Hillway was away for work in Huangshan from the 8th to the 12th. It was cold there, with drizzle and a forecast of light snow. He gave up his plan to climb to the top of the scenic area and came back to Shantou a day early. At noon on the day he returned, two things happened: my mother fell and twisted her right ankle, and Little Bear truly learned to walk.
My mother had taken Little Bear out to play in the neighborhood. Going downhill, Little Bear held her hand and walked fast, and my mother fell. By the next day her right ankle was swollen, with bruising in a few places, and it hurt to walk. Using my own sprain as a reference, we bought oral and topical medicine and gauze and treated it at home.
Two weeks passed with little improvement. An X-ray at the hospital ruled out a fracture. The doctor called it a severe sprain and said it needed immobilization. Each treatment cost 60 yuan. The doctor said that although the process looked the same, the technique made a big difference: a large box of the ointment cost 6 yuan, but he charged 60 yuan for the treatment because of the skill. We stopped taking the sprain lightly and went to the hospital every two days for a dressing change. The doctor advised rest, but with an active toddler at home, my mother still had to move around constantly.
Little Bear had liked walking for a long time. At first she could only stagger a few steps. She knew she was unsteady, so she would reach for our hands and head happily toward whatever she wanted, full of security. After Hillway came back from Huangshan, she grew bolder. She walked farther on her own, her steps became steadier, and she really learned to walk. Watching her move around the room, free and pleased, I felt the strange power of time: the small, soft baby had become a little person with thoughts who could walk.
For us, life is a repeat of one day after another, seemingly unchanged. For her, every day—sometimes every hour—brings some new progress. She lifts her knees high when she walks, puts both hands behind her back, spins in place, squats and stands. These are things no one taught her; she shows them to us without warning.
She loves walking and standing, loves her few pairs of little shoes, and loves going out. If she hears us say we will take her out, she finds her hat, puts it on crooked, and waits happily at the door. She resists being laid on the bed or held. She will sit in a stroller or chair for only a few minutes. The little chair with a backrest we bought for her is not a favorite. She prefers trying the plastic stools we sit on. Before sitting on one, she backs up a few steps with her legs against it, checks that it is stable, and plops down. She does not sit still: she lifts a foot onto the neighboring chair, or spins on her bottom. My mother does not allow her to sit on the floor, and she rarely sits on chairs, so sometimes she squats to play. I worry that squatting is hard on her little legs, so I put my hand under her bottom and hold her up, doing the job of a chair.
Besides baba, mama, and baobao, she has learned a few more sounds and their uses: zou (walk), zhe (this), bao (hold), diao (drop), dou (bean). She can point accurately to baba, mama, laolao (my mother), and nainai (her grandmother). She has added a gesture to call people over. She still does not say many words, but she understands a lot of sentences and often imitates adults. She follows instructions and points to her nose, ears, hair, and tongue. She knows dirty or unwanted things go in the trash, and once she throws something in, she will not touch it with her hand. She is generous: when I feed her fruit, she breaks off tiny pieces and puts them in my mouth. She waits until I swallow, then breaks off another.
Under my mother-in-law's insistence that she get up on time during the day and not sleep too much, Little Bear has settled into a ten p.m. bedtime. For a while it was very accurate; she no longer stayed up late as before. Still, Hillway and I often cannot get her to sleep. She refuses to lie down, stands at the head of the bed walking around, or fusses to go out. We end up asking my mother for help. After my mother washes up and lies down, we send Little Bear to her. Strangely, Little Bear lies obediently under my mother's blanket. She does not toss and turn or stand up. She holds a small handkerchief, makes a 'ta-da-da' sound, and soon falls asleep. Once she is asleep, we put her in her sleep sack and carry her back to the crib in the master bedroom. She still grunts sometimes at night, and Hillway—her biological father—still gets up to feed her.
Eating and pooping remain two things we watch closely. Early in the month, Little Bear went five days without a bowel movement. We heard that she tried hard during the day, sweated a lot, and still could not go. Everyone was anxious. The doctor and online advice suggested a glycerin suppository or a soap stick. I could not bear to put her through a suppository again, so Hillway whittled a few soap sticks. When Little Bear saw us bringing something toward her bottom, she resisted and cried. We tried several times; the stick went in but came out quickly. By bedtime she still had not gone. The next day my mother tried again, with oil on the soap stick. After a while Little Bear passed a hard stool, and there was said to be some blood. At Hillway's strong request, he and I went out and bought a bag of kiwis, dragon fruit, rock-sugar oranges, Newhall oranges, grapes, Ghana fruit, and bananas. At home my mother stewed rock-sugar pear water for her. On the third day Little Bear had two bowel movements; my mother said they were no longer hard and dry. Her usual food is rice porridge and hand-rolled noodles, with milk before bed and once at night. We thought that to solve the constipation, she should eat more vegetables and fruit and drink more water, with variety and good nutrition, to get at the root.
On the way to buy fruit, Hillway was unusually generous: 'Let us look at the bakery. I will buy you a two- or three-yuan bread to eat on the road.' I glanced around and came out. He asked why I did not want bread. I said I could not find any for two or three yuan; a small bun I looked at cost 3.5. He said, 'How can that be? Is not the wife cake one yuan each? Two yuan gets you two.' I thought of the wife cakes in the glass case, each only a little bigger than a coin, and had no interest. Later, at his insistence, we bought a Snickers bar. It turned out to be peanut chocolate, extremely sweet. The advertising really works.
The annual work physical came around. Hillway was worried about the occasional pain in my liver and spleen area. He took leave, hurried me through the subject-one exam, and then rushed to the hospital to pick up my report. The outpatient internal medicine doctor examined me and guessed it was neuralgia; nothing was wrong with my body. He prescribed polyene phosphatidylcholine (Essentiale) capsules, three-dimensional B tablets, and (Diao) Zhibitai capsules. We paid the registration fee and went home. As for last year's postpartum abnormal blood lipids and other items, they had returned to normal as my weight dropped to 122 jin.
This month Hillway and I continued watching movies while Little Bear slept: Black Swan, Breakup Buddies, The Golden Era, and But Always. As a child I could never get over the shadow of horror films, and I lumped 'thriller' together with 'horror,' so I rejected anything labeled thriller. That is why it took me so long to dare watch Black Swan. Maybe because I could not agree with the values the film promotes, I found Breakup Buddies a crude, market-pandering, vulgar film unsuitable for children. Because of my strong interest in Xiao Hong and Tang Wei, I stuck it out for three hours and finished The Golden Era. But Always had a plot that moved too fast and felt stiff; it is fine if you watch it as a beautiful music video, but if you want a good movie, skip it.
When Hillway's father heard that Hillway's mother had lost her phone, he thought about how she would have no phone all day—no internet, no Taobao browsing or Dou Dizhu, no calls or chats. He quickly express-mailed an old phone from Tianjin for temporary use, then bought a new Xiaomi phone and case online. A real 'dear husband.'
At the beginning of the year, Hillway launched a series of phone calls to bring his mother over to help buy groceries and cook. Now she was talking about going back, and during Double Eleven she had me order a fur coat and leather boots for her to wear over the New Year. She gave many reasons for leaving: Little Bear was easier to look after, my mother alone was enough. In the end I could not tell which reason was true, which was primary and which secondary. Thinking of the postpartum period, I had assumed she simply did not want to be here. But the truth seemed not to be that simple, because I heard her secretly complaining about why I had not invited Hillway's father to come here for the New Year, and that his father had not received the expected warm hospitality during summer vacation. She said that if they left Shantou, it would be hard to come again. If that was so, why not say it directly? Following their private plan, we first invited them three times and even called Hillway's father, then bought round-trip train tickets. Only after confirming that they would spend a month-plus of winter vacation here did the matter come to a close.