Chapter 1288

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Li Xiulan lay in the second-floor room, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

She simply didn't have the habit of taking a nap.

And she didn't really play on her phone much either.

So lying there was truly boring.

So she got up and walked out.

Arriving on the first floor, Kang Yi had already washed the bowls and was putting the bowls and chopsticks into the disinfection cabinet.

Li Xiulan walked over and asked politely:

"How do you use this thing?"

Kang Yi, wearing a smile on her face, replied:

"This is a disinfection cabinet. Press this, it's the power switch; this one, drying; this one, disinfection; and this one is the child lock."

"What's a child lock?" Li Xiulan's face showed puzzlement, like a clueless child.

"Once you press it, it locks and can't be opened easily. You can understand it as preventing children from opening it randomly."

Li Xiulan's face showed sudden understanding, and she slowly nodded.

At this moment Kang Yi said:

"Grandmother of the child, you go rest. I'll go sweep the floor!"

Kang Yi went out to the living room, and from a corner took out a vacuum cleaner.

She turned on the vacuum cleaner and started sweeping the floor.

Li Xiulan walked over and subconsciously asked:

"Why not use a broom?"

Kang Yi said:

"There's no broom here; it's all done with a vacuum cleaner. A vacuum cleaner is good — hair, dust, whatever, one suck and it's clean. If you sweep with a broom, not only does it fill the air with dust, but hair and such are also hard to sweep clean!"

At this moment Li Xiulan saw a box-like machine off to the side, plugged in and emitting a faint humming sound, and didn't know what it was for.

So she asked:

"What's that then?"

Kang Yi said:

"That's an air purifier. Your daughter-in-law said, now that there's a child, the air in the house needs to be better, so she bought an air purifier. This thing is an import, costing over ten thousand yuan! I have to say, your daughter-in-law really knows how to earn money! Your son marrying her is simply tremendous luck!"

Kang Yi was speaking the honest truth; she genuinely envied Wang Dashan for being able to marry such a money-earning wife.

Unlike her own son, who married one who only knows how to stay at home, waiting for clothes to be handed to her and meals to be served, not doing much housework — even cooking and sweeping have to be done by her son after he gets off work.

That alone would be fine, but she also picks faults left and right — not only nitpicking her son's flaws, but nitpicking her, the mother-in-law's, flaws too.

Before, Kang Yi went to help raise the child, and her daughter-in-law criticized her until she was worthless.

It drove her to the point of doubting her own life.

She thought: I've been a confinement nanny for over ten years, served hundreds or thousands of clients, and hardly any said I did a bad job. How come when it reached my daughter-in-law, everything I did became wrong?

One can only say, some things aren't about the matter itself, but about character.

Especially the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship.

With a sharp-tongued, mean daughter-in-law, if the mother-in-law makes a minor mistake, she'll probably think the mother-in-law did it on purpose to disgust her, even suspect the mother-in-law of using poisonous schemes to harm her.

But with a daughter-in-law who can empathize, if the mother-in-law is willing to come help, she'll be grateful and won't nitpick.

Of course, flip it around: a sharp-tongued, mean mother-in-law will also nitpick at the daughter-in-law, thinking this isn't right and that isn't right.

But a mother-in-law who can empathize, as someone who has given birth and been through it, will surely be able to understand the daughter-in-law's difficulties.

Li Xiulan can understand Du Xiaojuan's difficulties, and Du Xiaojuan can tolerate Li Xiulan's minor faults.

The current problem is that the gap in their concepts is too large.

The child was weaned off breast milk so early — Li Xiulan didn't agree in her heart, but she could bear it and not say anything.

But letting her eldest son stay home full-time to cook and raise the child — honestly, she really strongly disagrees. Although she has no education and little worldly experience, she still knows that if a man detaches from society for too long, he's finished.

No matter what, her eldest son really ought to go out and find something to do.

Whether the salary is high or low doesn't matter; whether the working hours are long or short doesn't matter. The most important thing is to have something to do.

So after Du Xiaojuan finished resting and walked out of the bedroom, she went to say to Du Xiaojuan:

"Xiao Juan, how about in a few days letting Dashan go to work with you? With me and the nanny you hired managing the house, that many hands aren't needed."

Du Xiaojuan said:

"Mom, let's talk about this later. You still have a lot of things to learn."

Li Xiulan knew Du Xiaojuan didn't want Wang Dashan to go out to work.

So she said:

"I've heard that when a man becomes idle, he's prone to fooling around outside. No matter what, he must have a job; otherwise I dare not guarantee I can keep an eye on him for you."

Hearing this, Du Xiaojuan also felt there was some truth to it.

Although Wang Dashan's character is pretty good, and they've been together this long, he's never done anything disloyal to her.

But human nature, this thing, withstands testing the least.

Especially now with the internet so developed — Momo, YY, drift bottles, and whatnot — there are too many channels for strangers to make friends!

Wang Dashan stayed cooped up at home all day taking care of the kid, just afraid that when he got bored out of his mind he'd start flirting online, and eventually even develop into secretly meeting up offline.

With Wang Dashan's looks, this physique, if he really went looking for hookups, honestly, probably not many lonely housewives would be able to resist his advances.

So Du Xiaojuan's tone relaxed:

"Mom, this matter — wait until you've more or less learned the housework and childcare, then I'll discuss it with Wang Dashan again; if it really doesn't work out, just let him go work at my company."

Li Xiulan heard this, and a smile appeared on her aged face:

"Xiao Juan, just knew you're a sensible good woman!"

Du Xiaojuan laughed and praised back:

"Mom you're also a woman of great wisdom, you managed to raise three such outstanding sons, from now on Wang Dujin will have to trouble you to put in more effort teaching him; it'd be great if you could educate him to be like Xiao Hua!"

Li Xiulan said with a smile:

"Xiao Hua, he started reading and recognizing characters very young; back then we had no books at home, I even specially went to others' homes to borrow books for him; Dujin this child, one look and you can tell he's clever; once he can speak, I'll start teaching him to recognize characters, teaching him arithmetic!"

Du Xiaojuan asked at this time:

"Right, Mom, do you know how to prepare formula? In a bit we'll need to feed the baby milk."

Li Xiulan then said:

"Don't know yet, how to prepare it, you teach me!"

Du Xiaojuan said with a smile:

"Sure, actually it's very simple!"

Du Xiaojuan then brought Li Xiulan to a table.

This table was specially for placing the various tools the baby uses.

Constant-temperature measured-dispensing kettle, baby bottle drying sterilizer, bottle warmer, automatic formula mixer, milk powder...

All kinds of baby supplies filled a whole table.

Du Xiaojuan then said to Li Xiulan:

"Mom, this is a constant-temperature measured-dispensing kettle, I've already set the dispensing amount, each meal give the baby 180 milliliters of water; the milk powder, this spoon, three level scoops, pour the milk powder into the bottle, put the bottle cap on, then put it in this automatic formula mixer, press here, it'll automatically shake the milk evenly; if it's shaken but not time to drink yet, just put the milk in this bottle warmer to keep warm. Also this, steam drying sterilizer, baby bottles, pacifiers, and teethers and such, after washing clean, put them in here to dry and sterilize."

Du Xiaojuan patiently taught Li Xiulan.

Li Xiulan nodded repeatedly, hurriedly noting down what Du Xiaojuan said.

Couldn't help saying one sentence: "Raising a kid these days, have to buy this many tools..."

Thinking back to those years, she raised three children, never bought any tools at all.

Not to mention a constant-temperature measured-dispensing kettle, even baby bottles, she never bought any.

She felt this was a bit of a waste of money.

However, she didn't go pointing fingers at Du Xiaojuan about it.

This perhaps is the biggest difference between her and Wang Zhanggen.