The First Month

Kate reached an important milestone in Chinese culture today - she's one month old! That's a good reason to share with readers all of the "rules" I've broken in the past month.

Let's start with pregnancy. According to tradition, pregnant women are not supposed to use sharp objects such as knives or scissors. Also, the expectant parents are not supposed to move any furniture while pregnant. Supposedly Keanu was born early because we put the crib together the weekend before he was born.

The first month post-partum is the most important and there are tons of rules - too many for anyone to keep track of, but I'll share a few interesting ones that I didn't even consider following:

• no shower or hair washing (However, the hair washing rule has been modified as long as the new mother dries her hair in the bathroom and the wet head isn't exposed to the air outside the bathroom.)
  
• special diet: mostly chicken soup made from rice wine or other special foods made with Chinese medicine. Usually this food is prepared by the mother-in-law or possibly the mother of the new mom, but it can also be brought to your door several times a day or you can stay in a "maternity hotel" for the month and they'll cater to your special post-partum diet. Interestingly, this diet doesn't include water or milk and often doesn't promote any kind of weight loss.


• staying home, preferably in bed so you can rest.
  

This month can be translated to "sitting month" because that's exactly what you're supposed to do - sit (or lie) and do nothing but recuperate and take care of your new baby.

The first time we went out (she was aweek old) we got all kinds of stares from the neighbors but Kevin's response was "it's up to her" (meaning me) and they seemed to accept that this crazy foreigner doesn't do anything right!

After the month is finished, the family gives rice or cake to friends and family to celebrate the baby's birth. In the past, these rice boxes were only given if the baby was a boy, but now it doesn't matter. The box has mostly rice (with something sticky and brown cavering it), a chicken leg, and 2 hard-boiled eggs. If you use your imagination, the eggs and leg are supposed to represent the male anatomy, again, it was only for baby boys. We gave these boxes to a bunch of people, but knowing that most of my friends wouldn't appreciate it, they got cake instead!