TCM – Prevention better than cure?

Just two weeks ago, both M & myself fell sick. I started coughing one day before her and we both had fever, cough and runny nose nose at the same time. Horrible experience. I needed rest to get better myself but still had to take care of a sick child who was more fussy than usual.

Lucky my husband was able to work-from-home to help me out. Anyhow, after 3 visits to our GP (General Practitioner) in 3 days and a week of fever, cough and runny nose medicine, M’s nose was still runny. We thought it’s time to seek an alternative opinion – Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

M visited a TCM Practitioner for the first time last Saturday. After a lot of questions about her eating habits, sleep pattern and bowel movements, the doctor diagnosed that she was of a 热底 constitution – meaning she was the type who tend to get ‘heaty’ easily.

She also advised us to dilute M’s milk (because she doesn’t drink much water) and to offer fruits at room temperature (not straight out of the fridge). She prescribed a bottle of runny nose medicine and a powdered concoction – 川貝, 健脾散, 冬蟲夏草 - (1 month supply) to strengthen her respiratory system, spleen and overall immune system.

All in, these set us back by $216! – $16 for the runny nose medicine and $200 for the powder.

Our first attempt to give her the medicine was a failure. We didn’t think she would drink it from the spoon so we added 10ml of the medicine to her milk which made it turn brown, like chocolate milk. She sucked one time and gave her bottle back, saying it was "very sweet”. Haha… funny, we thought but it doesn’t help. Next time I tried using a spoon, she snatched it over, poured it into her breakfast bowl, took a sip and gave a funny face. The next few attempts proved not too encouraging too.

Whatever… her runny nose cleared itself a few days ago so I kinda gave up too. Let’s hope the expensive powder works! We add it to her morning milk feed and she has finished it every time so far Too hungry to think…

p/s: I gave half the bottle of the medicine away to M’s cousin who took it very readily! I’m saving the other half for myself

Our little ice-breaker

Like most people staying in flats, we generally kept our doors closed and minded our own business. It’s not surprising then that alot of flat dwellers like us do not know our neighbours beyond their faces.

I moved into my mother-in-law’s flat after getting married. We stayed there for 2 years before getting our own flat. During those two years, I almost never talked to any of the neighbours and barely said ‘hi’ to a few.

But this changed when M came into our lives. We moved into our own flat just 2 months before M was born. And since then, the rate at which we know our neighbours is way beyond the previous 2 years at my mother-in-law’s place. Granted the population demographics may be younger here, but I think it’s because of the presence of M.

We can now easily talk to neighbours, from primary school children (which M will address as “kor kor” and “jie jie”) to elders (“uncle” and “auntie”). It’s so natural for everyone to play with a young child, which usually leads to conversations about her age, her development, childcare centres around the neighbourhood, which block/floor/unit we stay in, the price of our flat etc… I think I’ve also become friendlier around M.

It’s really nice to know neighbours a little better. Our neighbour downstairs brought our “broken” bamboo pole which landed on their clothes back to us! We’ve chatted on occasions and they probably also noticed it was M’s clothes on it.

So thanks to our little ice-breaker, we no longer need to avoid stares with our neighbours in the lift!

English or Chinese?

We’ve been quite divided about the language we should use at home for some time. Although I grew up in a Mandarin and Teochew speaking family, school and work have made English a very natural part of me. During our dating and pre-kid days, my husband and I conversed mostly in English or Singlish.

When M came along, we started deliberating on the language we should use at home. Most parenting books recommended that one parent use one language in a two-language environment. Since I was more comfortable in Mandarin than my husband (who grew up in a Hokkein and English environment), we decided that I will converse with M in Chinese while husband converse with her in English.

But we found it really tough keeping to this arrangement. First of all, I honestly do not know the Chinese terms for a lot of words, quite a failure I think. My husband, on the other hand, often breaks into Mandarin or dialect in his conversations with M. And so we basically ended up speaking Singlish…

I looked at people around and found there were generally three different approaches. 1) English only – Rationale being it’s the first language in schools here and so mastering it still takes first priority. 2) Chinese only – because of the China’s emerging world status and that kids will definitely pick up English in school. 3) Whatever – parents in this category do not think any conscious effort is needed to keep to one language at home.

Anyway, here’s what we are doing now – English most of the time and Chinese (or dialect) with the grandparents. It’s just more convenient!

My 3rd Mums’ Day!

I just can’t believe this is my 3rd Mums’ Day! Yes, M is only 2 but because she was born in March, I got to ‘celebrate’ my 1st Mums’ Day just 2 months into motherhood. I remember a relative wishing me “Happy Mothers’ Day” and I was like “Huh?” This event has traditionally been all about my mum.

Anyway, I don’t think I enjoyed my 1st Mums’ Day. I was still struggling to figure out Baby M and was not exactly ready to ‘celebrate’ it yet. I was happy enough if she did not start crying every evening around 7pm.

I definitely had more reasons to celebrate my 2nd Mums’ Day. M took her first steps around then and was more manageable overall. I had also grown more confident of my mothering role. Still, I don’t remember any special celebration except dinner with my family.

I don’t expect this Mums’ Day will be any different from the last one. I’m actually not bothered by it as well. I’m not the type who expects flowers every Valentines’ Day and Mums’ Day kinda falls into the same category for me. (Flowers are nice to have on any day of the year!)

Still, I was really touched yesterday when we visited a friend. Their 6-year old daughter showed me a card she prepared for her mum and she wrote in both English and Chinese how much she loved her mum. Heart warming!

As for me, hearing M say “ I love you, mummy” is enough for now!

To jab or not?

I have always thought of chicken pox as a mild childhood illness, maybe troublesome but never serious. So naturally I didn’t see a need to vaccinate M against it, even when her paediatrician recommended it when she turned one.

It’s interesting that we readily agreed to the rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines which were both elective. I guess it’s because most of us have been through chicken pox and have not seen it turn serious.

But since M started on her group-based classes, I became a little more worried. She was interacting more with other kids and sharing toys was an easy way for infectious diseases to spread.

Also, there seem to be cases of chicken pox and HFMD (hand, foot and mouth disease) reported from time to time where she attends playgroup. The teachers usually inform the parents once a case is reported so we can check our kids before attending our next class.

Once, M’s teacher spotted a red bump on one of her fingers (which I didn’t notice beforehand) and politely told us to get clearance from a doctor before we could join the class. A boy in the same class had just been diagnosed with chicken pox. I did a check with some parents later and it seemed most have vaccinated their kids against chicken pox.

So even though I thought it was better for M to experience chicken pox and gain the immunity on her own, we finally decided to go ahead with the vaccination. We can now quite safely (no vaccination offers 100% protection) eliminate chicken pox as a cause of fever if she does get one, especially helpful in times like these with a looming swine flu pandemic.

So the final deal is we get some peace of mind while the doctors and pharmaceutical companies earn more money!