Not a child, not yet a woman

It was 9pm and we were in our hotel room in Ipoh. Outside, it was raining heavily. KH and I watching a documentary on killer typhoons in our room, lazy to move after a great Ipoh hor fun dinner. The kids were hooked on Cartoon Network in their room. And thus it was when Gillian skidded into our room, and told me excitedly: mum! it's here! My period!!

Inwardly I go: No-ooooooooooooooo!

Talk about good timing. I don't feel prepared to deal with this. Not while we're on vacation! But who was I kidding - I didn't feel prepared to mother a kid high on puberty hormones! While we've covered the sex bit over the dinner table couple of moons ago, I'm not sure how much of that got through. Though I think now that all mothers worry about this and the truth is: not much really goes through. Couple of thoughts race through my mind. First - gotta find a sanitary napkin and fast! Second - er, is this where I regurgitate the no-sex until you're married lecture? Third - oh no, all that blood and staining!! And what about the Red Party I planned for her? All out the window!

Well, I follow her to the bathroom and have a peek. Yep. No kidding.

I head back to the room. KH raises his eyebrows in a question mark. I nod and he grins: OK, over to you then!

I call the Front Desk - is there a pharmacy open? No pharmacy but the mamak shop across the road is still open.

When I imagined Gillian getting her period, I did not bargain for this scenario: me dashing across the road in a heavy rain at night in a foreign country, buying a pack of sanitary napkins from a mamak shop. Looking at the two types of packages on the dusty shelf made me think wistfully of NTUC and the multiple shelves filled with blue, pink, wings, sleep, day, maxi, liners, tampons etc.

So back in the bathroom I teach her how to tape the pad on, how to dispose of it, how to clean her underwear etc. I also throw in a very fumbly speech on how her body is precious, how she is now a woman etc and of course, a couple of lines under the do-not-have-sex-until-you're-married header. I'm not sure that she took it all in. She seemed very excited and told me that she was scared. Here's my chance to be in the sensitive-mother mode but I blew it. I took the sensible and brisk approach and said: nonsense! Nothing to be scared of. You'll get used to it when things settle down.

Later I told KH: gee, I'm SO glad MY period didn't come! Thank God for lactational amenorrhea! Yay!!

Well, either God wasn't paying close attention when I thanked Him or He had a very bad sense of humour because the very next day, my period came!!

So both Gillian and I were sidelined for most of the holiday, nursing our periods, each of us having our own unique firsts - her first in a lifetime and my first after more than a year. It was lovely being period-free and now, geez, back to fumbling with the pads, the tampons etc. Maybe its time to get myself a mooncup - lulu, you reading this??

Interesting though - my daughter is now a woman. Sort of. Hard to think of her that way. Seems like just yesterday that she was a baby. And now, she's able to have her own babies. Wow.

I am writing this on Boxing Day. Gillian's first period started on 10th Dec and ended only yesterday, Christmas Day. 15 days and two-thirds of those were heavy flow with big clots. We went through about 4 boxes of sanitary napkins. I was concerned enough to bring her to the GP for a look. But the doc felt it was normal. I'll watch her though and see if this is the pattern.