My Kid is Obsessed with Chiquita Baby Monster and I Am Tired

It was 7:14 AM on a Tuesday, which in my house is basically the witching hour but with more aggressive demands for waffles. I was standing in the kitchen wearing a robe that distinctly smelled like old milk and failure, holding a mug of coffee that had been reheated twice already. Maya, my seven-year-old who thinks she's a teenager, stormed into the room demanding black cargo pants and asking if I knew who Chiquita was. I just stared at her, blinking slowly, trying to compute why we were discussing banana brands before the sun was fully up.

Turns out, we weren't talking about fruit. We were talking about K-pop. Specifically, a group that's literally called BabyMonster, and Chiquita is their youngest member. Maya shoved my phone—which she had somehow liberated from the kitchen counter without me noticing—into my face to show me a highly choreographed music video featuring girls who looked simultaneously cooler than I'll ever be and also incredibly, painfully young.

I took a sip of my terrible coffee. "She's very talented," I mumbled, trying to be a supportive millennial mom who doesn't crush her daughter's interests. "How old is she?"

Maya beamed. "She's fifteen!"

I choked on my coffee. FIFTEEN. Oh god. My brain instantly short-circuited. When I was fifteen, my biggest accomplishment was successfully recording Dawson's Creek on a VHS tape without cutting off the theme song. This child was executing complex choreography in stadium lighting. And apparently, my seven-year-old has decided this is her new personality. She keeps writing 'Baby M' on her notebooks now, which honestly confused her teacher until I had to send an embarrassingly long email explaining that it's a band, not a secret sibling announcement. Anyway, the point is, parenting an older kid who's suddenly diving headfirst into internet fandoms is a wild ride that nobody prepared me for.

Why I'm deeply stressed by a teenager's work ethic

So obviously I went down a rabbit hole because I've zero chill and need to research everything my kids are into so I can mentally prepare for the inevitable panic attack. Do you know how hard these K-pop idols work? It's terrifying. I read that they train for months, sometimes years, doing vocals and dance for like, fourteen hours a day. Fourteen hours! I can barely get Maya to put on her shoes in under forty-five minutes. If I ask Leo, my four-year-old, to pick up a single sock, he collapses on the floor like he's been shot by a sniper.

I spent three whole days just agonizing over what this intense perfectionism is going to do to Maya's brain. Like, she’s looking up to this girl who's essentially a child prodigy operating in a highly sanitized, corporate music machine. Is she going to think she needs to have a skincare routine? Is she going to start dieting? I started spiraling, thinking about unrealistic body standards and burnout and how the hell I'm supposed to explain the concept of heavily edited media to a kid who still actively believes a tiny fairy sneaks into her room to buy her lost teeth for two dollars. Mark, my husband, walked into the kitchen while I was intensely googling South Korean talent agency contracts and just slowly backed out of the room. He knows better than to interrupt me when I'm in an anxiety spiral.

The music itself is just really loud, honestly.

What my pediatrician vaguely mumbled about internet fame

I actually brought this up at Leo's last check-up because I use our pediatrician, Dr. Aris, as an unpaid therapist, which I’m sure he loves. I was rambling about parasocial relationships and TikTok and how Maya thinks these singers are her actual, literal friends. Dr. Aris kind of sighed and said something about how kids' brains can't really tell the difference between a screen personality and a real relationship, and that we just need to talk to them about what's real and what's a performance.

He wasn't like, giving me a hard medical fact, it was more of a general "good luck with that" vibe wrapped in medical jargon. He mentioned the AAP has some guidelines about co-viewing media with your kids, which sounds great in theory until you actually try to sit through twenty-five consecutive YouTube shorts of people doing the exact same dance routine. But I guess the idea is you just sit there and loosely supervise so they don't fall into a weird internet sinkhole. Try not to completely panic when they start talking about these celebrities like they know them personally, maybe just ask them what they like about the video and throw in a casual reminder that the internet is mostly fake.

Bridging the gap between a K-pop tween and an actual baby

So right in the middle of this intense Chiquita obsession, my sister announced she's having a baby. Like, a literal infant. Maya was initially thrilled, but then quickly got annoyed because the conversation shifted from her very important K-pop updates to things like breast pumps and diaper genies. It’s that weird sibling age gap thing. Maya is trying so hard to be a grown-up tween, and the idea of a squishy, crying newborn is totally encroaching on her cool-girl aesthetic.

But then I read on some fan forum (yes, I'm lurking on K-pop fan forums now, this is my life) that Chiquita's family just had a new baby sibling too. Boom. Integration point. I casually dropped this information at dinner. "Hey Maya, did you know Chiquita just became a big sister to a new baby?"

She stopped chewing her fish stick. "Really?"

Yeah, really. And suddenly, being a big sister was cool again. I totally capitalized on this because I'm a desperate woman. I told her we needed to pick out a gift for her new cousin, and since she likes BabyMonster so much, we should get the baby a "baby monster" toy. I thought I was being hilarious. Maya rolled her eyes, but she actually got into it.

We ended up on Kianao's site, which is basically the only place I buy baby stuff anymore because their things don't look like they were designed by a colorblind clown. If you're currently hiding from your children and just want to look at pretty, sustainable baby things, check out their organic toys collection here.

The teething toy that really saved my sanity

We bought the new baby the Kianao Plush Monster Rattle, and honestly, I've strong feelings about this thing. Maya picked it because it looks like a little monster, fitting her whole band obsession. But I bought it because I remember exactly what it was like when Leo was six months old and teething.

Let me paint you a picture: It was November. I was wearing leggings that had spit-up on the knee for three days straight. Leo was basically a feral animal, gnawing on everything in sight. My shoulder, the TV remote, the dog's tail. Everything was covered in this thick, sticky drool. I bought so many ugly plastic teethers that ended up covered in weird lint at the bottom of my diaper bag. Then someone gifted us this exact plush monster rattle. It has this wooden ring that's perfectly smooth, and the top is crocheted organic cotton. Leo would literally sit in his high chair, angrily chewing on the wooden ring for twenty minutes while I inhaled a cold piece of toast. It makes a little gentle rattling sound that isn't obnoxious—unlike the electronic toys that play the same cursed melody until you want to throw them into the sea. It's genuinely my favorite baby item ever. Maya thought it was just cute, but I know it's a survival tool.

Clothes that catch poop and look cute

While we were shopping, Maya also demanded we buy clothes. She kept pointing at all these highly styled outfits that looked like miniature clubwear, and I had to gently remind her that newborns mostly just sleep and explosively poop. We compromised on the Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Bodysuit. Maya liked it because the flutter sleeves look "fancy" and vaguely like something a pop star might wear if they were tiny and lived in a crib.

I mean, it's a bodysuit. It's fine. It does exactly what a bodysuit is supposed to do. The organic cotton is really soft, which is great because my kids both had that weird baby eczema that flares up if you even look at a synthetic fabric wrong. But honestly, the best part is that it has those envelope shoulders so when the inevitable blowout happens, you can pull the whole thing down over the baby's legs instead of dragging a mustard-yellow poop disaster over their face. It's pretty, sure, but I'm just here for the functional poop mechanics.

Blocks that don't destroy your feet

We also threw in the Gentle Baby Building Blocks because Leo saw us shopping and started screaming that he wanted a present too. I bought them mostly out of self-preservation. Last week I stepped on one of Leo's hard plastic blocks in the dark at 2 AM while trying to find the bathroom, and I swear my soul temporarily left my body. These Kianao ones are soft rubber. You can step on them, squeeze them, throw them at your brother (which Leo does constantly), and nobody gets a concussion. They’re great. Whatever keeps the peace in my living room.

Surviving the phases

Eventually, the K-pop phase will probably fade, just like the time Maya was obsessed with learning to speak to dolphins, or when Leo insisted on being called 'Batman' for six straight months. Kids just latch onto things. Right now, it's a 15-year-old singer who dances better than I can walk. Tomorrow, who knows.

I'm just trying to survive the sheer volume of opinions my children have. Bridging the gap between my seven-year-old's pop culture awakening and the fact that we still have to buy baby gifts for our friends and family is exhausting. But if framing a teething ring as a "baby monster" keeps my tween engaged and happy to help with the new cousin, I'll absolutely take the win. I'll take any win I can get, honestly, as long as it comes with a fresh cup of coffee.

If you're dealing with a new baby—or just trying to find a gift that a tween won't completely hate—go check out the full Kianao collection before your kid inevitably asks you to learn a complicated TikTok dance with them. Shop all Kianao essentials right here.

My Highly Unqualified Answers to Your Messy Questions (FAQ)

How do I talk to my kid about unrealistic K-pop beauty standards?
Honestly, I mostly just panic internally and then try to casually drop comments like, "Wow, it must take three hours of professional makeup to look like that!" while I'm wearing a sheet mask that makes me look like a serial killer. Just keep reminding them that what they see on a screen is a highly produced performance, not real life. And maybe point out your own flaws sometimes so they know it's okay to just be a normal, messy human who occasionally drops toast butter-side down.

Is it normal for a 7-year-old to be this obsessed with a band?
According to my frantic googling and Dr. Aris's vague nodding, yes. They're just trying on personalities. Last year Maya wanted to be a paleontologist and carried a rock everywhere. This year she wants to be a pop star. Just monitor their internet usage so they don't end up on weird forums, and try to smile through the 400th replay of the same song.

How do I get my older kid to care about a new baby in the family?
Find a weird bridge. Seriously. If they like a TV show, find a character in the show who has a sibling. If they like a band, find out if the singer has a baby brother. Make them feel like they're the "expert" big kid who gets to pick out cool stuff (like the monster rattle) for the clueless little baby. Bribery also works, I won't lie.

Are the Kianao toys honestly safe if my kid is an aggressive chewer?
Oh god, yes. Leo chewed on that plush monster rattle like it owed him money. It's made of organic cotton and untreated wood, so I didn't have to stress about him ingesting weird plastic chemicals while he aggressively took out his teething rage. Just hand-wash it when it gets too covered in drool, which will happen constantly.

What if my kid says they want to be a K-pop idol?
Just nod, say "That's nice, honey," and tell them they need to finish their broccoli first to get strong enough for the choreography. By next week they'll probably want to be a YouTube gamer or a veterinarian anyway.