House Arrest

Counting down real excitedly to the end of our house arrest, night house arrest that is for the past 1 month!

 

Many people are really curious as to why we are being subjected to night house arrest, voluntarily or involuntarily depends on how you looked at it. I have always not been a superstitious person thus would rather not subject the children to them as well. Frankly speaking however there are things which you would rather believed it.

 

The main reason as to why we are under house arrest is because of the lunar 7th month. The Chinese do believe that it is wise to refrain from a number of things such as younger children not to be out at night / till late at night, no swimming, no laundry out of the house at night etc. The extreme ones go to the extreme of no travelling, no eating of food that was not subjected to cooking again before serving e.g. chicken rice, duck rice, char siew rice etc (food are hung on display and served immediately).

 

Much as I refused to succumb to superstitious beliefs, Zelyn started crying in the middle of the night on day 1 of 7th mth repeatedly, not once but few times. This continue for a few nights in a row so we de-list the possibility of her cries e.g. teething, fever, wet diapers, temperature etc. So we had to resort to bathing her with pomegranate leaves, placement of leaves in her pillow, praying in the temple etc. Pretty unbelievable as it may appear to be, she stopped the fussing and crying shortly after.

 

So just to be safe than sorry (okay not as serious as it sound but merely figure of speech), we decided to stay at home at night for the whole month. Most of the times if we did go out with Zelyn, we would make it a point to rush home before 7pm. I am pretty amazed myself that I could stand firm and survive the ordeal especially having to be home over the weekend.

 

So yes I can't wait for Thursday; 5th September to arrive!! Time to start planning for weekend activities, no more restrictions and no more rushing home!