myself and not allow myself to get emotional, raise my voice, or do anything to show she had power over me. I had to own the conversation. Well, it didn’t matter if I raised my voice or not because of course to my mom, I was the bad tempered one. I was the ungrateful one. I was the bad one, the awful, disobedient, disrespectful daughter. These are just some of the things she said to me this morning as I was pumping milk. If I hadn’t been connected to an electric nipple sucker, I would have just walked out. These are just some of the things she said:

“How could you threaten to not let us see our grandchild? What have we ever done that is so wrong to you? You are wrong! It doesn’t matter how bad your parents treat you; you need to respect them from your head to your toe and obey them! Jehovah sees all, and he will punish you!”

“I have never hurt you or Ed in my entire life! I raised the both of you almost by myself! I did EVERYTHING for you! And you say that I hurt you! I HURT YOU? I HAVE NEVER BEEN ANGRY WITH YOU!” (I didn’t respond and continued playing with the baby. Not really sure how she should decide whether I feel hurt or not?).

“Your father already texted you to say sorry! What else do you want him to do? What do you want us to do? Why can’t you just forgive and not make such a big deal over everything? We paid for your college education and this is how you treat us! You want us to bow down to you and beg you for forgiveness?” (I said if she wanted to, she could).” Then, she started fake crying and literally got down on the floor to bow down and say sorry over and over. Then, she ran over to the window and started praying to Jehovah loudly, asking him to give her strength to deal with her ungrateful, “powerful” daughter with a bad temper. I didn’t say anything.

“Your father said you called me a bitch and an asshole. Did you do this?” (I said he made it up, which he did because he’s juvenile). “Under Jehovah’s eyes, he said you did it! I am going to ask him to swear it!”

I told her she was wrong to accuse my friend of being dirty and loaning us a pack’n’play that was not cleaned. Her response? “So you are saying you favor Rebecca over me? You like your friend Rebecca more than me?” (very rational)

“Oh, of course it’s useless to talk to me! I’m stupid! I’m uneducated, stupid! I’m not like your mother in law who is a DOCTOR, so smart, so smart, so educated!” (My response: “Just stop.”)

“Do you know what your mother in law and brother in law did to me the night of your rehearsal dinner? Do you know how they insulted me?” (I cut her off and said she had no idea what she was talking about in a monotone. Also, how is this relevant to anything… this was 6 years ago?).

“Your in-laws and Chris would never treat you as well as I have treated you! NEVER! They don’t do a damn thing for you!” (Sure – classic abuser language).

“None of your friends ever went to private school! Only your parents sent you to private school!” (ummmm, false, and I simply cut her off and said “stop comparing” in a monotone. The monotone approach just infuriated her more and more as time passed, and she repeatedly accused me of yelling and raising my voice).

“Your Auntie Linda inherited Ms. Hazel’s house and never sent her kids to private school even with free money!” (“stop comparing,” I said over and over).

“Your husband treats me poorly because he learned it from you!” (No, Chris does not treat her poorly, but I don’t care what she thinks).

“He won’t let us see our own granddaughter on Tuesday and Wednesday! He’s so powerful, isn’t he? You two won’t even let us into your hotel! You won’t allow your own parents to see their grandchild!”

“When you are talking to me, you need to act CHEERFUL! Why aren’t you cheerful and always so mean faced?” (Gee, I wonder why?).

“I texted you and told you I was going to the doctor and my chest hurt, and you didn’t even text back or call. You don’t care about me! Now I know what you really are!” (She used that as a manipulation as she always does to get a response she wants. I don’t fall for it anymore).

“You will be so happy if I die! You will have a celebration!” (“No,” I said back).

“If I die, you and your dad will be miserable! You will have nothing!” (Not really true, but I didn’t say anything).

She loves to talk about her “health not too good,” “I’m disabled,” “I suffer from depression,” and that she could die any day now. She’s been saying these things for over 12 years now. Those are her favorite things to go back to in order to manipulate us and make us feel bad.

The private school theme always comes up again and again. She repeatedly has tried to use it as a weapon against me, as though I took something from them that was so valuable and wasted it. They make it seem like I owe them something. Considering they rarely paid for any extracurricular activities, I never had lessons of any kind, I had a pretty “poor” childhood relatively speaking. You would wonder what my parents would have done with that money if I had never gone to a private college. Well, you shouldn’t wonder too much. They didn’t starve or eat canned beans every day for four years because of it. They didn’t take out loans, refinance their home, or wear rags because of it. In my friend’s words, “They make it seem like because they paid for your college that you have to take their constant abuse and shit. That’s not the way it works.”

I was mad that this happened, but I expected it. I honestly didn’t even really get that angry because I just felt numb. I barely reacted. I never raised my voice, though my mom thinks I did and kept repeating over and over how bad and scary my temper was. I thought momentarily about not coming back this weekend to stay with them, but I realized that we would barely spend any time alone with them given the family meals, plus I’d be out with friends most of Saturday. Plus, Chris would provide a buffer as they’d never be their full, monstrous paranoid selves if he’s around.

After this trip, I have no idea when we will see them again, or when they will see Kaia again. To be honest, I have zero desire to see them again. They will only become more angry and paranoid as time goes on, and they will continue to think that their verbal abuse is acceptable. I can’t really tolerate their alternate reality anymore, especially now that I have my own child to care for and raise. I don’t want her exposed to their mental illnesses and abuse. It’s just a good thing she couldn’t understand the insanity coming out of my mother’s mouth today.

When grandparents meet their granddaughter the first time, plus impending doom

Posted on by
Reply

After my dad’s shitty apology over text and my mom calling to apologize for him, I came to terms with the fact that he would never bring himself to ever call me himself and give me a proper apology for calling me a bitch… or really, for anything awful he’s ever done to me. I have to keep repeating to myself that my parents will never change, and I will never be able to change them. I want them to meet their grandchild, so I will suck up whatever dumb things they do temporarily to allow this to happen. I was doing this for them, as it’s clear that I get zero benefit from any of this.

The visit started annoyingly, as it always does. When my mom knows Ed or I am home, she will never, ever open the door herself. She always, always has to ring the bell multiple times to demand that someone serve her. So since I got to the house before she and my dad got back, of course, she rang the bell. As soon as she walked in, I could tell she was not happy with me. She gave me a half hello with a pissed expression on her face (which was a hint at what would come as soon as Chris wasn’t around on Monday), and then went over to talk to Kaia and admire her.

My dad did the same: he barely said hi to me and then just kind of stared at Kaia and blew her kisses. My. Dad. Blew. Kisses. WHAT???? He did all kinds of pucker lip and other gestures towards her and blew kisses and smiled endlessly at her. I have this strong feeling he never did that with Ed or me. They unloaded a bunch of clothes and toys they got her, along with some toys my dad picked up second hand off of Next Door (which my mom assured me she sanitized multiple times).

Then, my mom proceeded to fuss over everything about her and what I was doing wrong: why wasn’t I constantly wiping her hands and face when she was eating? Why isn’t she wearing more layers? What kind of half-assed bath did I give her? Why wasn’t I blow drying her hair? I wasn’t moisturizing her quickly enough: she was going to get sick being naked for so long while getting lotioned up! Oh, and then given the time difference (hello, it’s the baby’s first time changing time zones…) and how goddamn cold the house was, Kaia kept waking up crying throughout the night, so we had to give her Tylenol and turn on the heat…. which my dad kept shutting off even though I explicitly said the house was too cold for the baby (seriously??).

The truth is that it didn’t even bother me that she criticized how we took care of Kaia; I expected all of that and brushed it off; none of that really fazed me. I was more just cognizant of the fact that I knew she’d eventually swoop down on me and unleash her can of irrationality and anger as soon as Chris went to work on Monday, as that would be the only time she’d get alone with me. She’d never say any of this stuff in front of Chris; she barely said anything to him the entire weekend they were together. It’s mostly just meals together with nothing spoken and being under the same roof with little to no interaction.

Air travel with a baby

Posted on by
Reply

About a week ago, my business class flight got upgraded to First, so we can actually say now that Kaia’s first flight was not only cross-continental, but it was also in style in the first class cabin. We got our own pod with as much privacy as you can get on a plane. Given Chris was in business class, we moved her back and forth between our seats depending on what was going on (when she was bottle fed or I was pumping, she was with Chris, whereas other times she was with me). She was a little fussy in the morning given we woke her up really early at around 4:30am to get in the car for the airport, and she absolutely hated her diaper change in my pod before takeoff, but after that, she was really like the dream baby in flight: she slept a lot, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she was babbling away, playing with the remote buttons, and exploring things I laid out for her to play with. Kaia got so many compliments from both the flight attendants and other passengers. The thing I was worried about the most in terms of the pressure in her ears never even became a problem: she was sucking away at her pacifier during both takeoff and landing, which I’m sure helped any potential popping.

Pumping milk on the plane was actually much easier than I imagined, but that is hugely because I was in a premium cabin with total privacy. I didn’t need to lock myself up in the bathroom to prime my boobs or connect my pump to my nipples; I could do all of that in my little pod without anyone watching me. The only time I was actually nervous pumping in the air was when I had to disconnect my pump and measure out my milk, hoping to God there was no turbulence that would cause a potential spill. In the end, I lucked out, and everything went perfectly. It was even my biggest pump yet because my gap between pumps was so large — 330ml or 11oz!

When I think about it, though, in practice, traveling as an adult with one baby on the plane would really be hell, especially if you are not in a premium cabin seat. How are you supposed to put luggage in the overhead bin or use the bathroom with a baby that needs to be held or could roll over off the seat? How can you even do something as basic as take your tray out or eat your snack or meal without disturbing a sleeping baby? And PUMPING while on a plane sitting in economy with a baby — alone without a partner?! Forget about it – it would not even be an option!! Parents who fly with their babies alone, just 1:1, are like warriors.

“Nom nom nom”

Posted on by
Reply

“You are so obsessed with your baby,” my nanny said to me a couple weeks after she started with us. She had yet to learn this then, but my road to having Kaia was not an easy one, or one I take for granted at all. Every time I look at her, I still can’t believe she’s here, even after over eight months have passed. I still have a “Road to Emmie” folder of all my needles, hazardous waste box, embryo transfer, and ultrasound photos on my phone to remind me of that trying journey. I still can’t believe I had a healthy, complication-free pregnancy, and a relatively easy and smooth birth and recovery. Every day since, I give my thanks every night and tell her how grateful I am that she is here and that I have her. She is truly the greatest gift of my life. Every day, I feel lucky to have her.

My nanny is right, though: I am obsessed with her. Even the littlest things she does I tend to marvel at. Here’s a funny example: I never really quite understood where “nom nom nom” came from when people would write or text that about food they found delicious. People oftentimes call tasty food “noms” or “nomz” on social media. I’m pretty sure there are endless variations of hashtags around “noms.” Then, out of nowhere, while Kaia is eating different solid foods, I literally hear her say’ “nom nom nom nom” between bites and while chewing and digesting her food. I was like, THAT IS IT! That’s where “noms” comes from!! My baby loves her noms!!

The return of the drugstore beetles

Posted on by
Reply

About a year ago when we first moved into this apartment, we had an infestation of drugstore beetles, likely coming from the dried Mexican chilies I bought. Well, somehow, the beetles have returned. They came, and when they did, I had the exterminator come and set glue traps for them. That was about a month ago. They were nowhere to be seen for about two weeks after that, and so I thought they had just disappeared. Well, they are back AGAIN, and this time, I have to kill at least 5-6 every day. I find dead, flattened ones on the floor all the time. Even Kaia has managed to kill them by rolling over them and squishing them with her hands, unknowingly on her play mat. Almost every single glue trap the exterminator set up has at least 3-4 dead sesame seed-sized beetles on them. I went through my entire pantry and have no idea what the culprit is. And with these types of pests, they just keep multiplying unless you identify the source.

The exterminator came back today, and he took one of the glue traps with the dead bugs and said he’d examine them under a microscope to properly identify what type of beetle they are. But he’s pretty sure they came in via a bag of grains or rice. I went through all the bags of beans and rice we got in the last month, and I’ve seen no trace of them anywhere. I’m not even sure what to do anymore.

I also found them stuck dead on the honey bottle my nanny brought me back from Jamaica, honey from the hive her nephew keeps. Who knows – maybe these will all just die off in the week we are away in San Francisco if we are lucky. I just hate these bugs so much…

Oh, and my nanny sees them, but she refuses to kill them. “I can’t kill them,” she insisted. “I can’t kill another living being.”

Oh, really? Well, how noble of her! And I can’t hold it against her because nowhere in her nanny contract does it say she has to help me kill household pests!

Expanding the horizons of our nanny

Posted on by
Reply

Ever since Kaia started eating solids in June, I’ve been preparing all of her food. There’s a section of the fridge with little containers to store food I’ve either prepped, cut, or made specifically for her. Most of the food is just the same food Chris and I eat, just separately portioned out for her, cut a little differently for easier/safer consumption for her, and also with no added salt/sugar and less heat/chili. Originally when we started feeding her solids in the early weeks, I only gave her one or two things at a time, but I realized that it probably wasn’t enough variety for her because there are only so many meals she can eat in a day in addition to her breast milk, which will continue to make up the majority of her calories until she turns 1. So now, I try to give her anywhere from 5-8 different things for each of her two solid meals per day. Part of it is for exposure and familiarity so these things are just normal to her. The other part of it is that I want her to know what variety in food exists… because if she isn’t exposed to variety early on, then she will never be comfortable with it and may write off new foods as “foreign” or scary. I never expect her to eat everything I portion out for her, nor do I expect her to eat every single thing I present, but I want her to get used to different foods, textures, flavors, and to at least see it and feel it with her own eyes and hands.

My nanny thought I was a crazy woman when I first started putting her solids plates together. “This new mom is putting 6 things on her plate… is she crazy? Kaia is not going to eat all these things!” she thought to herself. She did imply a few times that she thought I was giving a bit much for variety, but I insisted to her that I wanted Kaia just to have the exposure, and if she didn’t eat it, I’d be okay with it. I didn’t want to force feed her because force feeding early on can lead to unhealthy associations with food as early as before the age of 1, which I obviously don’t want. But to my nanny’s surprise, Kaia has at least tried every single thing I’ve ever presented to her. Most things she has embraced. A few things took two or three tries, like plantains or eggs, but by the second or third time, Kaia has always willingly self-fed herself and eaten. And after the last two months, our nanny admitted to me that she was wrong. She watched Kaia self feed herself cut up buckwheat noodles today, and our nanny was so intrigued that she asked me if she could try some herself (our nanny didn’t know what buckwheat noodles were).

“I didn’t think she’d eat everything you gave her, but she does!” the nanny exclaimed. “She really does eat everything. I’m just used to moms only giving 2-3 things at most for solids meals. Some moms don’t give anything and expect me to whip up food for their children with their empty fridge with just condiments in it! Then, they come up at the end of the day, and the first question they ask me is what their son/daughter ate for lunch or dinner!”

I cannot guarantee that my baby will embrace all foods and not be a picky eater. But I think that the proactive steps we’re taking right now with finger foods, self feeding, and a wide variety of exposure to different foods will set the best possible foundation for her to be a good, confident eater who loves and appreciates foods from all cultures. It’s a huge time investment, as her self feeding meals takes about 45 minutes to an hour per meal on the weekends, but I love watching her explore food and hope this helps her future.