The Scary Horse

I have a niece who's a little over a year old now. She's a very cute little girl who is now learning how to talk (actually, she's talking but hasn't quite connected the right sounds with the objects yet). My husband and I used to remark how she used to look just like my mother-in-law, mainly the "worried" or "concerned" expression, but is now at a point where her features are starting to get defined a bit more. To me, she's definitely starting to look like her mother.

So how does my niece fit into the whole Sagacious Grandmother bit? My niece used to cry at the very sight of me. Every time she saw or heard me, she would start crying. The only way she could be around me was from far away where she could keep an eye on me from a distance. This really bummed me out because I love kids and she was the only one who would react that way to me (actually, her older brother used to have the same reaction towards me but that lasted a couple months). I would feel really badly that she would sometimes get so worked up crying that I just wanted to leave so she could calm down lest she develop some anxiety issues.

I had told this to my grandmother during her stay with me this past summer but she didn't really believe me until she saw it with her own eyes on a couple occasions. Once was in my BIL's house and the other was my niece's one-year birthday party in a park (by the way, at said birthday party, my niece took to my grandmother like a bee to honey. THAT was rather depressing). My grandmother just couldn't believe the reaction I would get from my niece every time. She was constantly asking me why she would react that way every time she saw me and I would constantly reply with "I don't know".

On the way home from the birthday party in the park, my grandmother asked once more why my niece should be so afraid of me to which I replied my now-standard answer "I don't know". She became real quiet as she pondered this little mystery. After a little while, she loudly proclaimed:

"The reason why your niece always cries when she sees you is because she's a Rat and you're a Horse and Rats are afraid of Horses."

For those of you who don't know what that means, my grandmother is referring to the Chinese Zodiac where the calendar is run by 12-year cycles and each year is represented by an animal. Those born in 2008 are Rats and those born in 2009 are Oxen. I was born in the Year of the Horse.

I didn't know how to respond to that. If this was true, then all my little nieces and nephew (on my dad's side) would also be afraid of me and cry at the sight of me. If I brought this up, my grandmother might say that it was because my dad's side of the family was "different". As my BIL and his wife pointed out, the both of them would also be afraid of me because they're Rats also. But if I told my grandmother, she might say that it was because they're older than me and that it doesn't count. And since my grandmother went back to Singapore, my niece hasn't cried at the sight of me. She's actually interacting with me more, though she still won't let me hold her. It's really cute to see her trying to talk to me and interact with my son as well. I just love it!

I thought about telling her this latest update but I know that the response I'll get will be something that actually sounds pretty practical, like "it's because she's been seeing you more." But whatever the case is, there was a time when that little Rat was too afraid of this scary Horse.

The Cause of Eczema

Eczema runs in my dad's side of the family. I had it really badly when I was a baby and I didn't manage to fully get it under control until I was about 18. I still have bouts of it here and there, but it's nowhere near the scale of what my rashes used to be like.

According to Google Health, it is a hypersensitivity reaction (similar to an allergy) in the skin, which leads to long-term inflammation. The inflammation causes the skin to become itchy and scaly. Long-term irritation and scratching can cause the skin to thicken and have a leather-like texture. Eczema is a chronic condition diagnosed primarily on the appearance of the skin and personal and family history.

Of course, I didn't know any of this when I was a little girl living with my grandmother in Singapore. I just remembered having intolerable rashes and being regularly doused with something like baby powder and drinking lots of Chinese medicinal soups (you know, the really foul-tasting kind). At one point, I had asked my grandmother how I came to have eczema (and mind you, I had already been studying science in school and already had a vague idea about genetics).

"It's because your mother ate too many crackers and biscuits when she was pregnant with you," she explained. "All the crumbs just settled on your skin and made you itchy and there! Eczema!"

Ah...

Too Much Tea and Coffee!

One of the first comments that my grandmother made once she laid eyes upon my then three week old son was how dark my son was. While most agreed that my son looked rather tan, my husband and I didn't really think anything of it.

"It's because you drank too much coffee and tea while you were pregnant. That's why he's so dark," my wise grandmother explained. " You should've drank lots of milk and soy milk while you were pregnant. Then his skin would be nice and white and beautiful."

It's not that she's racist or anything. In Asia (and just about all my friends who are from Asia will testify to this), to have very fair or light complexion is a sign of beauty. Skin lighteners are big there, and I mean BIG. Just watch TV and there will inevitably be commercials for skin lighteners as part of regular programming.

We could try to explain genetics to her, but it's pretty much just in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. So even though I barely drank any coffee during my pregnancy (and it was decaf, by the way) and hardly drank any black teas (if it was tea, it was either green tea or chrysanthemum tea), just that little bit was enough to cause my son's dark complexion.

I told my BIL (brother-in-law) about this one evening at which he promptly replied: "Did you tell her 'no' and that all you drank during your pregnancy was milk? I'd love to hear what she has to say about that!"

"Nope," I said. Crap, I thought. Too late for that now.

Welcome!

Welcome to The Sagacious Grandmother!

How did I come across this idea of blogging about my grandmother? It started when my grandmother came to stay with me shortly after the birth of my son. During her stay, she had plenty of little nuggets of wisdom to share with me on how to take care of my postpartum body as well as my newborn along with a host of other things. I found these nuggets to be so awesome I decided to share them with my friends on Facebook. As a result, the feedback I received from my friends was so overwhelming, with just about everyone suggesting I put those little tidbits onto a blog. Hence "The Sagacious Grandmother" blog!

I did not start this blog to be mean or disrespectful to my grandmother, who played a huge role in my upbringing. I absolutely adore her and hope that the love I have for her comes across in my blog posts as well.

I hope you will find these little nuggets to be as profound and amusing as my friends and I have found them to be. Please feel free to laugh, cry, exclaim "Oh no she didn't!", or even to share your own family's nuggets of wisdom. Enjoy!