A Princely Visit

Yes! At last the princely visit.
I am the grand aunt of Yi Jay.

It was a pleasant surprise for this baby of 7 weeks to pay me a visit. Baby Jay popped in as mama had to attend to a family matter and with open arms I gathered the child into my arms. It was nostalgic when I remembered holding his father on his first night home in Por Por's Tanjung house in Jalan Junid, Muar way back in 1981. I had a nervous encounter looking after him on the first evening in Muar as I had the fright of my life when he nearly choked on some water!

He got all the girls back home with the exception of Sara who was away in Vietnam attending to the nitty gritty matters of a law moot in Ho Chi Minh city going goo goo ga ga over him. Everyone must have a share of him and virtually fought to hold him.

Grace with Jay. The baby's father said she is a natural and Jay was quiet whenever she held him. The touch of a doctor is clearly seen as she 'professionally' handled him.

On the contrary, the baby yelled when Esther held him. Guess it's not time yet and she has much to learn. She sneaked out of office early just to have a chance to play with him and even abandoned the boyfriend for him.

This is grandma Kan holding him at 2 or 3 weeks old? She relates that Jay is almost like the dad as he cries every evening around 6pm ...colicky. Exactly like daddy when he was a baby. Jay's dad got the household miserable with his evening cries and finally grew out of it after so so many months. Now Jay also feeds on colic medicine to remove the discomfort; a chip off the old block. I told May she may use 'baby oil' (lu yi yeu) to add warmth to the abdomen. But she must first rub it on her palms before applying it onto the stomach. I don't really know how this works but I did that to every of my baby after a bath just to keep them warm. As far as my memory can stretch, my girls did not suffer much from this discomfort.

Jay's mama tells me this is the way she coaxes the child to sleep and he wakes up whenever she puts him down. She is a great mother as she patiently holds him and swings him to deep sleep.

At one juncture when I thought he had slept soundly in my arms I got him to sleep on his stomach. I put all my babies to sleep in this manner at some point and I thought it was an effective way to remove the air from the stomach. But Grace constantly reminded me that this is now not a popular way in the West because of the numerous cases of cot deaths.

At times the girls had their resting hours on the bouncers as seen in the pictures above. The bouncers provide a comfortable support to the backs, are cooling and give babies a sense of protection. Can you tell who the babies are? All babies look alike, that I know.

But perhaps the best way still is the 'sarong'. Like May, I refused to let Grace into the sarong. Back then I thought it would be too cumbersome to travel with the devise and also thought if Caucasian mamas can get their babies to sleep without the sarong , why couldn't I? However, all my efforts proved aimless when I found later that the baby sitter put her to sleep in the sarong. So when you can't win a battle, you join in. The babies after Grace had it the easy way out. No need to waste so much time swaying in the arms as I just put them into the sarong and they felt so comfortable as though they were in my arms. So the sarong saved much time and heartaches. Or did it? I wondered if I had been such a wicked mama to put them to sleep in this manner. But no, cos later Celine, my half Caucasian niece also had her stint in the sarong and the Dutch dad obediently relented to the use of the sarong and found it effective! Kudos to sarongs. Those days we had to rock manually ; nowadays it is mechanised with prefered 'speeds'! Save more time.

Oh the old tricks to pacify babies. What about the pacifier and the special pillow? Do you have histories with that? ALL my babies had the pacifiers, a special pillow, a special bolster and a special blanket and what nought. Later, when they grew and understood some fears, I managed to wind them off and that was it.

Jay is very fortunate cos mama quits her job to look after him full time. That I suppose is becos maybe she can go back to work later in life. Or will she ? Both daddy and mummy feel that the most important years of a baby's life are their first 3 years and no monetary gains can replace the lost years. People do die for a conviction and not wrong, I reckon. Now May tells me it's so good to be a teacher cos the baby will have more time with the mummy. A University of Melbourne graduate, she tells me it's almost impossible to be an accountant from 8am to 8pm and be a good mama. So ladies, another proven truth...be a teacher.

All in all, it's a matter of choice, a set of priorities and convictions. We respond to our beliefs and convictions. No one can say what is the best, who is right or wrong as long as life is well lived. Agree?