爱的代价

A phone call came in yesterday morning, at 6am. It was my brother informing us that little Joey was running a fever. Mom and Dad immediately took off to bro's place. Later in the day, I found that they had took Joey to KK hospital. They were worried that she had a scare (from nightmare???) - Chinese call this "惊风" and kids diagosed with this problem are fed the ubiqutous "惊风散". Luckily, after rounds of blood and urine tests, nothing amiss was discovered. The doc prescribed some pills to control the fever and by evening, Joey was back to her usual active brat again.

Sigh. The price of having kids. 小不点的稍微风吹草动, 发烧流鼻涕, 爸爸妈妈爷爷奶奶就有得忙了.

After hearing Mom's account of the day, I made a remark, "We weren't so troublesome when we were babies, right?"

Gosh. Bad move. Really bad move.

From my mom's retort, I found out that, when my brothers and I were babies,

• I threw up whenever I cry. Every time. And my vomit stank really bad.
  
• I had this 'pox' condition at 11 month where my mom, who was already pregnant with my brother, had to take me to the doc every week.
  
• I get coughs very often.
  
• My 2nd bro had 'worms' in him, giving him bad stomach aches. On one occassion, my parents dug out one wriggly-wiggly out of his mouth in the middle of the night.
  
• My 3rd brother had fevers whenever he got a new tooth. So that's about 28 times for a kid?
  

From this 'extensive' list of examples, my mom rebutted my "kids-last-time-were-tougher-than-kids-nowadays" theory. In her mind, all kids go through the same shit, now or then. All parents will have their fair share of pain in bringing up a child.

Last I heard tonight, Joey was running another high fever, again. Another night of worry for my bro and his wife.

Sigh. The price of being parents.

I hope this entry stays around long enough for Joey to grow up to read, and appreciate what her mom and dad has done for her.