21 days done, 19 more days to go

21st May.

Marking the 3 weeks of the newborn.

Marking 19 more days towards completion of the 40-days confinement period. Or known as period of pantang.

Pantang literally means ban.

It means I am banned from eating certain foods / doing certain things all through this 40 days.

I can't eat anything 'cold', like all the vegetables and fruits (with the exception of apple because the Malays can't rule out whether it is cold or not, carrot, sawi).
I can't drink anything cold. Everything must be suam or tepid.
I can't eat anything hot and spicy. Since the spices will get into the breast milk and upset the baby's tummy.
I mustn't let my big toes stumbles into anything or else I'd get into high fever.

Plus, there are certain things that I must do daily. And I have been doing them daily, religiously. Tak tipu punya..
I start the day with bathing with some leaves boiled with water. It is very refreshing and smells good.
Then there is a hot stone wrapped in a piece of clothes with some leaves underneath the cloth that is as big as four times your palms to be pressed over and over again my tummy.
During certain days, there is this lady who'll came to massage me. The first three massage-series were good, the next were painful.
Then certain days, I'd go for a tangas session where they'll be steaming hot water with herbs underneath my two legs and the steam will detoxify my whole body.
A hot oil is then rubbed onto my tummy.
Then I'll get the routines finished with cloth binded tightly around my waist which I shall not take off until the morning after.

Fooh. typing all these making my eyes blurry and my arms prickling with pain, what more doing it.

19 more days to go.