The irony is… I refused follow any of the “traditional” confinement rules for Jayvon, and yet I find myself almost dutifully obeying them this time round!
Drinks
It is a tradition that in the first month after giving birth, you have a lot of “wind” in your body and hence, no water is allowed. That’s right. Not a sip of clear cool drinking water. Rather, the only liquids allowed is this “hong zao tea” which apparently helps to dispel the wind. That’s right. No water. No coke. No nothing but this tea (which must be served piping hot), soups (which are also served hot-hot-hot!) and Milo (also un-iced).
Like I said, I’ve pretty much obeyed this, with a few, err, glaring lapses. Don’t ask, cos I won’t tell. All in all, compared to my first confinement, I’ve been an absolute ANGEL. :)
Foods
Same with the above. Nic spent about $280 on herbs. Yes. Chinese medicinal herbs. That I (1) don’t like the taste of, (2) don’t like to eat and (3) did I mention I really disliked eating Chinese medicinal herbs?!
Thankfully my confinement aunty is pretty astute when it comes to food. She probably took one look at me, and knew I was a “softie” when it came to food choices! Haha! She is fattening me up, literally. Breakfast at 7AM, lunch at 1PM, dinner at 7PM and in between that, there’s still tea and supper! Five meals. And after the first day, I threw my hands up in “surrender”, and told the aunty there was only THIS much carbo I could literally stomach!
Some shots of the yummy-licious meals she whips up for me on a daily basis.
Baths
Another silly Chinese tradition is the belief that the mother cannot bathe. For. The. Entire. Confinement. Month. Yes. MONTH. That is 28 long, long, smelly days. Aunty allowed me to bathe, using herbal boiled water. Well, long story short. I way cheated on this aspect. I have a deep respect for those who survived the 28 days sans bathing. There are many things I can do. This is simply not one of them!
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