Last night daddy took you to the bedroom to change your diaper. A few seconds later, he said, "Mommy, look who's got a belly button now." Yay!! I was very excited. Now you look even more perfect without that big dried-up raisin dangling from your belly.
I picked up the umbilical cord and asked, "What do we do with it? Throw it away?" I was more interested in the shape and depth of your belly button than thinking about the significance of the umbilical cord (I've always wished mine didn't look so much like a frown, and daddy's belly button is so deep he often pulls lint out of it). We had no idea, so we decided to keep the umbilical cord stump until we finally decide to do with it.
I never thought about what to do with your umbilical cord stump. I know some mothers keep it as a keepsake, for it used to be the connection between the mother and fetus. Others are completely grossed out by the idea of keeping and adding sentimental values to what realistically is a piece of dead skin.
I'm neither. I can see why and how some mothers would be so hung up on the idea of the umbilical cord being the connection between mother and child, but I'm not terribly attached to it emotionally. I don't think you are or will ever be either. In fact, you probably won't even ask about your umbilical cord until you have your first child! That said, the umbilical cord stump is more than a piece of dead skin. It played a vital role in getting us to where we are today. For this reason, I'm not 100% comfortable discarding it as if it was some valueless garbage.
So... as a gift to celebrate your independence, even though I used to think it was a tacky thing to do, I am going to follow the Chinese custom and turn your umbilical cord stump into a part of your first personal chop (like one in the picture below).
Pictures from: blog.xuite.net/melody6008/melody6008/17519977
6 comments:
When you're settled in your home that Kai will grow up in (hopefully closer to us!!) you could plant it with a tree, or a bush. I thought it would be nice to do that with Renee's, though I ended up giving it to my mother-in-law (because she has Adam's)....I don't really know why we gave it to her. Anyway, I'm not opposed to keeping it, but it's not something I'd like to look at from time to time. I think the keepsake box thingy (it is actually called a 'Personal Chop'?) is a very cute idea. ;-)
A personal chop is a stamp of the person's name. It is widely used in Asia as signatures are used in North America. In this case, they put the umbilical cord stump inside the stone of your chose and carve the child's name on one end of the stone. In other words, Kai will have his very own custom-made, one-of-a-kind stamp of his Chinese name.
The cool thing about this is that we'll get to choose a font from the traditional calligraphy "fonts" that are hundreds (even thousands) of years old.
That IS very cool!
Now, that's something neat to do with an umbilical cord....or shriveled up piece of dead skin. ;-)
...also, in this age of DNA, it'll be proof positive of his "originality"... should he become President or Emperor or CEO or something!
Wow. Neat! I didn't know we do that... This and your last post together somehow reminds me of the mosquito caught in amber...
i LOVE this! such a great tradition!
i saved the girl's stumps. i have no idea why or what to do with them. it never even occurred to me to throw them away though- my mom has mine and tucked it into an envelope in my baby book. i just assumed that's what people did.
the even bigger dilemma is ivy's placenta. it's in the freezer and i have no idea what to do with that. the midwives saved it and froze it for us. i completely forgot about it until we moved when ivy was 6 months old. oy.
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