In the blink of an eye, it was mid-January. It was the third month since Qiao Lu traveled to Li An. This year's Spring Festival came very late, almost in mid-February, which gave Qiao Lu more opportunities to prepare.

After New Year's Day, the weather suddenly changed, with a whistling north wind that made people scream. The whole of Li'an was shrouded in a sudden downpour, and the cold made her head ache. Qiao Lu, who was afraid of the cold, didn't even want to go out.

Fortunately, she didn't have a proper job at that time, so it was still very comfortable for her to lie on the bed. Not to mention that she could hug Qiaoan, the human stove, while lying on the bed. Her life was simply too wonderful.

I went out to the garbage station to take out the trash and met many neighbors on the way. We greeted each other with a smile.

During the days she lived in the compound, Qiao Lu was infected by the spirit of her neighbors every day, their faces full of hope for the future life, and their eyes were peaceful and happy.

It's not like forty years later, when everyone is desperately trying to roll up, and the lack of spiritual world has split the world into two halves...

The garbage dump was located in a small open space about 400 to 500 meters away from home. In the cold winter, the ground was frozen with cracks everywhere. Qiao Lu held her breath and dumped the garbage into the garbage dump. There were no plastic bags in those days, so people had to carry buckets to dump the garbage.

I finally took out all the trash, and when I was leaving, I caught a glimpse of a large yellow bucket-shaped ice cube in the corner!

I almost vomited because I couldn't catch my breath.

My god, how cold is it this year? The urine in the urine bucket can actually freeze into ice cubes?! Can a city near the sea be so cold? This is unscientific!

Qiao Lu complained inwardly, picked up the trash can and ran to the yard.

Unfortunately, at the gate, I ran into Wu Guifang who had just returned from the fabric store. I waved to her warmly, smiling like a chrysanthemum petal: "Qiaolu! Qiaolu! You came just in time. Come and have a look at the fabric I just bought. Take a look. Is it similar to yours?"

Before Qiao Lu moved, the neighbors came over, touched the fabrics and praised Wu Guifang for her good selection skills.

Qiao Lu looked at it repeatedly and touched it with her clean other hand: "Uh... well, it's about the same."

In fact, there is a big difference. Hers is single-sided woolen cloth, made in Hong Kong, while this is polyester fabric, produced by a small factory. The quality is worlds apart!

Even the color... Qiao Lu's coat was dark brown, while Wu Guifang's was light gray, they were different in every way.

But seeing her happy expression, I decided not to expose her and just let her make new clothes happily.

"Are you buying it to make a coat?" asked Qiao Lu.

"Yes." Wu Guifang lowered her voice and happily pulled her towards the inner courtyard: "When the time comes, you can lend it to me for two days. Just two days. I promise to return it to you on time."

As early as when she saw Qiaolu wearing it, she couldn't wait to have a coat of her own. After so many days, she still remembers the temperament and image of Qiaolu wearing it at that time. It's simple. If she were a man, she would marry Qiaolu regardless of the second or third marriage!

It just so happened that she earned seventy or eighty dollars by making gloves for Qiao Lu last month. This was hard-earned money that she had earned through sewing stitch by stitch, so she had to keep it in her own hands and keep some for herself.

"Yeah, okay." That's not a big deal, the main thing is that she's worried that she won't be able to make the same feeling with this material. Different fabrics may result in different patterns.

"And the pants. They look really good on you. How did you make them?"

"It's just an ordinary pair of pants, I changed the hem to be a little looser." The pants were really ordinary, but Qiao Lu's figure and face made them look particularly good. Especially the style, which was clearly loose, but it made her legs look straight and slender when she wore it.

Wu Guifang suddenly realized: "Oh, that's easy, I can do it."

Qiao Lu: "Well, when you want to make it, come to my room and get it. I'm going back now. It's very cold today."

Wu Guifang smiled and said, "Okay, I'll go back too."

As soon as the door was opened, the hot air rushed in and enveloped the whole body. The charcoal in the brazier was burning under the dining table. Qiao Lu had deliberately left a hole in the window to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning.

Qiao Lu put down the trash can and went to the well to fetch some water to wash her hands. The water was so cold that she trembled as she spoke.

"It's so cold, so cold, so cold. An An, come here quickly and let mommy hug you." Rubbing her hands, Qiao Lu ran into the bedroom tremblingly. Her ears were numb from the cold during the ten minutes she was out.

"Mom, you said you would take me out to buy groceries today. I've already dressed myself!" The little guy rushed into Qiao Lu's arms and hugged his mother very tightly.

With his little scarf already on, he was eager to try it out and couldn't wait to get going!

This child has been extremely interested since Qiao Lu started teaching him about fruits and vegetables.

He now knows that white oval grains are called rice, yellow round grains are called millet, rice with clothes is paddy, millet with clothes is millet. Spherical vegetables include onions and tomatoes, lettuce has green hair, corn also has hair, but it is yellow... and so on, these are really interesting!

In the past, Qiao An only knew that there could be meat, vegetables and rice on the table. She didn’t know that meat and vegetables, like people, also have names!

Now, before eating every day, he would accurately name the dishes on each plate before he would eat, and his interest was so strong.

Even Xu Haizhou praised this method of education, because he found that by learning the names of vegetables and fruits, Qiaoan's language expression ability increased like a rocket.

Although children will naturally learn about vegetables and fruits as they grow older, Joan is in the golden period of intellectual development at the age of three. This kind of teaching will make the child very interested in exploration from an early age, and will also allow the child to establish extensive connections with the world early on, laying a foundation for future classroom learning once and for all.

In response, Xu Haizhou praised Qiao Lu very much: "I find your educational methods for An An very novel. I have never seen these methods anywhere else."

In Xu Haizhou's opinion, no parents would go out of their way to teach their children how to recognize fruits and vegetables in order to develop their children's intelligence. Isn't this something that should happen naturally? Who would pay attention to these small details?

Qiao Lu just said, "I was just thinking about it."

In fact, in her previous life, many of her friends had children, some even had two or three children. Have you ever seen a pig run before eating pork? She also often accompanied her mother to the bookstore to buy preschool books for her children. She was influenced by what she saw and heard, and was forced to remember a lot of methodologies.

For preschool children, it is better for adults to gain direct experience from life rather than gain indirect experience from books. This is the best education for children, which is ten thousand times better than any early childhood education training class.

…

The farmers' market was quite a distance away from the compound. With such a strong wind and such a cold weather, children had poor resistance, not to mention Qiaoan, who was weak and sickly. Qiao Lu was afraid that he would catch a cold, so she wrapped him in layers of clothes before leaving.

The little guy was wrapped up like a bear, and his short legs couldn't even move. He clenched his fists and protested: "Mom! Don't put clothes on me anymore! I can't even walk!"

Only then did Qiao Lu realize that her slender son had been wrapped into a round shape!

Qiao Lu chuckled and quickly "relieved the burden" on him.

Li Hongjun came to our home yesterday and gave Qiao An a knitted plush hat covered with grey plush. Qiao Lu also took some scraps of fabric and added some small details, sewing two big panda ears on the hat. They were furry in black and white and very adorable. They attracted a lot of attention.

So the little guy is extremely excited today, because not only does he get to go to the vegetable market, but he also gets to wear a hat with panda ears to the market so he can show off in front of so many people!

Let’s not talk about how many heads I’ll turn when I walk to the market. As soon as I walk out of the room, I’ll attract countless people’s attention. The children all stare at me, staring at my panda ear hat with their eyes almost popping out.

Qiao Lu thought her son would be shy being stared at by so many people, but she didn't expect the boy to be so conceited. He held her hand and walked forward with big strides.

Qiao Lu was afraid of the cold, so she hunched her shoulders and walked slowly. Qiao An pulled her and made her walk faster, until they came in front of a group of children, and then she slowed down her pace a little.

At this moment, he exuded an aura of "I am very noble, and my hat is very noble". He looked so proud and arrogant that Qiao Lu almost couldn't hold back her laughter!

This was the first time that Qiao Lu was watched by the children as they left the house since she married into the mansion. Even after leaving, she still felt the longing and envious gazes on them like a thorn in her back.

…

When the mother and son came back from buying groceries, they heard a lot of children crying in the yard for no apparent reason:

"I want one too. I want one too! I want a hat. I want my hat to have ears too!"

"I don't care, I want it! Buy it for me!"

"Mom, I want it, I want it, buy it for me... I don't want new clothes for the New Year, I want a hat, a hat with ears..."

"Go away! How can I, your mother, have the time to make your ears? I have nothing to do all day long, right?"

Song Qingping was pestered by her son as soon as she got home from get off work. She was already very tired from work, and her son actually wanted a hat with panda ears? Making this thing is not like making gloves and she doesn't get paid. She is not happy about it.

The key point is that the child already has a hat! His grandmother knitted it for him in the summer.

"Wuwu - Mom is so bad! Qiaoan has it, why can't I have it!"

This sentence made his mother laugh: "Qiao An has a beautiful mother, but you don't. So do you want your father to find you a beautiful mother?"

"Woo-woo--I don't want a pretty mother, I just want a hat! I want a hat--woo--!"

The whole yard is filled with sighs and groans. There will be no peace today. The culprit is now happily cooking delicious food in his own kitchen.

I made two side dishes, the usual diced sour radish and a portion of mustard greens. I stir-fried them for three minutes, then drizzled them with a layer of hot oil, then sprinkled a handful of minced garlic and soy sauce, and the aroma filled the air.

An old hen was stewing in the pot, along with green peppers, potatoes and chicken nuggets. Star anise, cinnamon and various spices were thrown into the pot, seeping into every inch of the chicken, even the bones were fragrant. Paired with the dried shiitake mushrooms produced by her second sister's factory, the flavor was even more intense.

The chicken soup is best eaten with rice. Pour a spoonful of it into a bowl. The rice that has absorbed the soup will have an oily sheen and emit two salty aromas that stimulate the taste buds in your mouth: one is the flavor of chicken, and the other is the inherent carbohydrate aroma of the rice.

Qiao An was drooling so much that he couldn't hold it back any longer. Afraid that his saliva would leak out, he quickly ran back to the room to tease Bubble and Xiaobai to divert their attention.

“Boom boom boom—”

Suddenly, someone knocked on the bedroom window.

Qiao An ran over and opened the curtains. When he pulled them open, he saw three brothers and sisters who were about his age. Their eyes were fixed on his... round head.

"Hey! Joan!"

Normally, if Qiao Lu was around, Qiao An would still chat with the other kids in the yard, but if his mom or dad wasn't around, he would generally be too shy to talk to anyone.

There has been some improvement in recent days. Now that Qiao Lu is not around, the child can lie by the window and talk to his friends, but he just refuses to go out and play with them.

"Qiaoan, why are you still indoors today? Come out and play with us." Chen Jingtao, the son of the second daughter-in-law of the Chen family, said with his head tilted.

"No." Qiao An shook her head softly.

"My mom said, let me take you to play." They like Joan's panda hat very much. Mom said that if they become friends with Joan, they can wear his hat.

Little Qiaoan still rejected several people very coldly: "I don't want to play with you."

The children scratched their heads in confusion: "Why?"

"I don't know you," said Joan.

Chen Jingkang, the eldest sister-in-law's youngest son, blinked and said, "But we got to know each other after playing together for a while."

"But I don't know you now." This child has also learned to use time words.

"Then you play with us, and we'll get to know each other after we're done."

"I don't know you now. I'll play with you guys after I know you." Qiao An gave the same answer, pouting her little mouth in stubbornness.

This went on over and over again, with the same dolls being placed on top of each other. There was no way to continue the conversation, and the children were all annoyed by Qiaoan's stubbornness and left.

Less than five minutes after they left, a loud cry suddenly came from the Chen family's small kitchen opposite.

"Wow--"

The crying was so loud that it shook the earth and hurt people's ears.

"What's wrong? Whose child is crying?" It sounded like a deceased person, so noisy.

Wu Guifang from next door went out to take a look, and followed the crying sound to find that Chen Jingkang was pestering his mother for a hat with ears, but the soy sauce bottle fell and broke, and he was beaten by his mother.

A large can of soy sauce fell down and hit Chen Jingkang's forehead, leaving a big bump and staining half of his face black. However, instead of comforting him, his mother complained that he was clumsy.

"Mom, my brother is crying."

Qiao Lu looked in the direction of the sound and saw Chen Jingkang crying and screaming because of being beaten by his mother, from Baicao Garden to Sanwei Book House... Finally, he ran away to under the loquat tree. Only then did his mother come back home angrily with the clothes hanger in her hand.

Instead of trying to persuade him, the neighbors joined in the fun and made fun of the child.

"I'll learn this lesson from now on. I'll let you down! It's only two dimes!"

After the fight, Lin Caihe went into the house to clean up the mess, and then she had to continue cooking for the whole family. The Chen family had a distribution system, this week the eldest daughter-in-law cooked, next week the second daughter-in-law cooked, the two took turns, and the Chen family's aunts didn't have to do any work, and they could just enjoy a peaceful life.

Chen Jingkang felt extremely aggrieved. He squatted under the loquat tree and wiped his tears. His crying was a little softer than before, but he felt much more aggrieved than before.

When children came to comfort him, he didn't want to pay attention and just cried until his voice was almost hoarse.

He felt aggrieved and unwilling to accept it, but on what basis? The soy sauce bottle fell down and hit him. Before he could even feel aggrieved, he was beaten by his mother because he was blind, talked too much and was a nuisance.

Wuwuwuwu——How can there be such an unreasonable person, wuwuwuwuwu——

Even though it was winter and he was being beaten through a quilt, it wouldn't hurt much, at most the palms would be red. But probably because she had a child herself, Qiao Lu felt distressed when she heard the crying. She suddenly had an idea. She was just worried that her son didn't want to play with his peers, and here came the opportunity!

"An An, Mommy has some candies here, you can use them to appease your brother." After saying that, she went into the bedroom and took out the fruit candies from the camphorwood box.

After marrying Xu Haizhou, there were snacks and candies in the house all the time. Qiao An was not allowed to eat them every day, but only a few times occasionally. After all, eating too much candies and snacks was not good for a child's health.

"Hmm..." The little guy's facial features were twisted into a ball, and he listened to the increasingly loud crying outside the house, and sighed in compromise: "Okay then."

Qiao An turned and walked towards the loquat tree with very small steps. Her back was hesitant and slow, as if she was not giving candy to her brother, but going to die.

Anyway, I mustered up the courage to go there.

The little guy walked up to Chen Jingkang, stretched out his little hand, and said in a soft and sticky voice: "Here, here, don't cry, I'll give you candy."

Chen Jingkang paused for half a second in his sobbing, swallowed, closed his eyes and continued wailing, with tears and snot.

It was Qiao An’s first time coaxing a child and she had no experience. When she saw that the child ignored her, she panicked.

"Brother Kang Kang, I'll give you some candy..."

With such a shout, adults and children alike would be moved!

"Thank you, thank you..." Chen Jingkang reached out to take it, peeled off the sugar coating and stuffed it into his mouth, and tears immediately solidified in the corners of his eyes.

So sweet, oooooooo——

"Is it sweet?" Qiao An stared at him eagerly with her clear little deer eyes.

Chen Jingkang nodded vigorously: "Super sweet!"

Qiao An: “Is it delicious?”

Chen Jingkang: “Delicious!”

Qiao An blinked: "Then are you still crying?"

Chen Jingkang shook his head: "I won't cry anymore."

After a few rounds, Qiaoan became like a big child.

The atmosphere here was warm and cozy, when suddenly Lin Caihe's roar came from the Chen family's small kitchen: "Chen, Jing, Kang! What are you still doing outside! Aren't you going to eat today? Go get some soy sauce!"

Chen Jingkang was startled and didn't even have time to say goodbye to Qiao An. He patted his butt, ran back to the kitchen, took the money and the empty bottle, and went to the grocery store to buy soy sauce.

"Why are you back? Did Kang Kang eat your candy?"

The little guy seemed quite happy. When he came back, he jumped up and down with a smile on his face: "Yeah! Brother Kang Kang ate it and said it was sweet. Then he stopped crying."

The little expression is filled with pride.

Qiao Lu laughed out loud. Kids these days are really easy to coax.

Looking towards the loquat tree in the yard, Qiao Lu scooped the stewed rotten chicken into the bowl in confusion: "Why don't I see Kang Kang? Did he go home?"

The young man raised his head and pointed in the direction of the gate: "Brother Kang Kang went to help his mother get soy sauce."

Qiao Lu laughed: "Kang Kang is so capable, can An An help mom to make soy sauce?"

"I..." The young man hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath as if to encourage himself, and after a long while he shouted loudly: "I can do it!"

Qiao Lu kissed him on the cheek with joy and said, "My son is awesome. When our soy sauce runs out in a few days, I'll let you go and yawn."

"Okay, Mom!"

The author has something to say:

With the help of her mother, An An is finally going to make friends!