Chapter 88: Life with a Baby
The nickname "Moon" was really wrong, because the moon would disappear when thunder sounded. So Wen Xiaomei was very afraid of thunder, and she would have to be held in Wen Jiajia's arms to stop her from crying when thunder sounded.
Two months have passed since she was born and this was the only time she insisted on being held. Wen Jiajia didn't feel annoyed, but rather found it extremely strange.
Fortunately, the thunderstorm only lasted for one day. The next day, the sky was clear and blue, as if the world had been cleansed and looked brand new.
Wen Jiajia stood in the yard and took a deep breath. Her nose was filled with the fresh scent of grass, trees and soil, a scent that no top perfumer could create.
Spring has really come.
A spring rain gives birth to many lives. Tender green weeds sprout from the moist soil, and dry branches sprout yellow-green buds.
The grass looks green from a distance but is not there when you get close.
The green in the yard is not dense, but the green in the mountains in the distance completely covers the top of the mountain.
If you look carefully, you can still see some powder.
Wen Jiajia couldn't help but say, "Those are peach blossoms, right? The peach blossoms on the opposite mountain are blooming, so the peach blossoms on our back mountain should be blooming too."
Zhong Huisheng was making a net-shaped flower. He laughed when he heard it: "There are three signs of the peach blossom season. The first is the beginning of peach blossoms, the second is the cuckoo's cry, and the third is the eagle turning into a dove. The peach blossom season is the peach blossom season. Are you planning to make peach blossom wine?"
She learned how to make net buckle flowers from Sister Bao some time ago, and now she can do it by herself, but her speed is not very fast. Sister Bao's speed is four or five times faster than hers.
But Zhong Huisheng was just doing it for fun, to kill time. She didn't care much about money, and she would sometimes take out five yuan out of the 15 yuan Wen Jiajia gave her every month to buy clothes and hair ornaments for Wen Chun and Wen Xuan.
Wen Jiajia guessed in her heart that her cousin's family had once been wealthy. Even though they had been quiet for so many years, they must have still had a lot of savings, so they definitely had money.
She smiled and said, "Forget about the peach blossom wine. I was just joking at the time. We have all kinds of wine at home, including three tanks. I want to make peach blossom tea. It's good for beauty and also helps with bowel movements. But I can't drink it now because I have to breastfeed. I don't know if I can keep it after drying it in the sun until I'm weaned."
Zhong Huisheng understood what she meant: "Do you want to lose weight?"
Wen Jiajia nodded: "Yeah! I am at least 20 pounds heavier than before."
As a photogenic internet celebrity, although she has not followed the path of beauty bloggers, she still keeps a close eye on her weight.
There is no need to weigh herself. Just by feeling the flesh on her body and looking at the clavicle under her neck, Wen Jiajia can roughly estimate her own weight.
Before pregnancy, she weighed about 100 pounds. In the early stages of pregnancy, she lost 3 or 4 pounds because she had no appetite. In the later stages of pregnancy, she swelled up like a balloon and weighed 130 pounds.
Now, she is about 115 to 120cm tall, not fat, after all, she is tall. But Wen Jiajia can't stand the fat on her belly, and always wants to shrink her belly.
"Oh!" It's a pity that there is no beauty salon, otherwise going to a beauty salon for a few months would produce significant results. Why would she need to work so hard to make all kinds of tea?
After lunch, after coaxing the child to sleep, Wen Jiajia wrapped her hair with a piece of cloth and took a basket to pick peach blossoms.
The peach blossoms on the back hill were indeed in bloom, and not only that, but mushrooms and bamboo shoots had also sprouted in abundance.
Wen Jiajia was instantly attracted by the mushrooms along the way, but when she looked closely, she found that most of them were unfamiliar to her. They were red and white in color, which reminded her of the famous "red umbrella with white stem"... Wen Jiajia didn't even dare to touch it.
I did pick a lot of wild vegetables, including shepherd's purse, artemisia selengensis, alfalfa, toon, elm seeds and dandelions.
There is no need to say much about shepherd's purse. My cousin picked a lot of it by the lake yesterday. I blanched it, chopped it up, and made dumplings with it together with meat in the evening.
This is the first shepherd's purse dumplings I had this year. They were so fresh and tender that Wen Jiajia ate 20 of them in one breath. When she woke up in the middle of the night, her stomach was still full. Every time she burped, she smelled like dumplings.
There is no need to talk about Artemisia selengensis. Shepherd's purse can be found near the lake, so how can there not be Artemisia selengensis?
Artemisia selengensis, also known as water wormwood, looks a bit like Chinese chrysanthemum and is usually used to stir-fry bacon. The taste is average if stir-fried unless a lot of oil is added.
However, its stems can be pickled, and when they are almost pickled, they are very good to be used with porridge. My cousin's aunt pickled all the mugwort she picked yesterday, and said that they can be eaten next month.
As for Chinese toon, elm greens and dandelions, there is no need to say much. They are wild vegetables commonly eaten in the countryside and are delicious when used to cook scrambled eggs.
Alfalfa, on the other hand, was originally used as fodder for livestock. But the taste of alfalfa in March is really wonderful, even when eaten cold, so it unfortunately ended up on her family's spring menu.
After March, the alfalfa turns from tender to old, and the family will ruthlessly discard it.
After walking and stopping along the way, we finally arrived at the peach tree.
The peach tree is short, but you can still climb it.
Wen Jiajia climbed to the fork of the tree and sat there to pick flowers. She didn't pick too many, just half a basket full and left.
When going down the mountain, just dig up a few bamboo shoots, hold them in your arms and go down the mountain.
"Aunt, let's make braised bamboo shoots in oil for dinner tonight." She said when she got home.
Zhong Huisheng: "Great! Wow, these are really tender bamboo shoots. They came out today after the thunderstorm yesterday."
"It's just that Wei Dai is not free these days, otherwise we have to call him to dig bamboo shoots every day. The bamboo shoots are the most delicious these days." Wen Jiajia put down the basket and said.
Bamboo shoots in winter and bamboo shoots in spring are both her favorites. Bamboo shoots are not uncommon in her hometown, but the bamboo shoots here are especially delicious and are a superior variety. The bamboo shoots in her hometown cannot be compared.
Wen Jiajia took off the cloth on her head, washed her hands and face with soap, went to the bathroom to change clothes, and then went into the room to pick up the baby.
Wen Xiaomei was still asleep, but maybe she had a telepathic connection with her mother, but she woke up shortly after Wen Jiajia entered the room.
His round eyes were rolling around and he kept saying "Oh" and "Oh", showing that he was in a very good mood at the moment.
Wen Jiajia was in a good mood too. She resisted the urge to kiss the child and helped her solve the physiological problem.
Zhong Huisheng also loves to eat bamboo shoots, and braised bamboo shoots in oil is her specialty. Anyway, her cooking is much better than Wen Jiajia's.
As soon as the seasoning is cooked, the aroma spreads directly outside the yard.
Everyone who passes by has to ask: "Jia Jia, are you eating meat again?"
Wen Jiajia could put her hands on her hips and answer confidently, "No, I ate bamboo shoots! There are bamboo shoots in the back mountain. They are everywhere. They are so tender."
Look, her family can’t eat meat every day.
It really wasn't like that recently. I've been paying off debts recently. Wei Dai has paid back 70% of the meat coupons he got. After all, I ate meat every day during my confinement. Where did the meat come from? Some of it was meat bought at a high price without coupons, and some of it was meat bought with meat coupons borrowed from others.
In addition, Wen Jiajia was not working, and the family was running out of money for meat. Since they were craving for meat but didn't want to eat fish, they could only rely on lard and the smoked meat and bacon hanging from the beams in the kitchen to fill their stomachs.
My cousin's aunt is very good at managing life. Under her arrangement, we can only eat bacon once a week.
The sky is most beautiful in the evening, just before dark.
Brilliant gold, bright red, bright green, blue... just like what a great painter mixed with his palette, it is breathtakingly beautiful.
Wen Chun and Wen Xuan came back with their small schoolbags. Their schoolbags had been modified by Sister Bao. The panda on them looked cute, but the shadow of the panda embroidered by Wen Jiajia was no longer there.
Because of this, they became quite popular among the children in the orphanage.
Nowadays, nine out of ten children have pandas on their schoolbags. Wen Jiajia has seen a lot of strange-looking pandas recently. She has never seen so many in her previous life!
"Aunt, did my little sister cry today?"
As soon as Wen Chun came back, he went to see his younger sister, and even learned how to write his younger sister's name.
Fortunately, my little sister's name is very simple. The only difficult part is the character "闻", but this is also her last name, and she can write it, so she learned it in no time.
Wen Jiajia answered her seriously: "She didn't cry. She didn't cry all day. She just whimpered for a while when she wet the bed. After I changed her diaper, she was very happy."
Wen Chun nodded like a little adult, and then he felt relieved.
Wen Jiajia held back her laughter and patted her head: "Let's go eat. My aunt made delicious food today."
Didn’t you see Wen Xuan has come to the table?
Her nose is like a radar, and she can tell whether the food is good or not by her reaction.
Wen Chun ran closer to take a look, wow, there were shiny braised spring bamboo shoots, golden steamed eggs, a dish of spicy and sour shredded potatoes, and a plate of fried eggs with toon, which tasted even better than meat.
Wen Jiajia said, "You guys eat first. I'm afraid my uncle-in-law won't be back until midnight."
Wei Dai has been staying up so late these days. Fortunately, my little sister is a deep sleeper and was not woken up by him.
Wen Xuan: "Aunt and aunt, you guys can eat too."
"Okay, let's eat right away." Zhong Huisheng brought out another bowl of seaweed and shrimp rice soup.
The taste of the braised bamboo shoots is so good. When you put it in your mouth, you first smell the aroma of the seasoning, and then the freshness of the bamboo shoots. The salty and fresh taste explodes in your mouth as you chew. The key is that the bamboo shoots are not old, and they are still crispy when you bite them, and the taste is particularly good.
Wen Jiajia decided that there would be Leishun on the dinner table for the next half month.
The days of raising children go by very quickly. It always feels like winter is barely over and summer is already here.
At the end of April, the weather started to get hot from time to time. Yesterday, it was still around 10 or 20 degrees, and the breeze was the most comfortable. Today, it exceeded 30 degrees, and there were a few days when I even had to wear short sleeves at noon.
Wen Jiajia's cotton coat became a single piece of clothing, and she only needed to put on a coat every morning and evening.
Wen Xiaomei's clothes were much thinner. In the past, she had to be carried with the blanket in winter, but now it was very easy to carry her. She had grown a lot, and became more active. Her arms and legs would move around. After being carried for a long time, her arms would ache. Wen Jiajia finally understood why Sha Yue went to see a doctor for her arm.
The little girl is now the most comfortable person in the family. She eats and sleeps every day, and when she wakes up she is carried to the yard to look at the flowers and grass.
She was good-looking, like the dolls in New Year pictures, plump, fair, and with delicate features. Everyone in the family compound liked to hold her and play with her.
This resulted in Wen Xiaomei being not afraid of strangers at all and always smiling at everyone she met.
Even though she was not afraid of the stinky-faced Lao Wang, who was the most feared by the children in the compound, she was just a little resistant to being held in his arms. If he insisted on being held in her arms, she would just slap him in the face and then turn around and open her arms to look for her mother.
However, Wen Jiajia didn't dare to take her out all the time, because people at that time had no idea of forbidding kissing children. If they met a child with a lot of flesh on the face, they would want to suck the flesh into their mouths.
If Wen Jiajia hadn't been watching closely, Wen Xiaomei would have been kissed bald. Because of this, she offended many people, who said she watched the child closely and didn't allow kissing, which was very weird.
There are also bad things about changing seasons. Wen Chun and Wen Xuan fell ill during the change of seasons this year.
The weather has been alternating between hot and cold recently, and the two of them are in elementary school. There are no teachers following them around to help them dress and undress, so they are naturally prone to getting sick.
The first one to fall ill was Wenchun. This child took off his clothes before the physical education class and was only wearing a single layer of clothes when he returned home in the evening.
Before Wen Jiajia could react, Zhong Huisheng took one look and said, "It's over. She might catch a cold." As a mother who has raised several children, she knows best what symptoms a child will have before getting sick.
So I immediately made her a bowl of ginger and egg soup and asked her to drink it. However, the evil wind entered her body and the ginger could not suppress it. She had a fever that night. She was gasping for breath and felt very uncomfortable, but she could not open her eyes.
But Wen Xuan was sleeping soundly and didn't notice anything unusual about her sister.
Wen Jiajia was still thinking about her. After changing Wen Xiaomei's diaper in the middle of the night, she went to the next room to check on her and found out that she had a fever. She woke up Wei Dai at that time, and together they took Wen Chun to the hospital.
It was a chaotic situation, so busy that even the stars disappeared, and the enthusiasm gradually subsided.
She didn't go to school the next day and just lay at home. Wei Dai bought some lean meat and cooked vegetable and lean meat porridge for her. After resting for two days, her condition finally improved and she was able to go to school. Unexpectedly, Wen Xuan also fell ill!
Fortunately, Wen Xuan's physique is much better than her sister's. Even if she is sick, she just has a runny nose. She just needs to go to the hospital and get two days of medicine and she won't have to rest at all.
After a busy and restful time, it was finally May.
The weather was getting hotter and hotter, so Wen Jiajia and Zhong Huisheng changed all the thick quilts in the family. They chose a sunny day to wash and dry the sheets and quilt covers, and then put the thick quilts in the sun to dry them thoroughly. In the evening, after the heat had dissipated, they folded them up and put them in the cupboard to dry.
Then take out a slightly thinner spring and autumn quilt and cover it with a quilt cover so that you won’t be so hot that you have to kick off the quilt when you sleep at night.
Wei Dai came back early this day. He had been busy recently, going out early and coming back late, and it was only recently that he could relax a little.
After dinner, he held his daughter and played with her for a long time, making the child giggle.
Wen Jiajia came back from taking a bath and said to him, "Stop teasing me. You'll be too active and won't be able to sleep at night." The older he gets, the more he needs to be coaxed to sleep, so Wen Jiajia has no time to read every night.
Wei Dai kissed the child's hand, wiped it carefully with a warm towel, and said, "It's okay, I will rest tomorrow morning."
Wen Jiajia turned around and said in surprise: "It's rare."
She then asked, "Will you have much time to rest next time? If not, I'll go to work." She has been in good health for the past few months and today is the beginning of summer.
What does the Beginning of Summer mean? It means the end of spring and the beginning of summer. She has been at home for two seasons!
Wei Dai shook his head: "How can I know that?"
Wen Jiajia squinted at him, threw the exercise book in her hand, and strode to the bed: "Do you really not know, or don't you want me to go to work?" After all, when she goes to work, the child will have to eat a mixture of breast milk and formula.
Wei Dai put the child aside and held her in his arms: "When do you want to go to work?"
Wen Jiajia thought for a while and said, "Well, let's go in the middle of this month."
That only leaves 10 days.
Wei Dai also thought for a moment and said: "Okay, I asked Doctor Peng, he said that it is okay for a child of our little sister's age to drink goat's milk or cow's milk."
Wen Jiajia understood. She wondered why he suddenly became so easy to talk to. It turned out that he had found food for his daughter.
"Are the cows and sheep on the farm about to give birth?" she asked curiously. In the past two months, because no cows got pregnant, the milk delivery to the family was stopped for a while.
Wei Dai nodded.
Wen Jiajia smiled and said, "Are you sure your daughter can get used to the taste of cow's milk and goat's milk?"
Wei Dai: "So there is a ten-day adaptation period. You can always adapt."
Wen Jiajia was quite shocked. A man who loved his daughter so much could actually say such words. It seemed that he really wanted her to go to work.
The couple reached an agreement tonight, and since that was the case, Wen Jiajia set a date to return to the workplace.
Wen Xiaomei was blowing bubbles and sucking her fingers beside her, not knowing at all that she was about to drink cow and goat milk.
Because of this incident, the couple was particularly passionate that night and didn't stop until after 11 o'clock.
The next day, it was sunny again.
Since you have decided to go to work in ten days, you have to do what you need to do.
For example, cleaning the house with my aunt.
Since winter, the house has never been thoroughly cleaned. This time, the big cleaning has brought up a lot of dust. Even the beams have to be swept with a small broom made of reed grass, let alone other places?
It took three days to clean the house and the furniture inside. Even Wen Xuan, who is so carefree, blurted out: "The house is much brighter now."
Of course, the windows were wiped twice!
In addition, we also went up the mountain to pick wild vegetables.
Wen Xiaomei was left with her cousin's care. In recent days, she has been reducing the time she spends taking care of the child.
The little girl was really noisy at first. According to my aunt, "She was crying and looking around, looking for you. When she saw you, she was even more crazy. She cried loudly and used her hands and feet to struggle away from me!"
Although Wen Jiajia felt distressed, she held back because work was also important.
Fortunately, Wen Xiaomei is really an angel baby, and her aunt has been there since she was born, so she stopped crying after three or four days. When Wen Jiajia is not around, she plays happily with her aunt, but when Wen Jiajia appears, she pouts and cries "Ahhh" as if accusing her, opening her arms towards her for a hug.
However, this made Wen Jiajia feel relieved but also more heartbroken!
But we have to pick wild vegetables, because the dried vegetables in winter depend on these wild vegetables.
Last winter, whether we were stewing or stir-frying meat, we would add some dried wild vegetables as a side dish, and everyone in my family loved it.
My cousin's aunt will have to look after the baby soon, so she won't have time to pick wild vegetables. Even if she gets up every day to pick them, she can only pick enough for one day.
Wei Dai was indeed free and had time to accompany her to the mountains to pick wild vegetables.
The two of them worked together to pick a lot of bamboo shoots and wild vegetables. They took advantage of the hot weather to pick and dry them in batches. By the time they had to go to work, they had dried two large sacks of wild vegetables, half a sack of dried bamboo shoots, and two jars of soaked bamboo shoots.
During this period, the vegetable garden was also cleaned up.
Some time ago, Wei Dai planted some melon seedlings in the vegetable garden, and used the rest of the space to grow vegetables.
Fortunately, these vegetables do not require much care. Wei Dai only needs to clean them up once a week, so that my aunt doesn't have to run between taking care of the children and tending to the vegetable garden.
After a few days of adaptation, Wen Xiaomei successfully accepted cow's milk and goat's milk.
She was quite easy to take care of. She just wasn't used to it in the first two days, but in the next few days she would drink from the bottle as soon as she was held.
Wen Jiajia was surprised to find that she even drank goat's milk, which had a smelly taste, so Wei Dai ordered an extra portion of goat's milk so that she could mix goat's milk and cow's milk together and get more nutrition.
Two days before going to work, Wen Jiajia started adding complementary food to her child's diet.
Wei Dai had no idea what supplementary food was until Wen Jiajia asked him to grind the soaked rice into rice paste and then pour the rice paste into a pot to cook it into rice paste. Then he suddenly realized: "So this is supplementary food! It's a bit like rice soup."
When he was weaned as a child, his mother gave him rice soup to satisfy his hunger.
Wen Jiajia said, how can this be the same?
In fact, some trace elements or nutrients need to be added to rice noodles, but there are no other options.
So that morning, Comrade Wen Xiaomei ate the first complementary food in her life, the first food other than milk.
Wen Jiajia changed her into a bright red dress with a special sense of ceremony, and even tied two sky-high braids for her.
Wei Dai was stunned. Wen Chun and Wen Xuan laughed, which made the silly girl giggle as well, drooling as she laughed.
The sky was bright and a breeze blew into the house through the open door, carrying the scent of roses, refreshing the heart.
Wen Jiajia held her in her arms, and Wei Dai picked up the bowl, vowing to feed his daughter the first bite of complementary food.
Wen Xuan urged, "Little uncle, please feed her quickly. Let me taste the food my sister can't finish."
She is now a dreamer - determined to try all the delicacies in the world! Now, the white rice paste looks very delicious. Although nothing is added, it is full of rice fragrance.
Wei Dai said, "Don't wait for your sister to eat. There's more in the kitchen. If you want to eat, just go get it. But it won't taste good."
"It's okay, I'll try."
Wen Xuan immediately stood up and ran to the kitchen. When she was halfway through serving, she poked her head out and asked Wen Chun, "Sister, do you want to eat?"
"You eat it, I don't want to." Wen Chun's nose wrinkled. She didn't like to eat these things, especially the mushy ones. The older she got, the less she wanted to eat them.
Wei Dai scooped up a little rice paste with a spoon and put it into Wen Xiaomei's mouth.
When it first entered her mouth, she was a little confused, but then she sucked it with her lips, and the rice paste finally reached the tip of her tongue. In an instant, her eyes lit up.
She has never tasted this flavor!
At this moment, new food is lit up in the food book of life, and she is no longer a baby who has only drunk milk!
Wen Xiaomei immediately waved her arms excitedly, screamed "Ahhhh", opened her mouth wide, and stared at the bowl in her father's hand without blinking.
Wei Dai was delighted: "My little sister loves to eat, right? The rice paste that dad grinds is delicious, right? You are so good. Come, have another bite!"
Wen Jiajia: “…”
Who says men can't pinch their throats? When they do, their throats are much more powerful than girls'.
I don’t know whether it was the dad who coaxed the child or the child who coaxed the dad, but in any case, both sides achieved their goals and were very happy.
Wen Xuan was about to finish eating, and she cleaned up the remaining food in the pot. She also added some sugar and red dates without any instruction, and made a red date rice paste.
While eating, he said: "How can red dates be ground into powder? You can also add peanuts, walnuts and sesame seeds to grind together, it will definitely taste better!"
Wen Jiajia thought to herself: If possible, I really want to build a blender for Wen Xuan to see what she can do.
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