Happy Chinese New Year

Hey, happy chinese new year. Wife woke me up early this morning. and dressed Siyuan and herself all in red :) We had given Siyuan the traditional hong bao the night before, and left it under his pillow. I still remember my parents giving me that when I was a kid :) CNY was a quiet period for us since we were just happy to rest, and turned down friends invitation for a party. As it turned out, Siyuan had a very bad wind period for a day. Crying 10 minutes and sleeping 10 minutes in that cycle for 10 hours. Absolutely exhausting. :)

Long-time

almost a month since I last posted! a lot has happened since - my mother-in-law came and went, my dad and brother came and went, i left for a conference, we had some minor scares with the baby. Too much to detail at one shot!
Probably the most pertinent details are that my mother-in-law was a boon, helping to take care of the baby, cooking and allowing my wife to catch up with her sleep. Of course, having a senior in the house also meant putting up with their approvals or disapproval of our parenting, but she was still most helpful, as compared with my dad!
My dad, 75, is simply too old to help out and require much care, as a result it has exhausted my wife trying to juggle both end. Badly handled was that - should have been much more insistent on telling my family to come late, since dad was clearly no longer at his best.
sigh. sigh.

Baby Air

Woke up in the middle of the night and my wife was in shock, as she woke to sounds of the baby quietly choking away. She quickly tried to burp him but he was very much in distress, and I was still in the midst of waking up. Finally I snapped out of my stupor and got going, quickly laying him on the length of my arm, face down. That helped to get rid of the saliva/milk that was choking him.
It was the start of a tiring and bewildering week. From a baby with regular feeding and sleeping routine, Siyuan cried a lot, didn't sleep well or fed well. We tried everything, and he would just ignore it all, very much in distress.
Thank goodness for the maternal healthcare services provided here - giving us a 24 hours hotline to call. The nurses then assured us he was probably going through a phase where he is having a lot of stomache discomfort. Burping him more and keeping him upright would help. Warm baths will also relieve him. A friend suggested "cycling" his legs to help get rid of wind, and my mom-in-laws brought an ointment (used when we were babies and probably before that as well!) to use on his stomache.
Once we knew it was wind, at least we can stop guessing if he was hungry or sick. Then it became a matter of patiently trying to burp him and keep him upright. He fed a bit less as well, but was still putting on 250g that week, so that was okay by the nurses.
It took about a week-and-a-half for that to clear.

Japanese gardens, Sexless assassins, Arabic poetry

I had the most bizarre dream last nite - my baby was kidnapped. Wait, it wasn't as simple as that. Not contented with a baby kidnapping dream, my subconscious conjured up a mythical quest.
Our family was invited on a journey/bus/cruise? trip by my brother, and we went along. On the trip, I was assaulted by three men in white, who never says a word. Attacking their groin, I would find there's nothing there. I screamed for my dad to help, figuring if he could lend me his handy hammer, that could help. In the midst of a conversation with my dad, these sexless creatures disappeared. All the time, this was happening, a couple of a strange baby were making nasty comments. They also seem to be treating the baby badly. Attempts to have conversation with them fail.
We arrive at our destination, and when I looked around the couple had disappeared. But they left their baby behind. Another woman came onboard (was it a gigantic space cruiser by then? I remember wandering lost in huge corridors.) and took charge of the baby. We got to chatting, and right in front of our eyes, the baby decayed.
Convinced then something is wrong, I quickly looked for our baby and couldn't find him!

We wandered in this strange city, unsure what to do. My brother took the invite card, a black card with flowery script in poetry, and went to quizz the hosts which had sent it to us. He returned, shaken, as the host took the card and refuse to talk to him. Somehow I was convinced that the card now bears a link the disappearance of our baby, and we returned to confront the host.

We followed him down twisting streets, and he disappeared right into a wall. We followed him through, and found ourselves in a Japanese garden, filled with sumo wrestlers, women in masks, fountains, and sculptured plants. Lowering our heads, we attempted to follow through. The verse in the invite card now comes back to our minds - something about poetry, followed by song, and then something else. The words are lost to me now, though they seemed to make sense then.

Through the garden we searched, and we found then another set of poetry nscribed that seems to suggest that we have to find our way, through songs into a Chinese place.
A strange man and his girlfriend came forth to confront us. He pulled a golden dagger and we tussled, with me grabbing it off him and then drawing a bead of blood from his throat. Somehow in my dream, I sense that he was not human and could be bargained with.
I threw him a bargain - help us in one deed and u're free.
He went into a convulsion, and scars appeared all over him, as if I had drawn blood all over his body. I repeated my request again and again, and he finally agreed. Signaling to his girlfriend to come close, he touched her,and the scars disappeared.
Stranger, and stranger.
My wife woke me then.

I figure its just me saying: I didn't get enough time with my baby last nite.
Now that's a strange way for my subconscious to tell me that.