In late April, we squeezed out two days for a short trip to Zhangzhou. After several transfers, we made our way to Shuyang Town in Nanjing County and visited the Yunshuiyao and Tianluokeng scenic areas, spending a little time in the deep mountain countryside and taking in a quieter, more rustic way of life.

Before the trip, my phone—which had already survived half a year after being dropped by our little one—was finally finished off by one more hard fall. I had to go back to an old knockoff feature phone with physical buttons. At first, it felt oddly fitting for a place so far removed from city bustle, as if I could trade phone time for the calm of village life. But the surprise was that the internet had already reached everywhere: guesthouses and restaurants in Yunshuiyao had Wi-Fi, and tickets and lodging could all be handled online with ease. I was reminded of how some people used to see the internet as nothing but a dangerous distraction, when in reality cutting yourself off from it also means cutting yourself off from a great deal of valuable information. In the end, it depends on how you use it.

After we came back from Nanjing, hillway used his business-trip allowance to buy me a Huawei Honor 6. When that came up, an older family member commented that I might as well keep using the cheap old phone, since calls and texts were enough, and at least that way I would not be staring down at a screen all day. The point was fair enough: during ordinary days, hillway and I usually only looked at our phones while our daughter was eating, sleeping, or while one of us was in the bathroom. But once she learned to walk, even bathroom time stopped being private. More than once, I would barely have settled in with my phone before I saw her little hands through the glass door, slapping hard at it while calling out for mama, with hillway joining from the side and urging me to hurry up.

On May 1, after Xiao Xiongzai woke up at eight and had her milk, the three of us headed to Huaqiao Park. Both on the way there and back, the bus happened to arrive just as we reached the stop, so we barely waited at all. There were few passengers, almost no one getting on or off, and the bus sped along the route. The driver was a little odd, though—he would not allow anyone to talk, so we stayed unusually quiet the whole ride.

At the entrance to the park, cars were packed in everywhere and vendors lined the area, making it especially lively. Lots of families had brought their children out for the May Day holiday. At first, Xiao Xiongzai was unfamiliar with the surroundings and refused to get down and walk, leaning against the railing to look at the sea instead. Once she relaxed, she started running happily along the paths, and at one point even pointed at the road to signal hillway to step off the lawn and stop trampling the grass.

The weather was muggy that day. After lunch, I sorted out our family’s seasonal clothes, washed them, and hung them to dry on the balcony. After a nap, I wrapped a newly bought haircut cape around hillway and tried to cut his hair out on the balcony. It felt awkward, so we moved indoors midway through. In the evening, after dinner, we carried Xiao Xiongzai to the fruit supermarket outside the residential compound and bought Black Beauty watermelon, apples, and red grapes. It turned into a very full and satisfying Labor Day.

After a break of several months, Xiao Xiongzai started receiving the three vaccines scheduled around one and a half years old, on April 28, May 12, and June 2. I had assumed that now that she was older and more aware, she would cry much harder during the shots. Instead, an older doctor with very skilled hands gave them so quickly that she barely had time to open her mouth and let out one startled “wah” before it was over, and no real crying followed. After the second shot, the skin around the injection site turned red, so she was taken back to ask the doctor. It turned out not to be a problem at all; a warm towel or some alcohol on the area was enough, and the redness faded after two or three days.

One evening on May 6, when we got home from work, we heard a little exchange:

“ What does a cat like to eat?” “Fish~” “What does a dog like to eat?” “Meat.” “What does a rabbit like to eat?” “Vegetables.” “What does Grandma like to eat?” “Beans.”

Then we deliberately asked the same questions in a different order, and she still answered every one correctly.

When she practices speaking, she watches our mouths with remarkable concentration, studying the shape of each word and trying to imitate it. By the end of the month, she had learned to say things like “little sister,” “baby,” “Beibei,” “uncle,” “older sister,” and “Lingling.” She could also call out something close to “grandma,” and clearly say a number of two-syllable words, including “don’t want,” “Daddy carry,” and “Dad and Mom.” If a shoe or some other object fell, or if she herself crawled too close to the edge of the bed, she would say “fall.” If she could not find something or thought something was strange, she would say “eh~.”

What delighted us was not only that her vocabulary was expanding, but that she was using words accurately and flexibly. When she saw dogs of different breeds and colors on the road, she still pointed and called them all “dog dog.” When she saw chickens or fish on posters or in books, she pointed to them and tried to name them. If she spotted boys in the neighborhood riding bicycles or playing on skateboards, she called them “big brother.” When she saw the elderly security guard—or even a male figure printed on an adult diaper package in a shop—she correctly called him “grandpa.” It was clear that she was not merely repeating sounds. She had begun to grasp the meanings behind the words and the basic features of the things they referred to.

Her sense of self-protection is also fairly strong. She does not casually put things into her mouth, and she will not simply accept food or objects offered by women in the neighborhood. If something is meant to be eaten, she generally wants to see someone else eating it first. When she wakes up on the bed, she calls for Mom or Dad rather than climbing down by herself. If we tell her not to touch something, she usually leaves it alone afterward. Her walking has become much steadier too. When the ground is uneven or the path is complicated, she either takes one of our hands, holds onto the wall, or asks to be carried, and only resumes walking independently after the tricky part is over.

Of course, she has a little temper too. If something does not go her way, she gets upset, cries while marching quickly over to a wall or leaning against the edge of the bed, and then before long she manages to cheer herself up. Once, she was eating by herself with a small bowl and spoon when Grandma accidentally bumped her with an elbow. She immediately set the bowl down in indignation and gave Grandma’s arm a flurry of tiny punches, then turned back and added one scratch for good measure before she felt avenged. Another time, while we were walking together, I accidentally kicked the back of her heel. She turned around and stepped on my foot in her little sandals. After walking a few more steps, she seemed to decide that justice had not yet fully been served, turned back again, and stepped on me a second time before heading home satisfied.

She loves music. As soon as she hears a tune, she starts swinging her legs or bouncing to the beat, humming along in her own baby way to songs like Big-Head Son and Small-Head Father and Little Swallow. She likes circling around us while running, likes it when I hold her hands and dance the ring dance from Doll and Bear, and likes spinning with one arm raised under the flashing lights of the kiddie rides. Someone in the family joked that since she enjoys singing and dancing so much, she ought to be sent to learn some artistic skill when she grows older. We checked with a dance center and found that classes start from age four, so there are still another two or three years to wait.

At this stage, she can already “help” with little things around the house. She can accurately fetch each person’s slippers. She will also diligently remove every single pea from a pea pod before throwing the pod away. After meals, she sometimes takes the heat mat and carries it into the dining room, stretching high to place it on the table. If she spots a mosquito, she knows to grab the electric mosquito swatter and attack it, making enthusiastic “pa~ pa~ pa!” sounds as she does.

On May 16, the family member who had been helping care for Xiao Xiongzai took the train back to her hometown. On Mother’s Day evening, she had gone nearby to get a full head of wavy curls, looking very much like the little girl Marshmallow from Big-Head Son and Small-Head Father. Ever since she first announced, sometime in the first half of last year, that she would eventually return home, we had worried about what would happen with childcare. We were not fully at ease leaving everything to hillway’s mother alone. We worried that Xiao Xiongzai might fall and bump herself, catch cold, go hungry, or be hard to settle at night; we also worried about midday meals for the older caregiver. Hillway and I even discussed alternating leave from work during the first half month so one of us could stay home to help.

Fortunately, Xiao Xiongzai had already moved past the stage, several months earlier, when she clung constantly to that familiar caregiver. These days she prefers being with hillway and me after work. She no longer bursts into tears the moment one of us takes her, as if she had been handed over to some wicked step-parent or trafficker. Between the two of us, she prefers being carried by me. Hillway’s comment on that was: this is simply the difference between a soft sleeper and a hard sleeper.

Lately, the topic I hear most from colleagues is stock trading. The common refrain is that the market is doing so well that you can make money just by casually buying in. It is hard not to feel tempted hearing that all around me, but I have no spare money to put in, and no knowledge or skill in investing either. So while other people talk about chasing gains, the only thing I can really work on is saving money.

At the same time, changes in our industry brought a new round of especially painful and frantic writing work. One assignment arrived right after another. Day after day, I sat in front of the computer typing furiously, and it felt like my old newspaper days all over again. On top of that, after the caregiver returned to her hometown, household matters multiplied. Between the stress and the mental fatigue, several library books I had borrowed sat untouched for a long time.

Hillway, who has always taken a serious interest in buying practical household goods, decided this month to spend several hundred yuan improving both the quality of life at home and the use of our limited space. He bought a large 1.7-meter kitchen storage rack and a Philips food processor. These days, aside from drinking formula twice a day, Xiao Xiongzai’s basic meals are still mostly porridge and noodles, usually mixed with stir-fried leafy greens or tofu, with fish only once in a while. Lately, mango has been her main fruit. Hillway said the main reason for buying the processor was to diversify her diet a bit more, using it to prepare complementary foods and fresh juice for her.

Although we take Xiao Xiongzai to the cinema almost every day just to play in the space, we hardly watch any movies ourselves. Hillway often asks what I want to watch so he can download it. But even if there is time to download something, once we get home there is a child to care for. One night, we stayed up until 1:30 a.m. to finish watching Wolf Totem. By the end, my legs were covered in mosquito bites from sitting in the living room, and I felt both sleepy and itchy. The movie was only so-so anyway—sleep would probably have been the better choice. During quieter moments at work, I did manage to watch the film Cell Phone on my phone and follow a few episodes of Tiger Mom, Cat Dad, if only to pick up a little parenting wisdom along the way.