Dew or Don't

My daughter was two day old when she left the hospital for the first time. My mom had swaddled her in Jesus-like fashion, face included, although it was only 2 o’clock in the afternoon. In the truly confused state only a spanking brand-new mom can master, I asked my mom why she had mummified my child. I know her father was no Prince Charming but she was no Penelope either so the impromptu disguise concerned me.

My mother, a veteran, with seven kids under her belt (no pun intended), replied that “dew was falling”.

Maybe it was residual exhaustion from labour (rightly named) or just the blissful euphoria that come from knowing that I had just made a perfect, tiny human who looked just like me, but that reasoning cleared things up not at all.

Dew? At 2’oclok in the day? Was dew not that moisture found on flowers early in the mornings?

Only the slightest bit impatiently – and by that I mean she was on the verge of biting my head off – my mother explained that dew starts falling in the afternoon and babies could not take dew for the first few months of their lives ,,,because, and this is where my jaw dropped in surprise, “it makes them ‘too-too’ green.”

While I wanted to ask her to repeat herself, I had heard her perfectly and had absolutely no justifiable cause to ask her to clarify that blanket statement. Instead, like any paranoid, overprotective, first-time mom, being advised by a pro, I did the smart thing and pulled the blanket up over my baby’s face to protect her from the faeces-changing power of the invisible moisture.

Because it took us a little while to get from Sangre Grande hospital to Arima, my mom had enough time to add that if the baby gets dew and presents a coloured diaper-full, the sure-fire remedy, tried and true, was to throw the dirty diaper onto the roof of our house.

Like I said before, maybe I was dazed from childbirth, but I did not ask another question. This is my mother, she brought me into the world and brought me up with the threat/promise of being the person who could take me out of it, and if she says toss toots onto the roof, then I would monkey the hell out.     

The dictionary says that dewdrops are “moisture droplets formed on cool surfaces at night, when atmospheric vapour condenses” but my Mother says anyone who comes into the house after dew has started falling has to “dew out” before entering the same room as my new-born. Basically, a time-out of 5-10 minutes to ensure that those hitchhiking droplets were gone before anyone infects her granddaughter with nature.

And being that we were all very smart individuals, everyone did the logical thing when approaching my daughter for a couple of weeks…we dewed out.

Because who in their right mind listens to a published book, filled with factual information and contains the basic foundation of the English Language, when their mother has spoken?

Not me, that for damn sure. I had a baby to live for, I was not going to flirt with certain death by telling me mother ‘No’.