All About Your Child

Today I felt like putting my pride down and share a big blunder I made 4 years ago as a parent.

Right after my confinement month, I left my mother-in-law’s house and brought Keatkeat back home.

As first time parents, we were at cloud nine but this excitement was soon replaced by anxiety and fear because Keatkeat started to cry uncontrollably almost every night. We noticed that he will start to cry at around 6pm till wee hours in the morning with occasional mini-nap in between.

We read up, called health nurse, we suspected that it may be colic, but some major symptoms of colic were not seen in Keatkeat, so we were confused. After such intense crying for almost a week. Keatkeat completely lost his voice. You can see that he is crying but sound was weak.

We were really at a lost. We tried rocking him, patting him, play soothing music, create sudden loud noise to grab his attention and hopefully he may stop…nothing works. Then we heard knocking on our door.

2 plump ladies stood at my doorstep and one of them said,”hi, my name is Esther, sorry to interrupt at such a late hour. We stay directly above you” (it was 1am already. Allan and I were expecting the ladies may say,”we can’t sleep cos’ your baby can’t stop crying…”)

Instead she said,”we have 2 young children of our own, when we hear your baby’s cries, our heart ache, we hope you will not find us as busybodies, we really would like to see if we can help. We have been putting our ears against almost every door for the past few days to spot the cry. Sometimes when the cry stops suddenly, our search stops and finally we found your house today. Can we come in and see the baby?”

We were red with embarrassment. We didn’t know that our baby could have caused 2 nice ladies to go through so much trouble just to come and calm my baby. After a week of trying, we were exhausted. Now that help has come to the door, we were more than grateful to let them in.

As if they already knew what was the cause of crying, they brought along with them ‘Ru yi you’, a Chinese medicated oil used traditionally for relief of minor aches and pains of muscles and joints, symptoms of stomachaches and cold.

This is a very common ailment used for babies with stomach-wind. Yes, I said it is common only after I heard from Esther. Before that, I have never seen or heard about it. Not even from my ‘traditional’ mother-in-law.

Without any delay, Esther and her sister went to the bedroom where the exhausted-from-crying but still crying baby lies. Esther opened the bottle of ‘Ru yi you’, put some of the oil on her palm, rubbed her 2 palms together, lifted up Keatkeat’s shirt and pressed her palms on his tummy for about 20 seconds.

Miraculously, Keatkeat stopped crying and started to fart. Then Esther carried him up into a sitting position and held him between her arms and side. Keatkeat was in total comfort!!!

Then Esther explained,”I suspected that he may have too much wind in the stomach. That’s why he was uncomfortable. He feels better now that he has farted. Try to hold him upright, when he is in a lying position, the bloated stomach presses down and makes him uncomfortable. To know if there is wind in his stomach, you can do this…”

She put Keatkeat down again, lifted up his shirt, placed her left palm down on his tummy and used the her right fingers and tapped on her left hand. You can hear ‘dong dong’ sound. Esther said, alternatively I can press around his tummy, if its hard, that means wind is present.

She reminded me never to put ‘Ru yi you’ directly onto the baby’s tummy as the skin of the baby is sensitive, the oil may be too ‘hot’ for him. I was supposed to rub the oil on my palms till hot, then press my palm onto the tummy for a few seconds. I was told to do it after every bath and before night sleep.

We were good students, did exactly what we were told and wow! It really works man!

Did you went through such drama before?

Tonight, I need to setup my stall at the bazaar. So I had to beg ask my mother-in-law to take care of them for a few hours while I do my setup in peace.

In the past, I sell my handmade accessories as a job. Now I am selling them as a duty. I need to clear them fast because I do not like to go through the moment where my kids show me the mummy-can-you-don’t-go-work kind of look whenever I drop them off at my mother-in-law house. I hate to see that look. I can feel how my kids feel, its the same kind of feeling as when my auntie told me that I had to stay with my parents for good (read my story).

In the past, it was a daily routine that they had to be deposited at my in-law’s house. They still gave me that kind of look then, but because they were so used to it, they hardly cry.

Ever since my sister-in-law became pregnant for the 3rd time, my mother-in-law could forsee that her 61 year old body will not be strong enough to take care of 5 kids, that’s including the unborn child. The baby was born last year May. So on by April, I had to stop my work completely already.

No matter how much argument we had in the past. My mother-in-law is a superwoman in to me. She took care of 4 young children, age newborn, 1, 2 and 4, housework, cook and everything else. She really deserves the family’s respect.

When my sis-in-laws 3rd child was born. That was the beginning of my new profession – full-time domestic manager. But I had lots of ready-made accessories, and lots of beads yet to be beaded up, I need to clear them, afterall I had been in this line for 6 years. So I discussed with my mother-in-law and she finally agreed to let me go for 1-3 days bazaar every alternate weeks at most.

Everytime when I had such bazaar, I will had to go through the ‘drama’ with my kids all over. Normally, a few hours after I left, my mother-in-law would call and say that they are back to their bubbly self again.

But today, the call was different. There was a crying child on the other side of the phone. It was Binbin. Through his sobbing and catching of breath, I could roughly figured out words like, “mummy…hug me…carry me…want to …go home…”

My heart was so sour, I really felt like calling the bazaar off! But I could not. Close friends know why….I needed to clear the stocks, yes, and I needed the cashflow too.

Next moment, I heard the sound of vomit. My mother-in-law took over the phone and said Binbin vomitted because he cried too much and the call was cut-off.

Sigh….hate this, don’t like to hear my baby cry. Ahhhh….. No parent would like to hear their baby cry!!!