He Xiaoxu has a special large toy box made of camphor wood. He Chunsheng brought it back from the furniture factory and polished it with sandpaper himself to ensure that there were no burrs left before giving it to her.
The inside is divided by wooden boards, and on the left are traditional toys, including colorful building blocks, Huarongdao, tin mice and tin frogs, glass marbles, crutch bones, sandbags, chicken feather shuttlecocks, and flower ropes, etc.
Most of them were sent back by He Xiasheng. No matter whether she would need them at her age, it would always be a good idea to prepare them in advance.
On the right are the imported toys that He Ruixue asked someone to buy in Shanghai, including Barbie dolls, 3D picture books, magnetic drawing boards... although these did not become widely popular until 1990.
But if you have money, it’s actually not difficult to buy.
After Wang Taozhi learned the prices of these plastic products that looked good but were useless, she kept scolding her for finding all kinds of ways to squander money.
He Ruixue, however, let it go and never repented.
On the one hand, it is to make up for my childhood.
on the other hand……
He Ruixue thought of a blogger in her previous life who was reviewing Barbie toys and built a particularly large and beautiful castle in the video.
Someone commented that she had never seen these things when she was a child and could only play house with bowls made of mud and leaves.
However, someone else replied to her, saying that of course there wasn't one, as she was born in the late 1970s. During her childhood, she not only had a Barbie castle, but also remote-controlled cars that moved and glowed.
The disparity of the world suddenly became apparent.
It turns out that it’s not that my childhood was too poor, but that the rich world was too far away from me.
He Ruixue is not the kind of parent who can't bear to see her children have a good life, and who keeps instilling in them the idea that one has to endure hardship.
In her opinion, it was already unfair that He Xiaoxu was born in the 1970s.
By 2030, she will be an old lady of nearly 60 years old. She won't be able to eat well or have fun. It will be much more enjoyable than being born after the millennium.
So she wanted to try her best to give her the best of everything and not let her make up for her childhood until she grew up.
No matter how many toys are prepared, He Xiaoxu is still too young to play with them. He Yannuo and He Yanshi, brother and sister, are lucky enough to have them and often stay here for an entire afternoon.
He Xiaoxu threw the doll in his hand into the right side of the box and walked out wobbly like a little duck.
She stepped over the threshold with all her strength, took Zhao Meiya's index finger and said softly, "Grandma, go see Huahua."
"Okay, grandma will carry you to see the flowers."
"No need to hold me, I'll use my elbows."
"You have to go by yourself. Oh, our Xubao is really good, much better than your brother."
Zhao Meiya’s most common method of praising others is to pull them down, and it has never changed from the second generation to the third generation.
But today I failed at the hands of He Xiaoxu.
She stared at her with her distinct black and white eyes, and said in a serious tone, "Grandma, Mom said, don't compare yourself with others, compare yourself with yourself."
Zhao Meiya rolled her eyes in her heart and thought to herself, you weren't even born when I was educating your mother.
The whole family has been through this, and now everyone says her children are promising, and many people come to her for advice on how to educate children.
But she always took care to maintain her daughter's image in front of her children, so she nodded and said casually, "Your mother is right."
I took the child to the backyard, where there stood a strange stone. It was made when the air-raid shelter was dug, and was placed to the right of the original chicken coop.
Jiang Yanxu calculated the feng shui of the yard and said that this place was the most suitable, able to protect the house and preserve good fortune.
No one in the family understood these things, so naturally whatever he said was the truth. A circle of flowers was planted around the stone, which were common wild flowers on the roadside.
Daisies, impatiens, cockscombs, yellow, white and pink, are in full bloom, exuding a vibrant vitality.
Zhao Meiya picked a rose-red balsam flower and painted her granddaughter's nails. Through the window, she saw the couple reading in the bedroom.
I couldn't help but raise my voice, "Xubao, you said your parents are two idiots, they spent all their money on knife handles, afraid that others would find out.
If you want to plant flowers, why not pick some more valuable varieties, like autumn chrysanthemums and summer orchids, so that I can take people to appreciate the flowers when I have time, just like the old ladies in the opera. These are everywhere in front of me, not to mention the roadsides. You can pick them up by the handful in the countryside. I really can't get enough of them."
He Ruixue glanced at Jiang Yanxu, and they both smiled knowingly.
These flowers actually have a great origin.
When Jiang Yanxu proposed to her, he transplanted fields of wild flowers to the valley, bringing her a world of spring scenery.
Now their children are several years old, and the flowers in the mountains bloom and fall, and the seeds are buried in the soil with the cycle of seasons.
It has become a veritable flower valley, with hundreds of flowers blooming all over the mountains and the ground.
They marked all the beautiful wild flowers with long flowering periods in the mountains and collected their seeds after they withered.
What is growing at home now is the result of what they sowed last year. I can recall the scene of that day through the window.
Isn’t it a kind of sentiment between husband and wife?
He Ruixue put down her pen, and Jiang Yanxu helped her massage the acupoints on her wrist.
"Mom, expensive flowers are delicate. If you can't buy them, you won't be able to take care of them. In the end, it's just a waste of money."
"I've been farming all my life, and I still managed to kill a few flowers."
"The flowers I raised wouldn't look as good as the ones I sold. Besides, there are so many people coming and going around here. Believe it or not, they'd be picked up after just a few days of blooming."
"Well, I believe this. Some of these unscrupulous people would not even punish us by digging up flowers. They might even report our family."
Zhao Meiya stopped talking and continued to look at the flowers with He Xiaoxu, occasionally reminding her not to put the hands that touched the flowers into her mouth.
About half an hour later, she heard a few greetings from the front yard. She immediately smiled and took He Xiaoxu out.
The mulberry trees, loquats and grape vines that were planted in the yard have grown very lush.
The palm-wide leaves are squeezed together like green umbrellas, forming a natural pavilion. Flat green bricks are laid under the tree, and there are four stone benches around the round stone table, which are used for the family to cool down in the summer.
Of course, the more comfortable the place is, the more the old men and women nearby like to come here. Their yard has become the new "street information center", and the few big trees at the entrance of the alley have been neglected.
After dinner, they all brought their own small stools, took their palm-leaf fans, and sat there until dark before going home.
He Ruixue was also happy to have someone come to talk to her parents, and there was plenty of boiled water.
Last year, the sunflowers they planted in the yard had a good harvest, and they could occasionally serve them a plate of sunflower seeds for them to eat.
Seeing that there was an opportunity to take advantage, they were more willing to stay here, gossiping about other people's affairs and saying anything when they were in a good mood. Zhao Meiya got the first-hand information on the street as she wished.
When she reached the front yard, several old ladies were already sitting down.
They were not willing to sit on the stone benches, so they ran to the main room and brought in wooden chairs in a very familiar manner. They picked a cucumber while passing by the vegetable garden.
Without washing it, I just hold it in my hands and chew it, and the juice comes out of it.
Zhao Meiya sat down with her arms around He Xiaoxu, just in time to hear them talking about the Zhao family.
After all, Mr. Zhao was too old and died in his sleep two years ago. Mrs. Zhao followed suit and passed away within a few months.
Everyone said she was too lonely and had no motivation to do anything.
Once an elderly person loses his breath, he will age visibly faster day by day.
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