Author: Krisztina

Now that we are back in the Chicago suburbs after our amazing European vacation, summer is winding down. Bill is still on parental leave so we hit up the pool at our future HOA daily and make the most of hanging out with the cousins while they are not back in school yet. We pick up hand-foot-mouth at the childrens’ museum. At the end of August, we took a trip to the lakefront in Indiana to spend a long weekend in a big house (6.5 stories!) with the Amigos, Bill’s best friend group from high school. This was the 2nd annual Amigos Vacation and it was a blast! Kids and grownups alike had a super fun time swimming in the pool, swimming in the lake, running around the huge house, and eating ice cream. Each family was in charge of one meal, so we ate a lot and we ate well! These vacations are so fun there is some serious talk on the group chats about making them a bi-annual thing!

The first weekend of September we finally broke ground on our house! Follow the progress on Instagram! Our parents were all there to see it, and they set up a tailgate, with lawn chairs and snacks, to watch the excavator dig a big hole. We also started pre-preschool. It was a hard adjustment for Kalliszta, who had never done a class by herself before. After the first few tearful weeks at dropoff, she is much more comfortable with it, and even seems to enjoy her time at school. Her teachers rave about her range of vocabulary. She wont talk much to people she is still getting to know – they have to earn her trust over time and I fiercely respect that about her so much (so don’t you dare call her shy – she’s incredibly brave listening to and trusting her inner voice and I hope she never loses that) – but when she does speak to you, it is fully formed articulate sentences. She learns by watching and observing, and picks up so much. As her teacher says, she “absorbs information like a sponge”. She loves to give concerts singing the Pawston town anthem from her favorite show called Go Dog Go, and dancing to Jojo Siwa. She loves to play with her cousin Kiera and goes over to her house for playdates every week. She loves reading, reading to herself and reading to Mima and Nagypapa. She knows all her letters, colors, numbers, and can recognize beginning math equations. She is just so musical, smart, silly, athletic, and funny. She is becoming a very picky eater and is doing her best at sleeping by herself in her big kid bed without a pacifier and trying hard to not hit, push, kick, shove, scratch Bence. Her parents are so incredibly proud of her.

During the second week of September, Bill had a work trip to San Francisco Monday through Thursday, followed by a surprise trip to San Diego to celebrate Vijay’s birthday. Of course, Bill mistakenly ruined the surprise because he made his return flight from SD to Chicago public on his calendar, and Vijay saw it. Oh well. Robbie, Agith, and Bill all visited Vijay, and they had so much fun exploring San Diego and catching up.

On Saturday, October 1st, we celebrated Bence’s 1st birthday – his Golden Birthday (1 on the 1st). His development is just through the roof, thanks to his big sister and big cousins. He wants to be able to run with them and play with them and interact with them. He is so mobile and athletic, practically running these days! He can “say” a lot of words that sound like ball, baba (baby in Hungarian), bubble, balloon, bottle, and mama. He is just so joyful and full of life. He loves bubbles. He loves balls. He loves to throw them and chase them. He loves “playing” soccer, basketball, and tee ball. He loves giving high-5’s. He loves music class and playing instruments, “singing” and “talking”. He loves his mom so much. Like, so much. The purest most joyful love and happiness directed right at me completely melts me every morning when he sees me. He loves to shove a book in your face to tell you he wants you to read it to him, or just walk backwards towards your lap and sits down on you with a book. In a previous post, I mentioned he didn’t love books yet. Well now he loves them so much that he and Kalliszta have disputes over which one I should read them next! He is constantly learning and absorbing new things and just so incredibly smart. He loves to pull the books down from the bookshelf. He loves bathtime. He loves to explore new spaces on his own, copy what Kalliszta does and says, try all foods, eat off of your plate, and cry when Kalliszta shoves him or kicks him. Now that he is no longer a baby, Kalliszta and Bence spend much of their time playing together. It is so sweet to see, and we love encouraging them and praising them when they do. His parents are so incredibly proud of him. 

In the afternoon once Bence’s party was over, I, about 9 weeks pregnant at the time, passed some very large blood clots that left me light headed, dizzy, and nauseous. I had been passing clots for the week and a half prior to that, but it was clear I needed to go to the emergency room. Eva and Angela stepped in to finish up dinner and bedtime with the kids while Bill and I went to the ER. I was clearly miscarrying, and so the doctors were able to give me an IV to rehydrate me, and some high dosage pain killers. I was discharged as my body had naturally begun the evacuation process, there was no need to expedite. I was able to see the doctor again the day before a family trip to Arizona, because I needed to know if I would be healthy enough and safe to travel to a place that may not perform life saving procedures on me if necessary. Though I was still bleeding, I was stable enough to continue the trip as planned. Though the second half of September and first half of October were spent in physical pain and sadness, there was much joy in celebrating Bence’s birthday and spending time with loved ones in Arizona! The long weekend mini-family reunion in Arizona was so much fun! Aunt Laurie and Uncle Kevin opened their home to us, and their guest house to the O’Finns, and we are very grateful for their hospitality. Kalliszta still talks about Hux and Remy (precious family dogs) and how Uncle Kevin turned the clock off because it scared her at Aunt Laurie’s house. We had a great time at the beach, at the railroad park, at McDonald’s Ranch, hanging out in the backyard with cousin Evelyn, going to a brewery, and playing at Mandy & Mike’s house next door with cousins Maddie and Wyatt! Thanks for the great memories everyone, can’t wait for next time! At the end of October, our kids got RSV, along with most kids in the nation. Luckily we never had to go to the emergency room, but there was a scary evening when Bence was having trouble breathing at a normal pace. We called the pediatrician hotline and spoke to the doctor. We were told to monitor breaths per minute, do a steam bath, suck out his snot, and put a vaporizer in his bedroom. I slept in his room that night but thankfully these at-home remedies began working. We are thankful they had the Covid and flu vaccines and they didn’t have that on top of RSV. We were all feeling better by Halloween, when we went trick or treating as two big hot dogs with our puppy doggies. 

In November, we celebrated Kalliszta’s 3rd birthday with a family-only party at Mima and Nagypapa’s house and then had a gymnastics birthday party through the parks district that weekend with her friends from her classes. The kids had a blast running around the gymnastics gym for an hour doing whatever they wanted, and the parents were glad their kids got all that energy out! We enjoyed a Jojo Siwa cake and homemade cookies (thanks Mima!). We started the holiday season off early with a day trip to Chicago with the O’Finns to check out the Christkindlemarket and the fun sites of downtown the day before Thanksgiving. It was a great day despite not getting any good family photos, and I hope to continue that new tradition (of going to Chicago, not the part about not getting a good picture)! The day after Thanksgiving was Grandpa Bob’s birthday, which we celebrated by visiting the Christmas tree farm and helped our grandparents pick out their trees. 

And now, here we are at the end of a December that flew by, still not a great family holiday picture to be had, but a year full of (mostly) wonderful and happy memories. My sister Angela came for her birthday and the holidays and Kalliszta and Bence had so much fun with her. The kids got waaaaay too many presents, but hopefully they made even more memories. We look forward to one last big move in 2023, and look forward to a lifetime in our new house! We hope the new year brings more happy moments for you and your loved ones. Take care!

Now that I published THREE blog posts in 2022, I still consider myself a blogger. I’m not big on New Year resolutions, but let’s see if I can get FOUR in 2023. Let’s see what happens…

My Instagram profile proudly boasts that I’m “blogger”. Actually that I’m a “travel blogger turned mommy blogger”. Considering that I’ve only posted once this year, a more appropriate tagline would be “aspiring blogger” or even more appropriately, “has-been blogger”. And so today, in the final moments of 2022, I owed it to myself to publish something, anything. For those of you who receive our holiday card, it’s possible you went to the website that hosts our annual end of year letter and read it. If that’s you, the following may sound suspiciously familiar since I am resourcefully publishing the holiday letter I wrote as a blog post. I may be reusing and recycling, but don’t worry, I didn’t reduce. In fact, I’ve broken it up into TWO posts.

This one combines my former and current blogger identities, traveler and mom. Enjoy! And sorry about the terrible formatting of the pictures.

On June 24th, Bill, Krisztina, Kalliszta, Bence, and Eva (aka my mom, aka Mima), and 7 suitcases, hopped on a plane to Dublin. Back in January, Bill and Krisztina committed to play at the World Masters Ultimate Championships in Limerick, Ireland. Bill played with a Masters (age 33+) Men’s team from Chicago called Pacemaker, and I played with a Grand Masters Mixed (Women age 37+, Men 40+) team from Boston called Molasses Disaster. Earlier in the month I took a quick weekend trip to meet most of her teammates and play with them at a tournament in Boston. The only teammates I played with before (a decade earlier!) were Emily, Cara, Marisa, and Seth. It was fun to see each other and play with each other after all those years. Molasses Disaster ended up losing ALL their games at that practice tournament but didn’t lose heart or hope!

Bill and I thought it would be easier to handle playing a week-long international frisbee tournament if we were on different teams so that while one parent was playing the other could be on parent duty. That proved not exactly to be true because our schedules were so different, and there was a lot of rain and wet and cold that it didn’t make sense to bring the kids and my mom to the fields every day. The week and a half in Ireland had much less sight-seeing than we had hoped due to our teams’ schedules being all over the place, and much more indoors time at our river-front vacation house for the kids and Eva than we had hoped for. A huge shoutout to Eva, who was on duty taking care of two kids, one who just started crawling and only wanted to crawl around into everything, in a small apartment and braving the rain and cold entertaining two kids (and the other sideline kids!) while their grown ups played frisbee. She also made all the food for everyone everyday, and did all the laundry.

Over the course of the week, we ran into/met up on purpose with so many friends from over the years. It was great getting to spend some time with Julie and Dan (and have our kids meet again and play together!) and Paul and Liz. In the end, it was all worth it because I am now a World Champion! It was an incredibly satisfying feeling contributing on field to the team’s success, everyone playing better individually, and better together over the course of the tournament with every game. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing frisbee over the last 15+ years was playing in the semi-finals and the finals. Though a world championship was on the line, I felt more joy than nerves, and felt no self-imposed pressure one would assume in such high stakes games. That was probably why I played so well! To watch some video clips, go to my Instagram Highlights called “World Championships”. Bill, Kalliszta, and Bence are so proud of me and we all agreed that a touristy trip back to Ireland was necessary in the future. 

Since we were already so far from home in Ireland, we figured we might as well stay on that side of the world and head to Hungary to visit my family. This second half of our Europe trip was planned a bit last minute, so there were some scrambles to rent a car, get train tickets and seats, figure out daily itineraries, etc, but it all worked out. Luckily we have amazing family and friends in Budapest who are always happy to give airport rides, lend strollers, go grocery shopping for us to stock our fridge before we arrive, etc. My aunt and uncle, Agi and Feri, and my cousin and her husband, Ildi and Balint, picked us up from the airport. Balint and I were wearing the same exact color bright pink shirt. I should have snapped a pic! By now, it was July and Gabor celebrated his retirement (Congrats Nagypapa!!!) by joining us in Budapest (after his flight was canceled, then delayed, then delayed again). We spent the first week living in a three bedroom apartment in a fun part of the city. We would walk to local playgrounds during the day, visit with family and go out to dinner with family and friends. It was so lovely. Our favorite place in all of Budapest is the Dunapart (the Danube Shore). Located on the Buda side (West side) of the Danube River, north of Obuda Island, north of the ancient Roman ruins (yes – the Romans made it that far East!), and across the street from where my aunt, uncle, and cousins live, is a lively dirt-road river-walk lined with restaurants. Since it’s off the beaten path, you probably won’t find it listed in most travel books. These aren’t fancy restaurants, but the kind where you order some greasy (read: delicious) food at the window, and eat it at picnic tables. On weekends there is often live music, and the atmosphere is just so much fun on those beautiful summer days with the breeze off the river. Part of the many happy memories along the shore is being there with our friends and family, so we always make a point of it to go at least once on every trip to Budapest. This time we went twice, because we had to make sure Bob and Judy got to experience it. Out of all the beautiful places we went together, this was definitely a favorite of theirs. They were even serenaded while they danced by a group of guys at a bachelor party! 

After about a week, we drove out to Lake Balaton, a summer vacation staple for Hungarians. Of course the 4 days we stayed there, it was gloomy and cold and windy. This was Bob and Judy’s first experience of Hungary as they arrived a week after us. I think they were amused by the size of the kitchen in our rental house. We made the most of our time at the Lake by going on a boat cruise, going to a castle, splashing in the kid pool at the house, and enjoying the lively lake-front happenings of the weekend. We all (Bob, Judy, Eva, Gábor, Bill, me, Kalliszta, Bence) headed back to Budapest just to get on a train to Vienna, Austria. Thankfully, Eva, who is a seasoned European traveler, insisted we purchase seats for the 2 hour train ride. An extra $5 a head, it was extremely worth it as both the train there and back had people standing all along the aisles as the rail lines sell as many tickets as people want to travel, not as many tickets as there are seats on the train.

In Austria, we stayed at a beautiful Airbnb penthouse with a gorgeous view of the Opera House for 2 nights. That first night we went out to dinner after a long day of travel. The next day, Bill, Kalliszta, and I went out for breakfast while Eva put Bence back down for a nap, since they were up since 5am. There is something so magical about sitting at a cafe watching a city wake up and start bustling around you. Then we all went to an awesome children’s museum, gave ourselves a walking tour of the city, then met up with our friend Tovah at lunch who joined us for much of the next week! After a quick rest, we all (except Bence and Eva) took the subway to Schönbrunn to see the palace and the gardens. It was beautiful, and we only scratched the surface of all there was to see. As it was our last night in Vienna, after the kids were asleep, we left Eva and Gabor to babysit. Bill, Bob, Judy, Tovah, and I went out to dinner near St. Stephen’s Square. We celebrated with the trendy drink of the summer, an aperol spritz! The next morning we walked to the subway to the train station to head back to Budapest. Thank goodness we had seats as this train was smaller and older than the first one, and the entire aisle ways were lined with people standing and sitting on the ground for the 2.5 hour trip. It didn’t occur to anyone to take a picture since the whole thing was pretty uncomfortable. 

Back in Budapest we wanted to show Bob and Judy and Tovah around, so we packed the schedule with sightseeing. It was definitely tricky working around the kids’ sleeping schedules. Bence would wake up at 5:30, have a bottle of milk and cuddle and play with Eva, then go back to sleep around 7:30 just as Kalliszta was waking up. Then once Bence was up again, Kalliszta was nearing her nap. There might have been a day or two when we didn’t all go somewhere together until 2pm! We stayed at an Airbnb in a great location in the city center on the Pest side of the Danube near a delicious gelato place where they serve the gelato in the shape of a rose. We went back so often one of the employees and I had built a rapport!  It had charming wallpaper and beautifully high ceilings, but the main living space was small and had an oversized dining table in the middle that was not ideal for small children and fitting lots of people. It was a bit cramped, but we made it work. 

Our first full day back in Budapest, Bill and Gabor spent the morning going to the airport to pick up our rented 15 passenger van. The rest of us went to do some sight seeing up on Castle Hill and the Fisherman’s Bastion. Since the Chain Bridge was closed for repairs, we couldn’t walk across it as we had planned. Instead, Kalliszta, Bence, Bob, Judy, Tovah, Eva, and I took a bus. Everyone except Eva and Judy got off on the other side of the bridge to take the funicular up the hillside. We all met back up near Matthias Temple. After a bit more walking around, we stopped to eat “lunch” at a pastry and treats shop. By now, Bill and Gabor had the big van, but we had to walk down the hill to meet them, since Castle Hill is closed to most traffic. We walked down along the back side of the hill along the ancient stone walls protecting the Hill and passed the yellow apartment building Eva grew up in. We piled in the car and headed to the Dunapart (the Danube Shore) to have dinner there again with our friends and family. After dinner, Kalliszta headed up to her great aunt and uncle’s 5th floor walk up apartment to pet a bunny. It was a great end to her great day. 

The second day, we took the Underground metro, (the first subterranean rail in continental Europe!) to the zoo. We walk past Hero’s Square, flanked by two museums, with City Park just to the north. After the zoo, we headed back to the Airbnb to recoup for dinner. We ate dinner along the Danube with a beautiful view of the Castle at the very restaurant where Bill and I celebrated their engagement! (Read about that here from my blog: https://krisztinafinn.com/2018/05/06/a-quick-side-trip-to-hungary/ ). Eva’s brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and his girlfriend joined us for dinner. The following day, we visited a nearby playground and fountain before heading to my grandma’s village Biatorbagy to have lunch and for Kalliszta to help Grandma Eva with some light gardening. Then once back “home” after the kids were asleep, we went out to dinner at the happening Gozsdu Udvar (alleyway). 

One of the best ways to see Budapest is from the river! On our third day, the whole crew took a late morning boat cruise to Margaret Island. We had a picnic lunch at the Rose Garden, where Bill and I got engaged years before. It was so wonderful to show Bob and Judy both the Rose Garden and the restaurant where we celebrated. That evening we all went to an organ concert at St. Stephen’s Basilica. On our last full day in Budapest, we all piled in the 15 person van and drove to a far corner of the city to go to AquaWorld. We only planned to stay a couple of hours, but ended up there for more than half the day! It helped that Bence fell asleep as soon as we pulled up, so after his (2 hour!!) nap he was ready to play and splash for the next few hours. Since my parents were staying an extra 2 weeks in Hungary, they came back to AquaWorld after they dropped off their luggage at Eva’s friend’s guest suite where they would stay the remainder of their trip. Going on a trip like this with a big group of people meant lots of logistics, but it was such a fun and memorable trip we wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, actually, in hind-sight, we would have changed the order of things, so we wouldn’t have to change Airbnbs so frequently with small children and lots of luggage. Next time we’ll do Budapest sightseeing first, then drive out to Balaton, then drive to Vienna (no more trains!), then fly home from there on a direct flight. (Bence pooped on me during a layover in Warsaw, so she is now the proud owner of a Warsaw airport t-shirt.)

With Kalliszta, I was able to write a blog post about my experiences during her first 5 days, 5 weeks, and 5 months of life right around her 5 month birthday. I had planned to do the same with Bence. To chronicle the chaos, the struggles, the snuggles, and the daily life of being a boring minivan-driving suburban white lady with a toddler and an infant. With each month that passed after his 5 month birthday, the guilt of not finding the time – or when I found time not having the cognitive brain function to do anything other than stare at the wall (projecting something mind numbing on Netflix or Bravo or HGTV) and eat chocolate – grew exponentially. I want so badly to give to them and do for them equally, but I also accept that their lives are different because I am different because they are both on this Earth.

During Kalliszta’s baby days, I remember thinking that I didn’t know what tired was until I had a kid. Now I look back at that mom of one and think just how easy she had it. When I was a stay at home mom of one, I could use naptime to do something like, pump breastmilk, sleep, veg out, zone out, doom scroll, day dream, listen to podcasts, clean up from breakfast, make lunch, clean up from lunch, do laundry, check email, respond to emails, order a Costco delivery, brush my teeth, or take a shower. If I did 2 of those things, that was a big day for me. Now as a stay at home mom of two, I am lucky if their nap times overlap for 30 minutes. I put a lot of pressure on myself to do something productive from that list of things to do during naptime that I usually don’t. There is essentially no downtime, no moment to myself to regroup, no pooping with the door closed, and definitely no sitting down to eat a meal; I mostly just stand over the kitchen sink inhaling whatever we have at my 4pm lunchtime when I’m famished. 

Since even before Bence was born, I packed Kalliszta’s schedule with music class, dance class, gymnastics class, sport mania class, mini movers sports class, cousin playdates, and tiny tot school (not all at once during the same season because that’s too much for anyone) not just for her development but for myself too. Though it sometimes takes the entire morning to get everyone ready and out the door – longer than the actual class itself – it gives me a reason to get out of the house. To have something to do without me having to google “what to do with a toddler today near me”. To meet kids her age and their cool parents. To make new friends. These Parks Department classes have been really great for that. We have met great kids and their families because after seeing familiar faces in classes over and over, we got to know each other. I started a GroupMe (a group texting app) and now we have Moms Night Out hang outs once a month! We also do play dates and playground meetups because it’s not only about the moms having fun I guess. 😉 

There’s a saying that goes something like “a great athlete has a short memory but learns quickly”. Meaning essentially not to dwell on your mistakes but to use them to improve your game from them. I think the same can be true of parenting. I don’t know what we did on Tuesday, but I know not to give dairy to a kid with the stomach flu. I can’t remember if anyone wore sunscreen to the playground today, but I know to line the crib with pacifiers so a baby about to wake can reach out in any direction, find one, put it in their mouth, and go back to sleep. And parents, just like athletes, need to mentally prepare. If Bill has a late meeting, he tells me (even though I can see his calendar), so I’m not expecting a shift change right at 5. We went on a month long international trip (blog post on that upcoming maybe but honestly who knows) and I anticipated terrible sleep, terrible poops, terrible keeping to a schedule (for naps and bedtime and meals) for everyone, grown ups included. And while much of that was true mostly due to our lack of actual planning which resulted in lots of moving around, our kids were absolute troopers. Night time sleep was hit or miss. Day time sleep was hit or miss. And though there were the obvious hungry and/or tired cranky outbursts, the kids were rock stars. They loved the trip. It was challenging for everyone and we put them through the ringer in terms of pushing bedtimes way back and doing lots of boring activities like going out to eat, but the kids really surprised me with their willingness to just go with the flow having many new experiences daily. 

Just like my guilt for not having any pictures in Bence’s baby book and not curating his “One Second A Day’ video in the app has grown exponentially, so has Bence’s development. Because he has been attending all those Parks Department classes since even before he was born, he is absolutely crushing it. He loves music class and gymnastics. He loves watching kids play, and has quite the attention span for musical instruments, even though he mostly puts them in his mouth. One good thing about having a short memory in regards to parenthood is I don’t compare Bence’s development to Kalliszta’s because I just don’t remember. I could look at pictures or read old posts, but I don’t know when Kalliszta cut her first tooth. I noticed Bence’s yesterday! It is so amazing how much his personality is really coming out. He is loving his newfound freedom of crawling and climbing everywhere. He loves pulling the books off the shelf. He loves pulling himself up to standing at every surface of our living room. Thankfully he has an older sibling so our living room resembles a preschool playroom more than an actual space grownups inhabit. He loves to be in the water when he is not tired – he loves a pool or a splash pad or a bath or a puddle or a water table. I love how much he loves me and how he smiles and gets so excited when he sees me. I love how he loves to talk. I loved how his poops smelled the first 5-6 months of his life while he was a purely breastmilk baby. I love how if he sees anyone eating anything, he wants to eat too and will let you know. I don’t think he loves being in his high chair, but he loves eating and trying new foods. I spent a weekend pureeing fresh fruits and veggies for Kalliszta before I bought some Gerbers. With Bence we went straight to store bought. He does enjoy gumming on fresh veggies like peppers and carrots. He loves fruit, especially bananas like his sister. I am so relieved his teeth are coming in because now I can give him more types of foods and only be slightly less anxiously nervous about choking. 

Bence is now at that age where he can interact back with his sister, and they are starting to play together. Just how a toddler’s mood can spin 180 in less than a second, that’s how they play together: Kalliszta is either so loving with him or does not want him around at all, especially if Bill is holding him. But they are getting better with each other and we are getting better at parenting siblings. (Some great parenting accounts that I follow: https://www.instagram.com/profemilyoster/ https://www.instagram.com/busytoddler/  https://www.instagram.com/biglittlefeelings/)

Doing anything or going anywhere with both of them is hard especially if I am by myself and outnumbered. But we are all getting the hang of it. We just have to plan extra time for getting ready to go to the car, to get in the car, and to get out of the car once we arrive. A typical day, Wednesday, for example, would go something like this:

5am-7am Wake up anywhere in that time window

7am-9:30am Drink milk, play, eat cereal. Grown ups get ready for the day in shifts. Eat cereal while also putting out whatever fires are happening. Brush my teeth. Vacuum up all the cereal that fell on the ground.

9:30am Get ready to get in the car. Wrangle all kids for new diapers and clothes for the day. Check the bag for extra clothes, food, diapers for all. Pro tip: keep diapers, wipes, shoes, and a change of clothes in the car. Keep it stocked. 

9:45am Pull out of the garage. We have a hybrid electric vehicle so the first 30 miles of any trip is purely electric. This makes me feel good about all the little trips we take around town every day. Unless we venture far away, we usually don’t use gas on a typical day!

10am Arrive at the Parks District community center for music class. Open the trunk, take out the stroller base and put the backpack and other stuff in there. Close the trunk. Open Bence’s side of the van. Take the carseat with him in it out and snap it into place on the stroller base. Close his door and walk around to Kalliszta’s door. Lock Bence’s stroller so it doesn’t roll away in the parking lot, open Kalliszta’s door. Put her shoes on. Unclip her seat belt on the car seat and take her out. Leave her blanket and pacifier. Bring her water bottle. Close her door. Unlock the stroller and run while carrying Kalliszta and pushing the stroller to the building. Push the automatic door button to open the door and walk in the building. Put Kalliszta down to lead us to the elevator. She pushes the down button. Wait for the elevator. Get in the elevator. Wait in the elevator. Get out of the elevator. 

10:05am Barely make it on time to music class! Say hi to our friends and to Miss Diana our teacher. Take Bence out of the car seat stroller so he can be part of class, too.

10:50am Sing our last goodbye song, put Bence back in the stroller, leave music class, and take the elevator back up.

10:55am Eat lunch on the picnic table outside. A banana and a cereal bar, a pb&j, or something similar and other random snacks, veggies, or fruit. 

11:30am Head back to the parking lot. Put Kalliszta in the car first since Bence is in the locked stroller. 

11:40am Pull out of the parking lot. 

11:42am Pull over because Bence is crying/screaming. Get out of the car, open his door, find the bottle that rolled away that was propped up in drinking position with a baby blanket, and prop his bottle back up. 

11:43am Continue driving.

11:48am Pull over because Bence is crying. He finished his milk and needs his pacifier. Get out of the car and put the pacifier in his mouth. 

12:00pm Turn left into our neighborhood and make the split second decision to turn right towards the Starbucks drivethru for a Mommy Treat. 

12:05pm Drive away from Starbucks with my caramel frappuccino. 

12:10pm Arrive at home. Unpack from the car: Bence asleep in his carseat first then Kalliszta. 

12:15pm Take Bence carefully out of the carseat, convince Kalliszta to come upstairs with me and go to her room to play or read or watch videos on Mommy’s Old Phone.

12:20pm Lay Bence down for a nap while begging Kalliszta to please leave Bence’s room and go back to her room and I will be there soon. Arm Bence with pacifiers all around him with 2-3 near each hand. 

12:22pm Meet Kalliszta in her room. Read a couple of books, talk about our fun morning and prep her for whatever we are doing that afternoon. 

12:35pm Lay Kalliszta down in her crib. 

12:35:30pm Kalliszta cries for one more hug. Pick her up and give her one big squeeze. Tell her I love her and am proud of her. 

12:36pm Walk out of Kalliszta’s room to the sounds of her crying. 

12:36:30pm All quiet in Kalliszta’s room.

12:37pm Sit down and chug my frappuccino while realizing there’s a whole second half to the day still left…

And this naptime situation is about to get extra tricky now that Kalliszta is in a toddler bed. A few mornings ago she climbed out of her crib and greeted us in our room at 6am. I was terrified but so happy she didn’t get hurt climbing out. Bill immediately converted her crib to a bed. Now she can climb out whenever she wants so we’ll see how big kid bed training goes. We got one of those clocks that changes from red to green indicating you can get up now. Thankfully this is happening now while Bill is taking the rest of his parental leave, and we can tag team at naptime. She needs us laying next to her to fall asleep right now. Hoping that won’t be the case in a week or so…? Crossing our fingers. Bence has been sleeping awesome once he recovered from jetlag. But between the months of 4 to like 8, he would wake up 2-3 times a night. That 4 month sleep regression is very real. And it was ROUGH. He would wake up around midnight, then 2 or 3am, then 4 or 5am, then be awake for the day around 6 or 7am. I normally go to bed around 10:30pm and if I went to bed any later, I would debate staying up until his first waking around midnight… but naturally on those nights I did stay up waiting for him to wake up, he would sleep through midnight until 2 or 3am. During one of those wakings, I would feed him because it was just so much faster to get him to go back to sleep. It was much easier when he was in the bassinet next to our bed, but once he started rolling we moved him to his own room and his own crib. Some of those 2am nights I would lay down on the couch in his room with him on my chest, and we would just sleep cuddled like that. We both loved sleeping like that, but did not want to make it a habit because I was never able to fully sleep deeply like that. My goal for my future is for all kids to sleep great all nights so that I too can sleep. Here’s hoping.

Bence doesn’t love reading yet. His sister gets upset when I read him a book and is only now coming around to the idea that everyone can look and listen to a book at the same time. We don’t read at bedtime yet because he is usually much too exhausted after his bath and bottle. It worries me that he isn’t used to reading and because of that I’m not sure he enjoys it. He grabs the book to eat it or loses interest and wants to be put down or crawl away. He does like books with pictures of real people, especially kids, in them though, so I think I need to be pushing those more. Also, he’s only 10 months old so the fact that he doesn’t have the attention span or interest in finding Spot, isn’t a predictor for his future academic success. Probably. 

Bence is thriving and loving life. He’s had so many great experiences in just his first 10 months, and it is so fun to watch him take it all in. Though most everything was a lot easier before Bence was so mobile I love watching him try new things. Now I just have to keep my head on a swivel because he is fast. He is so sweet. I call him Boom Boom because he is my whole heart and hearts go boom boom. In general, he is so easy going and just wants to be part of the action. Whenever the four of us are hanging out in the living room which is multiple times a day, Kalliszta says we’re having a party. And I love a party. 

There’s a trend now (if a sample size of 2 is large enough to establish a trend) that my children arrive before their due date. It isn’t that they necessarily want to, but my blood pressure just doesn’t agree with the end stages of pregnancy and the only cure is delivery. Luckily, I generally felt pretty good for the majority of the time I’m pregnant, though it is much much harder to be a stay-at-home pregnant mom with a toddler than a pregnant lady with no kids commuting to an office job everyday. I am speaking from experience here.

7:00pm Tuesday, September 28th

I take my blood pressure (BP) at home, as I have been monitoring it per doctor’s orders for the past 2 weeks, and it has been creeping up, and finally hit that 140/90 threshold which prompted a call to Triage. The doctor on call recommends induction, so Bill and I prepare to go to the hospital. We have been prepping Kalliszta for her new baby, and told her that Mommy and Daddy won’t be home for the next 3 days because we are going to the hospital to get the baby out. Luckily, my mom, Kalliszta’s Mima, has been staying with us for the past many weeks in part for this specific occasion and will stay with Kalliszta. I take a shower, we eat dinner, and around 11pm Bill and I head to downtown Chicago to Northwestern Prentice Women’s Hospital. At that hour, the drive only took 40 minutes. By midnight we are admitted to triage and I am hooked up to the blood pressure monitor that takes a measurement every 15 minutes, as well as the belly monitors that track contractions and the heartbeat. After 2 hours of good blood pressure readings, averaging about 120/70, and all labs of bloodwork and urine come back clean, I am released to go home. I guess there is something super relaxing about being in a hospital that caused my BP to go down? Bill and I are a little surprised, but also glad to have had this practice run.

11:30am Thursday, September 30th

I am at my 38 week appointment (even though I was only at 37 weeks and 6 days) and again my BPs are up. They teeter near the 140/90 mark, and the doctor basically tells me that I am going to get induced tonight. It is for my safety and Zelda’s. I don’t have preeclampsia like I was diagnosed with at the end of my pregnancy with Kalliszta, but I have gestational hyper-tension. Not great but not as bad (or so I tell myself). She tells me to go home, pack up, get ready, and come back in the evening, and that she will tell Triage to be expecting me.

On Tuesday I was mentally ready to be induced, but today I was not. I call Bill crying while I ate lunch – a very expensive but delicious soup and chocolate covered blueberries from my favorite food spot in the lobby of the building called Beatrix. Bill is able to calm me down and convince me that this is a good thing, and I drive home. We get our go bags again, take a shower, eat food and tell Kalliszta that this time we really are going to bring her new baby home and that she will be able to hug and kiss her new baby soon. She even tells us that she will hug and kiss the new baby, which melts my heart. She had stepped on something earlier in the morning and was walking funny – she wasn’t putting her heal down and wasn’t putting weight on it – and it worried me. I didn’t want to leave her if she was in pain. Luckily though, by the time Bill and I left, she was ok.

4pm Thursday, September 30th

Bill and I leave the suburbs and head to the hospital. Triage was much busier tonight than on Tuesday. We checked in at 5:15pm and waited in the Triage lobby until 7:25pm when they finally brought us back. I take everything off and change into the hospital gown, and Bill made me laugh with his comment about my pantyliner: “well that wont be enough!” referring to just how much blood and other discharge is in our future. I get my IV put in, and while it only took one try this time (as opposed to three tries and two nurses last time), it still hurts like a mother when it’s happening. After contractions, getting the IV in is the most painful part of childbirth. The Triage rooms are small and the beds are not meant for sitting on/laying on for hours. They get very uncomfortable after a while – the mattress pad where your butt sits was basically non-existent from overuse, and I felt like I was sitting on a piece of wood. I couldn’t really lay flat because of the monitors on my belly, but I also couldn’t sit up fully for the same reason. But I guess even that narrow uncomfortable bed was better than the side chair Bill had to sit on. Can you believe we were in this room 8 hours! Basically it was a holding room – I guess a lot of people were having babies that day.

11:15pm Thursday, September 30th

For the past few hours Bill and I were talking about getting dinner. We kept thinking we would move to a room in Labor and Delivery soon, but the hours kept ticking away. We buzz the nurse and ask if I am allowed to eat, and what’s good around here. Bill and I decided on Panera, and it was super delicious. I have a great poop while in Triage (my second one there) and then we both try to sleep as this will be our last night without a newborn. But no real sleep was had given the uncomfortable arrangements of the room. My BPs the whole time in Triage were in the 130s and high 70s, but the plan was to get induced anyway, despite these numbers being below the threshold of worrisome. Bill makes an observation about how this room was obviously designed for women because the toilet seat doesn’t even stay up in the bathroom!

3:20am Friday, October 1st

FINALLY! A nurse comes to our room with a wheelchair and good news: a room is ready for us in Labor and Delivery on the 8th floor! We get the best room because of the view, but since it’s the middle of the night, we don’t know this yet. We get settled in, and Bill changes into sweatpants (yes, we all have to get comfy) and a button down shirt. I love him so much, he is so thoughtful because I didn’t even think of that. He wore his button down shirt so he can do skin to skin time with Zelda once they arrive. He also packed things that I really liked having the first time around, specifically blankets for us and a big plastic cup for water with a big wide straw and a handle. When you can’t move much because of monitors and weird positions, having a straw makes a huge difference.

5:15am Friday, October 1st

It’s time to check my cervix to see how far dilated I am. And I am at 3cm, which is a good start. Zelda’s head is down, so we are good to go ahead and start inducing me! First step, put the Foley balloon in. I chat with the nurses about pain meds now, and think back to last time when the pain started and decide to hold off. The only part of this birth plan I was adamant about was to get an epidural before having my water broken. I should have done it before the balloon though! It isn’t painful to put in, just a lot of discomfort and pressure and some cramping. The balloon is long and narrow, and once in place, it is filled with water to expand. Soon after it is in at 5:30am, I start having very painful cramps, and was feeling these contractions in my lower back and stomach where I think my ovaries are. This was like a 7 out of 10 pain. My BPs are now in the 140s and high 80s. And now Bill was taking a nap and I really didn’t want him to wake up because at least one of the two of us needed to be well rested for when we have an infant to take care of! The doctor said it would take about 4 hours for the balloon to work and would check on me only later.

6:40am Friday, October 1st

I buzz the nurse, or she came in, and tell her I am in a lot of pain from the contractions, and if we can check on the balloon. Turns out, the balloon did it’s job in only an hour and was ready to come out. Thank goodness. Once it is out, I feel an immediate sense of relief and the contraction pain is gone. I let the care team know I am ready for the epidural now before we do any other interventions. We had to wake Bill up because he had to stand on the other side of the bed so he can’t see the epidural being put in. I purposely asked the anesthesiologist to please not let me see the needle, and she said she never lets her patients see it. I don’t even want to google image it, because I won’t be able to unsee it. All I know is that it is BIG. I was very nervous for the epidural, don’t know why because I had it done before, but during the whole quick procedure, my BPs shot way up. The bottom number was in the 100s! The nurse was confident we could disregard those numbers because of the stress I was going through at that moment.

10:40am Friday, October 1st

Time passes, I get a catheter in, we hang out, sleep, and then Dr. Armstrong comes to break my water because my cervix is at 5cm dilated. She will be the one to deliver Zelda, but she’ll get stuck in the OR when the time comes so Dr. Nosal steps in when it’s time. I really liked her, but I am jumping ahead. Bill brings me some popsicles so I can do a taste test. Cherry is the best, followed by orange then grape.

1:10pm Friday, October 1st

It’s time for another cervix check. A second year resident named Connie does the exam, and she gasps, looks up at the nurse who was at the computer doing monitoring stuff and says “Call the head nurse. I feel a hand.” In a matter of 2 to 5 seconds, the room went from 2 people (other than me and Bill) to 12. Apparently, it isn’t good if your baby is trying to high-five from within. Zelda’s hand was above their head in front, a position not safe for birth. One of the many people who came running into the room was the head nurse on the floor named Nikki. I met Nikki once before when I went with my sister-in-law to hang out with some of her friends outside one of their garages. There was a small group of 5 of us, and it was a lovely socially distant mom hangout soon after we moved here from California. When conversation turned to my pregnancy and hospital of choice, Nikki told me she’s a nurse in Labor and Delivery at Northwestern. I secretly hoped she would be there on the day I was delivering because I thought she was really cool, and I want to be her friend. And now we got to hang out again while my baby’s hand was hanging out of my vagina! We chit-chatted a bit while the fourth year resident tried to push Zelda’s hand back down. Nikki tells me we may have to have a C-Section ASAP. I saw how worried Bill looked, from the news of the potential procedure and just the sea of doctors that rushed into the room, so I felt like I had to stay calm. Also, I was trying to look super cool in front of a hopefully future friend Nikki. But moments later, the fourth year resident said she was able to push Zelda’s hand down and we are out of the danger zone and back on track in a good position. She was like, “that never happens!” I felt lucky. And the room cleared just as fast as filled. Phew.

2:25pm Friday, October 1st

Zelda was not super happy with the amount of Pitocin I was getting so it got turned off. I don’t remember when we started the Pitocin drip in my IV, but it was probably after my water breaking. We know Zelda didn’t like it because of the heart rate monitor. I kept trying all sorts of different positions to get Zelda comfortable, even if it meant I was very uncomfortable.

4:05pm Friday, October 1st

It is time to start pushing! My two young nurses, Kate and Emma, were very funny and made a good team and provided good entertainment. They were also convinced that Zelda was going to be a girl. Around 4:30 I got super nauseous but didn’t throw up. I should have pushed the epidural button sooner – the button that releases more medicine – since it takes about 15 minutes to kick in. I should have just pushed it all the time because there is no way to overdose since there is a a max amount it would release no matter how many times you push the button. Also, two times during pushing I pooped! I didn’t think there was any poop in me, but I guess there was! It was just two little balls of poop, that the nurse tried to discretely wipe away, but I saw it both times and called it out. I saw because I had requested to use the mirror, which was really helpful for me last time. I could see my muscles contracting as I pushed, and I could see Zelda coming lower and lower.

6:09pm Friday, October 1st

12 hours after arriving to triage – half the time it took with Kalliszta – we have an announcement: It’s a boy! 6 pounds 9 ounces! (6:09pm at 6lbs 9oz I love that!) Bence made his entry into the world, and I got to see it happen in the mirror! Dr. Nosal was awesome because once she came into the room my pushing got better with her very clear direction. Each push is 3 consecutive 10 seconds of pushing while blowing air out, but on my last push both Dr. Nosal and I knew this was it, and she said one more 5 second push, and then one more 3 second push, and then there he was! He was so cute and sweet and got to lay on my chest and snuggle right away, where he stayed for maybe an hour. I cried when they put him on me. And Dr. Nosal showed me all the good stuff that came out with him – his placenta (it was huge!) and umbilical cord, and whatever else. It was cool to see. About an hour into his life, Bence ate a tiny bit, and then got to snuggle with his dad. I think it was during this time that we decide on his name and texted our family the happy news. Bence is said in English like the word “fence” or common “sense” but with a B!

8:00am Friday, October 1st

Bence, me, and Bill are moved to Postpartum and eat some delicious Nando’s Chicken.

10:30pm Friday, October 1st

Bence eats again. More checkups for him and me.

3:40am Saturday, October 2nd

I have a big poop (thanks to the help of stool softeners and peri bottles) and my BP is down to 116/72. More checkups. It is impossible to really sleep.

9am Saturday, October 2nd

Bence gets some bloodwork done. He doesn’t have jaundice, hooray! But he is diagnosed with a small tounge tie. This is obvious to me because he has a painful latch when I breastfeed him, partly due to that and his recessed chin. Hopefully as he gets bigger, that chin will become less recessed.

11:20am Saturday, October 2nd

Bence passes the hearing test!

3:30pm Sunday, October 3rd

A lot that I don’t remember happened between Saturday and Sunday afternoon, mostly eating and sleeping for all 3 of us. The nurses give Bence a bath at some point in the evening, and I let them take him to the nursery overnight so that I can get a couple of hours in a row of sleep. I do but it isn’t great sleep. My blood pressures also started going back up, but my uterus was going back down and I was having normal healthy amounts of bleeding. Bill thinks uterus checks are so funny. Basically, it is the nurse trying to touch my spine through my stomach in one very fast motion, kind of like being punched in the stomach. Sunday morning we were waiting around for someone (maybe a lactation consultant or pediatrician) who happened to go home sick and we didn’t know that so we could have been discharged much earlier instead of waiting around. By this time, Bill and I really wanted to go home. It seems like discharge always takes so long. It took a long time at UCSF too. Overall, I will say that UCSF was a better experience for a few reasons. Maybe because it was my first pregnancy and I had preeclampsia, the docs and nurses really explained a lot of what was going on. Or maybe I just had more questions. UCSF also sends people home with a lot more stuff that’s needed for recovery at home. So much so that I had leftovers of stuff. And the UCSF facility is newer so it feels shinier with more state of the art equipment, even the non-medical stuff was top notch, like TVs having Netflix. However, I am happy with my choice of Northwestern for Bence to be born in. Eventually, finally though, we were able to leave the hospital to go home so that Bence could meet Kalliszta and his grandparents. That was about a month ago now as I write this, but it feels like so so long ago.

4:23pm Sunday, October 3rd

Kalliszta and Bence meet for the first time, and I think it was love at first sight. Kalliszta wanted to hug Bence right away.

The past 1 month

Kalliszta is a great big sister. I was worried that she would like him at first and then tell us that she doesn’t want a new baby anymore, but that hasn’t happened (yet). She is very empathetic and cries when he cries and says “sad”. She helps out and likes to help feed him by holding the bottle. She sometimes cries because she wants milk too, but she can’t have too much or else she’ll have poops that hurt. She gets jealous when her Daddy is holding or feeding Bence, but he is so good at engaging with her and playing with her and making her feel special while holding a newborn. Some might call it infuriating how easy he makes it look. Like one day, my mom and I went to Target and Bill was at home with the two kids. We came home to find that he had cooked us all lunch AND had taken a shower. I would be able to accomplish neither of those things if I were alone with both of them. I think it’s because it is hard for me to carry both of them at the same time. Bill is taking 6 of his 16 weeks of parental leave now, and the remaining 10 later on. We’ll see how I do once he is back at work and my mom goes back to New York. Luckily, Bill works from home, and my parents will be moving to Illinois soon, so I won’t truly be alone. Even with all the hands taking care of these two wonderful kids, we are all sleep deprived. No stretch of sleep is really longer than 3 or 4 hours (except for Kalliszta), and that’s rough. But recovery in general for me was much faster this time around, I stopped bleeding after 2 weeks! But my blood pressure during those first two weeks postpartum were still very elevated. I had to go back for a checkup, but was basically told to monitor myself and to come back if I have certain symptoms. Then, 3 days after we brought Bence home, Bill and Kalliszta were driving home from music class when a lady ran a red light, and our minivan got totaled. Luckily, it was just the front of the car that got smashed, and Kalliszta and Bill were both fine. The airbags left some bruises and scrapes on Bill, but Kalliszta did not suffer physically nor emotionally, except the loud honking of the car after the accident made her cry. Other than this being scary for the grown-ups and bad for my blood pressure readings, the real headache came later trying to find a new minivan and dealing with insurance. The parts and labor shortage caused by the global pandemic made minivans few and far between. Ordering one didn’t guarantee we’d get it before the end of the year. And the first rental car provided by insurance was a Chrysler Pacifica, and there were things about it we liked more than our now totaled Honda Odyssey. Long story short, Bill actually found a 2021 Pacifica Hybrid that had everything we were looking for and more, but it was 100 miles away. The dealership delivered the car for free, and it is a huge relief and weight off to finally have a minivan again. We sure have been busy around here, because in addition to having a newborn and buying a new car, we are also planning a 2 year old’s birthday bash and building a house. Both those life events are worthy of their own blog post, so you all have some reading to look forward to! Til then, stay well and get vaccinated!

Dear My Soon-to-be-Second Born,

I love you. 

I feel guilty for not meticulously tracking this pregnancy like I did for your big sister. When people ask me how far along I am I never know. I tell them your due date and assume they will do the backwards math. I feel guilty I haven’t been taking “bump” photos every single week like I did with your big sister. I feel guilty that when your dad and I first talked about your “birth plan”, my initial thought was to make sure your big sister will be taken care of and not feel scared or abandoned. I have never spent a night apart from her and I am nervous about that. I feel guilty that we haven’t yet, and probably won’t have, a maternity photo shoot with your dad, your big sister, and me and you still in my belly, even though we did one with your big sister. I feel guilty that your big sister got 2 baby showers (one in New York at Mima and Nagypapa’s house and one in Illinois at Grandma Judy and Grandpa Bob’s house) and you didn’t even get 1.

— We did have all your grandparents and your cousins over on Labor Day, but I didn’t want presents so we just had a hangout with a bounce house and a slip ‘n slide. It is not that I don’t want you to have presents, I just didn’t want unnecessary stuff in our small rental home because we already have a lot of stuff in not a lot of space. I did want an ice cream cake though. When I placed the order the lady on the phone asked if I wanted anything written on it, so I said she can write “Welcome Zelda”.  But I did that just for you and me, not for any baby shower or baby sprinkle. I took a picture and quickly cut into the cake before anyone saw it. —

You will probably have to wait longer than your big sister did for a diaper change, or for some milk. And you will have to put up with a mommy who is more tired than your sister did. 

From the outside looking in, it may appear as if I care less, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I promise that even though you won’t always have my attention, when you do, I will be 100% completely present with you and make you feel as special as you truly are. When I think about the love I have for your big sister, I get completely overwhelmed by the emotion. The concept of infinity is one I understand, but I know I won’t fully grasp how infinite love can just double until I hold you for the first time. It is a rush of emotion that mothers of multiple children tell me will happen. I don’t doubt them, but I just haven’t experienced that yet and it is hard to imagine. But there’s always room at the Hilbert Hotel (you know, that thought experiment about the hotel with the infinite rooms all of which are occupied but then an infinite number of new guests arrive and still the hotel is able to accommodate them). I think it’s something like that. 

Even though I am at the hospital often for our appointments, your Dad and Mima had a chance to familiarize themselves a bit two weekends ago because we drove to Northwestern in Chicago to check it out. I love that your sister was born in a big city at a big university hospital, and I wanted the same for you. I wonder if that will be a source of pride for you. I do hope so because I agonized over which hospital and what OB practice to go with the first many weeks after we moved to Illinois. You and I checked out 4 different places, and I think we made the right choice. We had to make a decision somewhat quickly because we moved during the short window of genetic testing, and we had to get appointments right away. Luckily every place we wanted to check out was able to squeeze us in, and the genetic test results came back as good news. Hopefully there will be no traffic on the day of, because we live an hour away! I’m considering a scheduled induction because of that, and other health reasons I’ll mention below. And finally, a month or so ago, I started nesting. The top drawer of my dresser is all yours, with size 1 diapers and newborn sized clothes ready to go, and your ultrasound pictures are hung up above. You now have your own hamper for your dirty clothes, so your dad and I won’t have to sort the newborn and 2T clothes. 

At 36 weeks minus 3 days my blood pressure went up from my normal 117ish/60ish so that evening your dada put the bassinet back together and put the infant car seat in the car. We finished packing our “go-bag” as well. The next day my blood pressure hit 140/90 which triggered a call to triage. Your dad and I went into the office, not to triage, to monitor you on the Non-Stress Test machines and to test my blood pressure. You were moving well and had a good heartbeat, and my BPs in the hospital were in the high 130s over high 80s. I was released because the doctor knew I would be back in 2 days for our 36 week appointment for a follow up. It was at this time during my last pregnancy that my high blood pressure made its debut, and a couple of days later your big sister was here. I am monitoring my numbers at home and if we get to the high 140s and high 90s, it will be go time. Now at 8 months and 4 days pregnant, I am starting to feel ready. And would you look at that, I guess I DO know how far along we are!

Love,

Mommy

P.S. Some important commentary I felt necessary to share:

Because I was hoping to get pregnant again, I was tracking my period. For most of my adult life though, I never did. I couldn’t tell you if I was generally regular or not. When I would forget to take my birth control pills for 3 days in a row and had to wait for a new cycle to start taking them again, I am pretty sure my body got thrown off. That happened more times than I can remember. I am pretty lucky that my heaviest flow days are lighter than the average woman, and that there are very few of those days each cycle. I don’t remember how far along I was with you when I finally peed on a stick (remember, I had 2 failed pregnancies before you but after your big sister, and didn’t want to keep getting ahead of myself) but our first appointment with a doctor was at 12 weeks. All of this is to say that SO many women, including myself with your older sister, don’t know they are pregnant at 6 weeks. What is happening in Texas right now and the ramifications it will have in our country has me deeply scared and worried, most especially for women below a certain socio-economic status, a disproportionate amount of whom identify as a person of color, because rich women can always travel to a state that does not deny them of their constitutional right. 

Statistically, more than half of the women seeking abortions are already mothers. Mothers know what it is like to experience that infinite love of a child. Why would someone not want to double that infinite love? It is no doubt because our society doesn’t actually care about them or their children. To force a woman to have a child, but NOT guarantee that woman a living wage, free (or affordable) quality healthcare, the ability to attend all prenatal and postnatal doctors visits without facing penalties at work such as dock in pay, no pay, or being laid off, the access to affordable transportation to and from the doctor, paid time off to heal from the trauma of childbirth and to bond with the baby, paid time at work to pump milk in a safe and private setting, free or affordable* high quality child care to care for the child while at work, and free high quality healthcare for the child from the moment they are born, is not a society I want to live in, but, devastatingly, is the society we are living in. Without these social supports, one cannot claim to be “pro-life” or “pro-family” when the life of the mother and the life of the now born child are ignored. It is not surprising that the number of abortions in our country decline – go down in number – during Democratic presidential years because of the access to birth control and social supports mentioned above. As an example, Biden’s spending plan would make preschool free starting at age 3, subsidize child care before then, mandate 12 weeks of paid family leave, and combat food insecurity. 

In denying women their bodily autonomy and constitutional right, we as a society are doubling down on our patriarchal white supremacist misogynistic roots and are purposefully keeping people in the cycle of poverty. To be anti-abortion is racist. To be anti-abortion is classist. To be anti-abortion is mysoginst. Whether it’s non-consensual sterilization (something that has happened to women, especially of women of color, since the founding of our country and still happening today in our country) or the banning of abortion, it’s like which is it patriarchy? You want us having babies or not? Oh, it’s about staying in power by controlling and oppressing women and not actually about life or family or freedom? Oh ok cool, got it. 

*”The Department of Health and Human Services considers child care affordable if it costs families no more than 7% of their income.”

Dear Kalliszta, My First Born,

I love you. 

I feel guilty about the time and attention I won’t be able to give to you soon. For your whole life, I have been available when you needed me or wanted me, and I love being able to give that to you. I feel guilty that I am not doing enough to make your transition into siblinghood easier, even though the other day you gave my belly “your baby” a hug. You will probably have to wait longer for a diaper change or for some snacks or for a book to be read to you than you are used to right now. And you will have to put up with a mommy who is more tired than you are used to. But I promise that even though you won’t always have my attention, when you do, I will be 100% completely present with you and make you feel as special as you truly are. 

I can’t wait to see you in your new role as a big sibling. Your little sibling is extremely lucky to have you to look up to. You aren’t even 2 years old, but you already know the letters of the alphabet, can count to 10, identify a handful of colors and shapes, and know two really funny jokes*! Your energy is endless, your laugh is contagious, and I hope your love of books stays with you and continues to grow. I love that you call yourself Kissa and that you LOVE the moon. I also love that you call the vacuum “dacdum” and that we get to hug every time Daddy uses it to get all the crumbs off the floor after you eat because it is loud. You don’t like it when I am holding you and I hug Daddy, or when Daddy is holding you and he hugs me, so I anticipate the same thing will happen with your little sibling: you will push them away and say “No”. We will work on sharing the love, because you are starting to understand the concept of sharing, and taking turns. When you say “Kissa turn” and point to yourself at the playground when you want the other kid to get off so you can go, it is the cutest thing in the world. Taking turns is hard – you are truly your mother’s daughter because you don’t enjoy waiting. Lines are seriously the worst. 

People talk about the “terrible 2s” as the time when toddlers say “no” to everything and are generally defiant. I don’t see this as terrible at all, and I genuinely hope that you never lose that attitude, even though society will try to train it out of you. I hope you always say “no” when you want to. As a girl and as a woman, people will call you “difficult” or “too assertive” or “bossy”, words that would never be used to negatively describe a boy or a man, but I encourage you to fuck politeness. It’s funny because I think about what it would mean for you to rebel as you grow older. I think it might be hard to rebel because if that means you are being true to yourself, I will only love you and support you for it. My only real hopes are that you won’t become a conservative, that you don’t intentionally blow off school, and that you won’t join a religious cult. You are too headstrong, curious, and independent to do those things anyway. You inspire me so much, make me laugh constantly, and I just can’t get enough of you. 

Love,

Mommy

*How do you make a tissue dance? You put a little boogie in it!

Knock knock!

Who’s there?

Boo!

Boo who?

Don’t cry, it’s only a joke!

We did it – pulled the band-aid off and moved almost all the way across the country! It was going to happen eventually, so that Kalliszta could live close to her cousins, and the pandemic expedited things. We made the decision a month before we had to give our thirty day notice that we would not be renewing our rental lease in Oakland. It was just enough time to get all the logistics worked out: movers to pack a pod, a truck to ship the pod, movers to unpack the pod, a truck to ship the car, and find a place to live on the other side of the move. We finalized which place we were going to rent (inventory was low) about a week before we moved out here. We took a virtual tour with an agent and trusted Google Maps street view. We were looking in a small area because we wanted to be a short drive from Kalliszta’s cousins’ house – which we are! There actually was a house for rent across the street from their house but they wanted a 2 year lease, and we are hoping to not be renting by this time next year. But that location would definitely have been awesome.

Our townhouse is pretty great though. It is twice as big as our spot in Oakland and half as much. It is not as new and nice (we can’t flush the toilet when someone is showering, and the kitchen is an eye sore that lacks storage) but it works for now. And what’s funny is now that we live in the suburbs, we can walk to a grocery store and a big nice playground, which we couldn’t do in Jack London Square! And the best part is that we open the sliding door in the living room to the big open green grassy lawn that is shared with all the community residents. It is pretty great for getting outside time asap. Living on the top floor of an apartment building made for a huge mental barrier when trying to go outside. Did I pack everything in the stroller for the baby? Did I pack everything in the stroller for me? How long will we have to wait for the elevator? Did I bring a paper towel to touch the elevator buttons? Did I bring a paper towel for the building’s front door and elevator buttons for our way back up? Is there plenty of hand sanitizer? Do I need to pee? Should I change Kalliszta before we go outside? Should I bring extra snacks? Now I just open the door and we are outside in the green grass.

We actually didn’t tell Bill’s parents we were moving because we thought it would be a fun surprise! We landed on the day of our oldest nephew’s birthday, so we went straight to their house from the airport to the party. And sure enough, they were so surprised! Bill’s brother and sister-in-law did a great job keeping the secret! At first they just thought we were just visiting for the birthday, so there was another surprise that evening when we answered “forever!” to the question of “how long are you here for?” Good thing our nephew turned 10, otherwise we would not have moved. 😉

It is unlikely I would have chosen this exact township/village/suburb to live out the rest of my life (or at least until all my kids finish high school) because it is far from the city (an hour drive), politically purple neighboring villages (but mostly blue thank goodness), and my personal grappling with raising my kids in a place where the history of redlining has its roots (some resources: mapping inequality, article, 9-minute video) and where the effects of racist discrimination are still seen and felt. The truth though, is that the Bay Area is not better. Brooklyn is not better. I mean, the entire country was founded on – and still embodies – white supremacy, patriarchal principles, oppression, and suppression as we live on stolen land. I’m very aware that this post is going out on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre (some resources: interactive article, article, 24-minute podcast), which was not something taught in schools (at least not public suburban schools), but I do plan on teaching my children the true history of America – the one not written by land (and people) owning white men in positions of power. But this post is not about America’s inability to admit it’s true history, grapple with the effects, and right the wrongs of its multitude of current and past problems to actually and truly be “the land of the free”; it’s about us moving and living in the Chicago suburbs now! (Find what Indigenous Peoples’ land you live on here.)

I have been so lucky, and fully recognize my privilege, to have been born in Budapest to smart, highly educated white parents, grow up blond and blue-eyed in Southern California, experience living in New York City and Los Angeles as a young adult, and San Francisco and Oakland as a not-as-young adult, and spend 6-9 months – long enough to have a favorite restaurant and pick up the language a teeny tiny bit – living in Rome and Nairobi. These are all amazing cities and places not only to visit, but to fully experience as a resident and feel an ownership and pride in each of those places. To notice the changing seasons and the changing businesses and the changing of people. To feel connected as a “local”. And now I have the opportunity to fully embrace Chicago, and more specifically the northwest suburbs. We have been here for only 2 months and have already had some really great experiences: weekly play days with the cousins, lots of parks department activities like Tot Rock music and dance class, gymnastics, and soccer, trips to the city, lots of cousin birthday celebrations, Monday Trash Truck Day(!!) and bike rides. While we are all scared for the winter, right now the weather is just perfect. It almost never gets this nice in the Bay Area, so I think we made the right decision. Now we just need to buy a house (or build a house?!) and have my parents move next door, and this place will be the perfect place to raise a family. Hoping that all those dreams come true by this time next year. Stay tuned…

This post was written at the end of 2020 but I could not find the right time for myself to post it. So I am publishing it now, a little late, but still all true.

At the end of July I had what is called a chemical pregnancy. Had I not been trying to get pregnant and peed on a stick, I would not have known I was even pregnant since this type of failed pregnancy presents itself as a late period. I was one week late – about 4 weeks pregnant – and many women who don’t track their cycles wouldn’t even notice this tardiness. Some of the data indicates that 30-50% of women have a chemical pregnancy (again, it is possible to not even know you had one!) and 50-75% of failed pregnancies are chemical. 

And as many as 15% of known pregnancies fail. 

Basically, if you know 7 women, it’s not unlikely that at least one of them has had a failed pregnancy. Do you know 7 women? My guess is probably you know a lot more than 7. It’s much more common than we realize. So why haven’t you heard more stories from one out of 7 of your friends? Lots of reasons, many of which are not personal, but systemic:

“…society… sees women’s bodies as shameful and that blames them, even criminalizes them, for pregnancies gone wrong. Policies that punish women for getting pregnant at all. Widespread ignorance about human reproduction. A health care industry that too often fails women, especially women of color. And a general unwillingness to grapple with complex emotions” – Lauren Kelley and Alexandra March of the New York Times (read the full interactive article here.) 

You may have noticed that I am using the term ‘failed pregnancy’ instead of the more commonly heard term ‘miscarriage’. I personally am not particularly sensitive or triggered by this word, but I wanted raise awareness to arguments that the word “miscarriage” places blame on the woman for “incorrectly” (mis) carrying, when we all* know failed pregnancies are no one’s fault – they are merely the body’s natural way of removing non-viable cells with chromosomal abnormalities. 

*Hopefully we are all literate when it comes to sexual reproduction. 

When I peed on that stick in July, I was 3 weeks pregnant. An ultrasound would capture nothing at that point. My daughter was almost 9 months old, and while health care professionals – including my doctor – recommend 12-18 months between pregnancies, I felt that my body was back to it’s pre-baby health. Physically I felt ready, but when the test came up positive, I cried. I cried because I didn’t want Kalliszta to think we were trying to replace her, or like we were trying to upgrade to Kalliszta 2.0. Later that day I realized that because we love her so much, we want a duplicate, a clone of her, and that’s how I would explain it to her. And she would make an amazing big sister and that I want her to have a built-in forever friend. A week later when I started bleeding, I was confused because that didn’t happen the first time around when I was pregnant with Kalliszta. I googled a bit, and saw that spotting may be normal. But this wasn’t spotting, this was similar to a period blood flow. I messaged my doctor and we talked later that day or the next. She diagnosed what happened as a chemical pregnancy and ordered a blood test. While I didn’t know what it was called before I talked to her, I knew that I was no longer pregnant. My body didn’t feel pregnant anymore. It isn’t really a feeling I can describe. I don’t remember if I cried or not, and I don’t remember if I felt any relief. I did have a weird feeling like I had jinxed myself when I went online to cancel my 8 week appointment that I had made a day after the pee test – I should have waited longer to make that appointment. I stopped bleeding after two days and did not feel too much discomfort. It was basically a normal, yet shorter, period.

We went about our lives, weighed our risk factors, and decided to go to New York and Chicago to visit Kalliszta’s grandparents, aunts and uncle, and cousins at the end of the summer. We had the most wonderful time together with our families! I brought up what had happened, mostly in passing because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. 

Then, at the end of October, I had another failed pregnancy, this time at 6 weeks. Taking a lesson from the last time I was pregnant, I waited to pee on a stick until I was two weeks late for my period, at about 5 weeks. This time, there was a lot more bleeding. I remember it was a Sunday because Bill wasn’t working and was able to take care of Kalliszta while I laid down most of the day. In the morning, I had passed a blood clot that was the size of a golf ball and I knew I was no longer pregnant. I had very mild labor pains aka heightened period pains which for me presents as extreme lower back pain and some abdominal pain while I had heavy bleeding. This lasted for two whole days, but I bled for about two whole weeks. This time, I cried a little on and off for those two days. It’s a sad reality about our society that I actually felt lucky: that I wasn’t one of the many women who had to experience a pregnancy loss while at work, in a meeting about needing fewer meetings, or at a job requiring physical labor, silently suffering. 

My doctor ordered a blood test to check hcg levels, my thyroid levels, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Thyroid and all the other stuff looked good, but my hcg levels were in the nebulous range – not pregnant and also not not pregnant. Over the course of 3 weeks, she had me repeat the blood draw for hcg levels multiple times, as the numbers were only very slowly dropping. Each time, my insurance billed me about $350. So not only did I have to endure the physical and emotional pain of a failed pregnancy, I also felt the financial pain, as it cost me almost two grand to have a miscarriage. Seriously, WTF? I told my doctor about this terrible insurance issue, and she said I can take an at-home pee stick pregnancy test and if it comes up negative, I won’t have to go back in for labs. Luckily(?), 3 weeks after the blood clot, the pee stick came back negative. The bleeding stopped, my body is back to it’s normal cycle, and I didn’t have to have a D & C (dilation and curettage) – a safe and common procedure that clears the uterine lining by removing tissues remaining in the uterus from the failed pregnancy that would prevent a future healthy pregnancy. This is a common procedure for post-menopause bleeding as well. 

Over the past many months, I’ve had friends deliver healthy, happy babies as well as announce the happy news of upcoming births. And of course I am so happy for them because I know just how much love and joy and happiness a baby brings (in addition to terrible sleep and bodily pains), but it also makes me sad for myself. But then I think that I’m not allowed to feel sad because I already have a beautiful baby who I love more than my life itself and so my sadness cannot be as deep and true as women and families without children who have experienced similar losses, right? But everyone’s story is uniquely their own, and we all feel physical and emotional pain differently and I am allowed to feel however I feel about it. It is possible to be completely in love with your firstborn while longing for their future sibling. 

My doctor assured me that this does not mean I won’t have a successful pregnancy again in the future. She doesn’t really consider the chemical pregnancy when she counts how many failed pregnancies I’ve had (in that case: 1). After all, my first pregnancy was healthy and happened quickly. At this moment in time, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why that can’t happen again. And though I wish I could end this post with a surprise plot twist announcement, I can’t. But I am hopeful for what the rest of 2021 can bring! In the meantime, go get your vaccines and keep wearing your masks!

Well, I guess there really is a surprise plot twist coming in October of this year! The Fall is still far away and lots can still go wrong between now and then, but at this current moment at the end of April, Zelda* is gestating swimmingly.

*Our in-utero working title, keeping in theme of a “Z” name that sounds like a superhero.

My fully vaccinated parents flew out from NY to spend some time with us and their awesome granddaughter in California a few weeks ago. Bill and I took full advantage of the free and trustworthy childcare to plan some fun long bike rides together! We have gone biking with Kalliszta, and while she loves looking at bikes, playing with the pedals, saying “bringa!” (the Hungarian sound a bike bell makes), and sitting up high on the back of my bike, she despises wearing a helmet. We think her dislike for having a helmet on is stronger than her desire to ride on the back of a bike. 

The day after my folks arrived, we drove to Napa to enjoy a wonderful covid-safe adventure through wine country. The next day, Bill and I rode across the Golden Gate Bridge from Golden Gate Park in the middle of the city and back while Kalliszta played at a playground with Mima and Nagypapa (what Kalliszta calls my mom and dad respectively). It was a typically windy ride but it felt really great!

Then the next weekend we were gearing up to bike across the Bay Bridge from the East Bay to Treasure Island… but… we ended up at the ER instead. As relatively new parents, it was bound to happen one day, and now I’m a parent who has experienced that milestone! 

About an hour before we had planned to leave, Bill and I were playing with Kalliszta in the living room. Bill was sitting cross-legged on the floor and she was sitting in Bill’s lap. When she reached toward the ground for a toy or something with her right arm, she must have leaned wrong because Bill heard a pop. She obviously started crying, but when she didn’t stop soon after like she normally does after a little bump or bruise, and was not holding her milk bottle or really using her arm, we decided to go to the ER, just to be safe. She was still in her footie pjs since it was morning, but we took her sleeve off very carefully. We grabbed her blankie, her backpack, a bottle of milk, and drove the 5 minutes to the UCSF children’s hospital ER in Oakland. We didn’t put her arm all the way in the car seat because we didn’t want to move it at all. She cried most of the way there.

Only one parent was allowed in due to Covid, so Bill waited patiently for the 2+ hours Kalliszta and I were inside. It seemed like we were the only ones at the ER that morning. Our first stop was triage, and Kalliszta was not a fan. She did not like having her vitals taken, and I was hugging her and telling her how much I loved her and how proud I was of her being so brave at the hospital. I told her it is ok to feel scared or however she was feeling because this is all new and scary and she is in pain. I told her I was scared too and felt sad that there wasn’t anything I could do to make her not feel hurt. During our time in triage, she was trying so hard to get away from the nurse while I was holding her that I felt her elbow against me pop or crack. I think at the end of the day, that is what needed to happen, for the thing out of place to pop back into place. Though most of this time Kalliszta was crying, I declined any pain meds for her because she has never had any, and it wouldn’t do the doctor any good in terms of a diagnosis if nothing hurt her. 

We were moved to our own room and our triage nurse turned on the TV. This was a solid move, and a special treat for Kalliszta who has never watched TV. Though we were in that room for a long time, with doctors coming in now and again to check on her wrist, hand, elbow, and shoulder, she was loving the Disney channel. She didn’t love the doctors, but she loved the dinosaur cartoon and Paw Patrol. She laughed out loud while watching! During our time in the room, the Drs. Menon called us from San Diego, and gave the diagnosis of Nursemaid Elbow. They got my snapchat and I was so happy to get a call from them. Kalliszta did not like being touched by the doctors, and they only touched her arm very little. Most of what we had her try was to show her using her whole arm: I laid her on her stomach on the bed to see her push herself up by putting weight on her arm (she did) and to show off how big she is (“So Big”!). Despite her mobility and use coming back over the hour plus we were in the room, we were still sent for an X-Ray of her wrist. 

We followed a nurse to the elevator to the second floor, where the two X-Ray technicians swiftly took 3 pictures of her arm. She didn’t love that I had to hold her down on the table – she doesn’t like laying down on her back that much – but it was over very quickly. We went back to our room to await the results and got to watch more of that dino show. She was all about it. At some point, I changed her out of her footie pjs so she could walk around the room, and gave her a new diaper since the other one was full of pee. Finally the doc came back and said that nothing was broken or fractured, as we both suspected, given that she seemed to be moving normally. Only after we left did I realize it was weird that we never got a diagnosis or an explanation of what the doctors think it was. I am convinced that Vijay and Pooja are right (they are so smart) about it being Nursemaid Elbow. It turns out to be super common for kids of her age. It is basically when a tendon in the elbow moves out of place. It sounds super painful, but is “easy” to wiggle it back into place. Because toddlers’ joints are still malleable, it happens at this age a lot. Since telling this story to a handful of people, I have been met with responses like, “yeah that happened to our daughter too” or “yeah, that happened to my sister because I was swinging her around” and it makes me feel a little better that I am not a failure as a parent for letting up on my constant vigilance. But then I think back to the weekend before, when I was swinging her by her arms doing the 1, 2, 3 per her request. That may or may not have anything to do with it. And though we are now not going to swing her by her arms anymore, I can’t stop her from wanting to hang on the bars at the playground. She’s a natural. 

4-Letter Words

On Monday as I went to throw out a diaper in the Diaper Genie that we now keep out on the balcony because it has started to be extra smelly (most likely due to user error), I banged my forearm into the door handle so hard I dropped a very loud f-bomb from the immediate pain that people 6 floors down on the street heard me. And so did Kalliszta. 

That was definitely not the first time I swore in front of Kalliszta, and it won’t be the last – even though I don’t think I cuss all that much compared to a few. And, while it is possible that I change my tune once she actually starts talking, I won’t mind if she knows and says “bad” words. While we don’t want her to direct curses at someone, like calling a friend a butthead or something, I absolutely want her to tell the creepy man to fuck off. I personally don’t think curse words are bad, and I do not want to curb her self-expression. And this article by a cognitive scientist (who plays frisbee so you know he’s a cool dude and was featured in the Netflix docu-series hosted by Nicholas Cage called The History of Swear Words so you know he’s a doubly cool dude) says it’s ok to curse in front of your kids. I want her to know that while I don’t mind that she says four letter words, there are other words that cause real harm. I hope I will do justice in explaining the history and hurt behind these words so that she never, in any context, uses slurs and words that are racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, derogatory, and demeaning in any way. Basically, any word that is used or has been used as a weapon against a person’s or peoples’ identity is off limits not just to her, but to her parents too. Even if the word has been reclaimed by the group it once oppressed, only if she identifies as such can she use it.

There are other words that society has deemed as “taboo” and kids pick up on this because of how we act and react when we say and hear them. I absolutely want her comfortable saying words like tampon and vagina and poop. The way to make that happen is for parents (and all grownups in her life) to use the correct words and use them in normal conversation with no negative association. At 14 months, she knows many body parts and can point to them on herself and on mommy and daddy. She loves looking for her belly button and her parents’. She will find Bill’s belly button, and when he’s chilling without a shirt on, she will point to his nipples. And we say, “yes, those are Daddy’s nipples, look we all have them, how cool!” She will tap on my chest and I tell her “yes, those are Mommy’s breasts, good job! When you were a baby, you would drink the milk that came from Mommy’s breasts, isn’t that amazing!” I am glad that Bill and I are of the same mindset to normalize our bodies and use anatomically correct words. Oh wait, is navel the correct word for belly button?

Words for Everyone

I’ve made it a goal of mine many years ago to eliminate the word “guys” from my vocabulary when speaking to a group of people. It is our general go-to when we want to mean “everyone”, but it is not gender inclusive. It was a long weaning off process and quite difficult because I have been saying “you guys” all my life, as has most everyone who didn’t grow up in Texas. (There’s a lot wrong with Texas, but they got that “y’all” thing right.) Even when it was a group of only womxn (I use this spelling to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary women, and to avoid the percieved sexism of containing the word “men”. It is pronounced the same way as women, and is both singular and plural.), I would still say “guys”. That’s how ingrained it was! It was so hard at first, and I would correct myself out loud, holding myself accountable, like “Hey, you guys let’s go… I mean, hey, you all, let’s go”. I have played on, captained, and coached lots of athletic teams, teams of mixed genders and teams of only female identifying players. In both scenarios when womxn are present, it’s never ok to address the players as “guys”, but I have. An easy work around was to refer to the group by the team name. Or just simply “team”. After years of trying to not use “guys” when not appropriate (not appropriate unless you are speaking to 2 or more people whose gender pronouns of he/him/his you are certain of because they themselves told you), I started gently calling other people on it. This is tricky because while no one likes to be called out, I do think people in general don’t want to offend. I would either repeat what the person said replacing “guys” with a more inclusive word, (Speaker: “Ok guys, let’s get started” Me: “Yeah! Everyone, let’s get started.”) or, if I knew the speaker a little better, would jovially say something like, “Well hey now there are women in this group too!” I mostly used these at work, back when I was at work. When it came to ultimate frisbee, I was much freer in how I corrected people because we all kind of know each other, and I feel I have enough clout and seniority in the community to speak up on the spot. For those of you who also want to move away from saying “guys” when it isn’t appropriate, here is a non-comprehensive list of words that don’t assume gender you can say instead:

• All
• Everyone
• Folks
• Pals
• Friends
• Team
• [Actual Team Name]
• [Job Title]: Engineers, Designers, etc.
• Kids (if it is a group of children)
• For those of you who are public speakers, try to avoid “ladies and gentlemen” and use “esteemed guests” instead.

Other words I am replacing – like when I am at the playground – because I never want to assume someone’s gender identity, or family make-up, or their family relationships:

• Instead of “mom” or “dad” or “parent”, use “grown-up”, and sometimes “your grown-up”
• Instead of “mom and dad”, use “grown-ups”, sometimes “your grown-ups”
• Instead of “girl” or “boy”, use “kid”, “friend”, “baby”, “big kid”
• Instead of “boys and girls”, use “kids”, “friends”, “adventurers”, “explorers”, “everyone”

I am not an expert and sometimes I slip up, but I am making a conscious effort. Because I don’t know how Kalliszta will identify, for now I use she/her/hers pronouns, and I recognize it is hypocritical of me to assume her identity as the one that matches her sex assigned at birth. I’m striving to be inclusive in my language, not just my actions, and for the things Kalliszta hears, reads, and consumes to be inclusive. Before she and I enjoy a new picture book together, I read through it and take a sharpie to it when gender pronouns are not inclusive. We have one she loves about animals in a zoo because she gets to lift the flap on the page to reveal the animal behind the flap, but all the animals were “he”. We now have 2 “they” animals, 2 “she” animals, and 2 “he” animals in the book. I did this for a handful of her books, including one about construction vehicles. Kalliszta loves dump trucks and making a honking noise when she sees one. And while inanimate objects don’t have genders, I understand the need to personify objects for a good story. They just don’t all need to be male vehicles. Since people contain multitudes, I don’t want her to think or feel like she can’t love dump trucks AND her shoes at the same time.

2.05+ Languages

I have many goals for Kalliszta that really are parenting goals for myself. One big one is that she be bilingual. Seeing as she is both Hungarian and Irish-American (I say “both” rather than “half” because we don’t say “I’m half a frisbee player and half a mom” we say “I’m a frisbee player and a mom” two full identities, not half of each), I would love for her to be able to at least speak and understand Hungarian. She currently says, “ba”-ll quite a lot, which is English for “ball” and “labda” in Hungarian. Now, as she is learning words and language, I try to repeat most things I say in English and in Hungarian. I will also say words with the same tone and cadence in each language to help her realize this is two ways to say the same thing. English is my second language but I am less eloquent in Hungarian (I was four after all when we moved the US) so I have to make a real effort when it comes to speaking Hungarian with Kalliszta. With my parents, she almost exclusively hears Hungarian which makes me glad. But we only talk on video calls because of Covid, and also we live on opposite coasts. I hope that our family trip to Hungary will happen this summer (it got postponed from last year for obvious reasons) and that one day we will live closer to each other. When Kalliszta and I are at the playground just us two, I try to speak to her only in Hungarian. When Bill and I are with Kalliszta together, we speak English, even though Bill knows some Hungarian! There are certain things we exclusively say in Hungarian. For example, the Hungarian word for “cheers” and the equivalent to the German post-sneeze offering of “gesundheit” is “egeségedre”. I prefer this phrase, meaning “to your health”, instead of “bless you” because as someone who is not religious, to bless someone would not be a genuine sentiment, and I don’t want to assume the sneezer’s religion.

I titled this section 2.05+ Languages because Kalliszta knows a few words in sign language (the “.05” part), which is super helpful for her parents. She is able to express her desire for milk, for eating, for wanting more, and for being all done. It is great that she can talk to us in this way, but when she is at a loss for words, she will sign “milk” as the default. She is so curious and brave and loves to learn. We are working on the sign for “water”, but holding three fingers up is still a little tricky for her. She’s also great at pointing to what she wants (like a banana or her pop-up ball toy). 

I would also love it if she learned Spanish (the “+” part) as it is the second most spoken language in the world. Science tells us that the younger a person is, the easier they pick up languages, so I am hoping that we will find a school or program for her once she starts daycare or preschool. And then I hope that she can teach me. And then Bill can teach me a programming language, and I’ll be so fluent in so many things! 

Other Words We Won’t Say

I will never say, “I don’t believe you” to my daughter. Our society has a traumatic history of not believing womxn and their stories. While there is still some time before she begins speaking in full sentences and then testing the limits of telling the truth, we will make it clear how much we value honesty and that we believe her, so that she can trust us to tell us anything. 

What We Say

The words we choose to use are important. The events of this past week – for more reasons than one – really shook me. It is critical that we use the correct words to describe the events and the people involved: domestic terrorists, insurrection, rioters, mob, sedition. Words are important, and as Kalliszta is on the verge of speaking and understands most everything we say, my hope is that we are raising a thoughtful and expressive human, who confidently speaks her mind. And, in direct contrast to the insurrectionists, I want Kalliszta to always choose words over weapons and to be on the correct side of history.