i know nothing about very small children, and would prefer not to know. babies i avoid actively. i now have two living next door to me, a three year old niece and a one year old nephew, from my dad's side. and they aren't too bad at all! they are very soft, and they smell nice! i think they like me. i hope they do anyway. but i don't really know, you know, what to say or do with very little people, not having had younger siblings, or indeed any siblings at all. children above 6 i'm okay with, i talk to them like i would talk to adults. with children between 18months and 5 years i am at a loss - they can't converse - or speak more than single words - and i'm not much good at "playing". su-lin, who adores children and have 3 younger uns at home, suggests one finger tunes on the piano, drawing pictures, and reading aloud. as far as the reading aloud went i find they have no patience. i take them to the park but that is bloody stressful because parks are always lurking with scraped knees and bruises and mosquito bites and when they start crying i don't know what to do, and you know, you might have to carry them home when they're tired, and i always think i'll drop them. drawing you risk offending them if you can't see the elephant in their boa constrictor. i haven't tried the piano yet. you'd think i'd be good at buying them books, but i am finding that i won't be, at least not for another 6 years or so. i never read any books for very young children. i spent most of my early childhood reading in chinese. no one taught me, i just could, so i never started with baby books, but read myths and folktale and children's novels and books with generally no illustrations. then i switched to english at 6 and by then i was too old so got onto enid blyton and roald dahl and sort of passed to other things later. angelina ballerina, and humphrey's bedtime, and picture books about what happens when you give cookies to mice? all that is new to me. (as none of you know what i'm talking about either, humphrey is a very sweet elephant, and angelina is a mouse. mice are fashionable nowadays.)
please send suggestions on young reader books to me.
tonight, i am knee deep in relatives. the very old, and the very young. i am unenthusiastic. it's not that my mother isn't cooking up a storm. there's chili crab, and broth with abalone and herr piow and cabbage and chicken and dofu and button mushrooms, and teppanyaki, and black bean sauce chestnut and chicken, and guoba, and seafood and pomelo salad, and then wintermelon soup for dessert. she's the one cooking all day long and cleaning afterwards. she's the one who's hosting everyone and the one who's really tired. me, i've done nothing except fan the charcoal fire and carry dishes from kitchen to dining room and say things like, jiu jiu! chi! a-yi, lai chi ba! i ought to make myself more useful instead of shutting myself up in my room reading till the last possible moment but, i am in deadly fear of my relatives. i like them, i really do. but i want my own time too. mothers should not have so many brothers and sisters. how convenient to be an only child, like my dad!