Source: People's Liberation Army Daily Author: Liu Ting
Dad is the light
We live in an old building without an elevator, the corridor is voice-activated lights, and a few even have no lampshades, but fortunately the lights can still be lit. Bring her to school in the morning, or take her back from outside in the evening, always shout the voice-activated lights on. Especially after she got up early and was reluctant to go to kindergarten, I played a game of shouting lights with her.
I said, "Warm up, you call Daddy, and the lights come on." She didn't believe it. I asked her to shout again. She shouted, and the corridor was still dark. "It's too small, you shout." I say. She felt the fun and shouted, "Daddy..." The lights on several floors were on, and she would laugh and forget her feelings of not wanting to go to kindergarten. We shouted all the way downstairs, all the way up the stairs.
Soon she was already familiar with the game, and every time she walked in the corridor, she would shout out to her father, and the lights would turn on. I said, "Warm, you see, as soon as you call Daddy, the light is on, and Daddy means light." "Well, Daddy is the light." Haha, the shaping of the image of Dad's tall and mighty shore should start from the doll.
But after a few months, she found that not only calling out to her father, calling her mother, calling her own name, shouting rabbits, shouting turnips, shouting toys, the lights would all come on. Or let her discover that the world itself is light, and this light comes from the name of the child.
Anxiety in the rain
I have a video of my grandmother in the summer on my phone, one of my most precious things, when Warm was just over two years old.
It was raining heavily in Beijing that day, my wife and I were at work, and my grandmother was at home with warmth. In the video, Nuan Nuan, wearing small shorts and bare arms, stands on the windowsill of the living room. She looked out the window, anxiously shouting a word, and repeating it. At that time, her pronunciation was not very standard, and it was sometimes difficult for adults to hear exactly what she was talking about. There is some communication that is carried out by guessing.
She stood on the windowsill and kept saying the words, her expression eager. Later we learned what this sentence was.
Looking at the heavy rain outside the window, Nuan Nuan said anxiously: "Mom and Dad didn't bring an umbrella, Mom and Dad didn't bring an umbrella." ”
We brought the baby umbrella, even if we didn't, because we heard the warmest words in this heavy rain.
It's what kind of rain it is, and it can't get wet with anything. The rain that follows will no longer be rain, but concern for one generation and another, about the fundamental meaning of our being human beings.
Humanoid train
In the corridor, Nuan Nuan likes to use various tricks to go up the stairs: from the left, from the right, one step or two steps, walking backwards... Wait, in short, there will be no step-by-step routine. Sometimes, she would ask us to go in front and she would walk in the back. She was still young. It was dangerous, and we told her it was dangerous, but she was adamant that she had to go behind me.
Later, I said to her, "Warm and warm, you have to walk in front, and daddy is going to go behind, because then daddy won't fall." She thought for a moment, took my hand and said, "Well, Don't be afraid Daddy. "Well, Daddy isn't afraid."
At the age of three and a half, she always had to go to the front of the stairs, because she was the locomotive, her mother was the tail of the train, and her father was the belly of the train. When we were about to catch up with her, she would wave her hand: Stop. We stopped and she quickly went up the stairs or down the stairs. "The train has to be at the front, and you can't overtake me."
"Whoops, whoops..." This humanoid train slowly and precariously headed for the future.
Sand coffee
In life, children always inadvertently remember many things that adults do not care about. Or adults care, but don't remember. So why have a little friend? Sometimes, it's to remind us of what kind of people we are.
Go to Xiamen in spring and play on the beach of Gulangyu Island. Let your sea be blue, she just likes to play with sand. Warm warm with a small plastic pot filled with sand, handed it to me: Dad, this is the tea water I gave you. Another pot was filled for Mom: Mom, this is the coffee I gave you. We "drank" the syrup made of sand, and the sea came with a wave of tides, and the sea breeze blew through, as if the whole world were mild and wet.
She has silently sorted out and remembered from our actions that Dad liked to drink tea and Mom liked to drink coffee. She already knows by little heart that these are the liquids that bring us pleasure, and she makes tea and coffee in her own way. This fictional café is enough for us to enjoy for a lifetime.
The big fish is so pitiful
Still in Gulangyu Island. There is an underwater world, and together you can see all kinds of big fish and small fish, seahorse turtles. I also went to see it when I was in Beijing, and it was much bigger than here. We also watched dolphin and sea lion performances in Beijing, and when we got home, we were modelling sea lions for days, and of course, the underwater column in cartoons and picture books. "Submarine squad, go to the launch pad!" She often shouted. "Dr. Pi asks for support." She shouted too. My mother and I felt that there was no difference, and it was okay not to watch, but Nuan Nuan insisted on looking.
When walking through the undersea tunnel, the big fish and turtles inside swim around. Nuan Nuan did not show much excitement, and as he walked, he suddenly pointed to the tunnel made of glass and said, "The big fish is so pitiful." "Why?" We asked. "Because it's so crowded, the big fish are also pitiful." She said a little sadly.
At that moment, I had mixed emotions in my heart, we had seen so many zoos, oceanariums, undersea tunnels, thinking that this was what it should be, but she instinctively sympathized with these captive landscape animals. I don't like any zoos or oceanariums myself, I'm not curious about these animals at all, I don't want to know what they look like, I prefer them to live in their own homes. Warm, you too, right?
I am a book
Even now, one of Nuan Nuan's most obsessive games is hide-and-seek. She loves the game so much that she can play it all night without getting tired of it. Sometimes I look for her, sometimes she looks for me. The person looking for it counts in the other room, and then goes to find the person who is hiding.
She usually hid behind a door, or behind a curtain, or lay on the bed covered with a quilt, but each time she would reveal her little feet or the corners of her clothes. I pretended to look for half a day and then found her. She laughed happily, "Dad, am I hiding?" "Yeah, it's very hidden, I looked for half a day to find it."
Once, when I went in this day, I found her opening two doors of the bookshelf and hiding there. "How did you hide in the bookshelf?" "Because I'm a book, come and see me." She said and ran over. Well, yeah, I've never read such a funny, cute book, and it can be read with your back and hold your hand.
We asked Nuan Nuan, "Why do you like hide-and-seek so much?" "Because it's interesting to suddenly find out." She said. She likes the small worries and great expectations of being found when she hides, she likes the suddenness and surprise of the moment when the mystery is revealed, and she likes to find the mystery in the hiding.
travel
There is a small suitcase that was sent by a colleague of the unit. Originally, there was a set of books in the suitcase, but Nuan Nuan didn't like to read it very much.
When she was very young, she mainly used to sit in it and play, maybe as a boat, or maybe something else she could think of. "Dad, help me close the box." She said. "Why?" "Because I want to make a gift." I covered her a little and then opened it again and exclaimed, "Great, what a wonderful gift." "She had fun with the game for a while, it was a repetition for adults, but for children, every time it was brand new. How important it is to be new, to bring experiences and surprises that are new, more than anything else that is established. After the enthusiasm passed, the box was left on the balcony for a long time, covered with dust.
One day, she suddenly pulled it out of the balcony and asked me to help her pull the lever of her suitcase open. She carried the trolley case and said, "I'm leaving, Dad." "Why are you going, warm up?" I asked her. "I'm going on a trip with my suitcase, Dad." "Oh, well, goodbye." "Goodbye Daddy, don't think about me." She carried the suitcase to the small bedroom, turned around and walked back. "I'm back from a trip." "Oh, where have you all gone?" What's the fun? "I went... Museums, and playgrounds. ”
We will go to the travel baby, you will also travel by yourself in the future, you will go to more rich and beautiful places, with your suitcase, filled with memories, and then tell Daddy.
Liu Ting, born in 1981 in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, is a young writer with a doctorate in literature, and currently works for people's literature magazine. He has published novels such as "Booker Village Xinzha", "A Brief History of Youth", the essay collection "Other People's Lives" and "Hometown", and the novel collection "China Qitan". He has won the New Novelist Award in the New Novelist Competition, the runner-up in the Novel Category of the 39th Hong Kong Literature Award, the Non-Fiction Nomination Award at the 2nd Chinese Young Writers Award, and the Young Poet Award at the 2017 Chen Zi Ang Poetry Award of Poetry Journal.