After Zhou Qinglan fed the baby, Zhang Shuzhen found another set of new clothes, dressed the baby in them, wrapped him in a blanket, and took him to the kang (heated brick bed) in the east room.
There are two kang beds in the east room, one on the north and one on the south. During the Spring Festival, when cooking and preparing meals, the kang beds are very warm, and the room is not cold.
Sheng Liancheng doted on his grandson, so he took Sheng Xinhua out of his swaddling clothes and placed him on his lap to coax him.
The baby is almost out of confinement. Unlike before, he doesn't sleep all the time. He gets up and plays for two hours every morning, and then gets up and plays from around five o'clock in the afternoon until almost nine o'clock before going to sleep.
This little guy, who's so small, doesn't know anything else. He just lies on Sheng Liancheng's lap, waving his arms and legs around, and occasionally chats with Sheng Liancheng in a few words.
Sheng Liancheng was overjoyed and started chatting with his grandson, mimicking his mannerisms. The two of them talked at cross purposes, which was quite amusing.
With Sheng Liancheng, Sheng Xitai, and Chen Feng comforting the child, Zhang Shuzhen could go about her other tasks with peace of mind.
Zhou Qinglan also took the opportunity to tidy up the west room.
Of course, since the baby was awake and had just finished feeding, there was bound to be a lot of urine.
Sheng Liancheng didn't know how to potty train his child. While playing, he suddenly realized something was wrong. Why was his leg warm?
Looking down, good heavens, his grandson's piss was quite a large amount; not only were his diapers completely soaked, but Sheng Liancheng's cotton pants were also wet.
"Oh dear, old woman, hurry up, my grandson peed on me!" Sheng Liancheng was both amused and exasperated, and quickly called Zhang Shuzhen to deal with it.
"So what if he peed? It's not a big deal. Our grandson is just checking if you know how to befriend people. Isn't a boy's pee great?"
Zhang Shuzhen laughed when she heard this, and while laughing, she pulled out the diaper and put on a dry one.
While they were at it, they used the still-dry edge of the diaper to wipe Sheng Liancheng's cotton pants.
After tidying up, Sheng Liancheng put his grandson back on his lap and started chatting with him.
Little Xinhua is quite amusing. While chatting with his grandfather, he raised his little leg and tried to reach for his toes.
The two brothers, Sheng Xi'an and Sheng Xikang, took turns chopping the meat, and soon they had finished.
Following Zhang Shuzhen's instructions, the washed cabbage and the blanched radish shreds were chopped and squeezed dry.
Northeasterners use a variety of vegetables as filling for dumplings.
Classic dumpling fillings include shepherd's purse, celery, Cantonese greens, and eleutherococcus senticosus in early spring; leeks, elm mushrooms, celery, and bell peppers in summer; mustard greens in autumn; and sauerkraut in winter.
However, during the Lunar New Year, most families make dumplings filled with cabbage and radish, and the Sheng family did the same.
Marinate the chopped meat with salt, MSG, Sichuan peppercorn powder, soy sauce and other seasonings. Squeeze out all the water from the vegetable filling and place it in a bowl in clumps for later use.
They kneaded the dough and waited for it to rise until it was almost done. Then they broke up the vegetable filling dumplings, poured in a little oil, and stirred it in. This was to prevent the cabbage filling from releasing water when it came into contact with salt.
Once everything is mixed well, add the chopped green onions and minced meat, and mix the filling with chopsticks or your hands.
Some families like to eat ginger, so they will put a little minced ginger in the dumpling filling.
For Chinese New Year dumplings, they need to be wrapped neatly and beautifully, so you can't just wrap them haphazardly, and the whole family can't all help out.
Zhang Shuzhen led her daughter-in-law and daughter to make dumplings, Sheng Liancheng coaxed the children, and Sheng Xiping led his younger brother to fry melon seeds, hazelnuts, pine nuts and other snacks.
Around 6:30, the mother and her four daughters started working. Zhou Qinglan pinched off the dough pieces, Sheng Yunfang rolled out the wrappers, and Zhang Shuzhen and Sheng Yunfei wrapped the dumplings.
The four of them worked together very well and wrapped the dumplings very quickly.
Zhang Shuzhen was happy this year, so she put a penny, dates, peanuts, sugar, and other things into the dumplings.
There are many children in the family, and I need to entertain them.
In the kitchen, Sheng Xiping was stir-frying various dried fruits, pot after pot.
Once a pot of the stir-fry is cooked, it is scooped onto a winnowing basket using a strainer and brought inside for everyone to eat.
The sunflower seeds were homegrown; Zhou Qinglan ate quite a lot during her pregnancy, and the rest were used to make two more batches.
Forget about peanuts; they're in high demand and only supplied during the Lunar New Year, two ounces per person.
With so many people in the Sheng family, there are only two catties of peanuts. They have to save them to stir-fry as a dish or something, so it's impossible for the children to eat them casually.
Fortunately, the surrounding area is full of forests, rich in resources, including hazelnuts, pine nuts and other nuts.
This year there was no pine nut harvest, so Sheng Xiping and his family didn't sell the few pine cones they collected; they simply kept them for their own consumption.
When it comes to food, Sheng Xitai is an expert. He doesn't like eating sunflower seeds, but he really likes pine nuts.
So I prepared the pliers well in advance and put the pine nuts into the notch on the side of the pliers.
With a firm squeeze of both hands, the pine nut shell breaks, but the kernel inside remains intact.
This kid is cunning; he doesn't just grab one at a time and eat it, he keeps grabbing with the pliers.
After collecting a bunch, you give the pliers to someone else and slowly pick out the pine nut kernels to eat.
On New Year's Eve, the forest farm had electricity all night, and every household had all the lights on inside their houses, and lanterns were lit in their courtyards.
If you stand on the slope of Nanshan Mountain and look down, you can see that every house in the forest area is brightly lit.
Compared to the forest farm, the area over at the alkali field was much darker. There was no electricity there yet, and people used candles at night.
Around nine o'clock, Sheng Xinhua got sleepy and started fussing and whining to go to bed.
Unable to work any longer, Zhou Qinglan carried her son back to the west room to breastfeed and lull him to sleep.
Just then, Sheng Xiping finished his work and came over to take over his wife's work, kneading the dough and dividing it into small pieces.
The process of pinching dough requires a precise, quick effort, but Sheng Xiping doesn't know how to use that kind of force, so he might as well just use a kitchen knife to cut the dough.
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