Chapter 732 - 378: It’s Not Easy Being Parents

Chapter 732: Chapter 378: It’s Not Easy Being Parents

Juhua’s morning grogginess vanished in an instant. Her heart jolted. She hastily stripped the clothes off Banli and shoved his bare little body into the quilt, wrapping him up tightly. She paid no mind to the little one giggling at her as she reached further into the bed. ’Oh, heavens!’ A huge patch of the bed was soaked. Cong was lying on the damp quilt, chewing on her fingers! When she saw her mother lean over, she even broke into a grin, unwilling to pull her hand from her mouth—the poor thing was hungry!

’Just how much did this brother-sister pair pee? All they had was milk, so where did all this water come from? No, wait... I gave them some rice water yesterday. I thought it was good for them, very nourishing, so...’ ℴℴ𝘮

The self-important new mother really wanted to whine and complain to the children’s father, but then she remembered she was a mother herself now. ’I should probably knock it off.’

Ordinarily, her mother-in-law, He, was the one who looked after the two babies at night. But Juhua, remembering her duty and determined to be a competent mother, had vowed to raise unique children—she would neither suppress their individuality nor spoil them into becoming useless. Therefore, she had argued with He for a long time to finally win the right to look after the babies at night. Who would have thought that on the very first day, they’d hit her with such a welcome, leaving her in a complete panic!

Huai Zi quickly got up and threw on his clothes. "Don’t panic," he said to Juhua. "I’ll go get water and some clothes." With that, he hurried out the door.

Juhua stripped Cong bare as well and tucked her into the quilt just like her brother. She had no idea why these two little ones were so happy, laughing nonstop even though their bellies were still empty.

Their mother, however, was in no mood to play with them. She got up, grabbed a few cloth diapers from the small bed, and rushed back to her own bed, shivering. She sat there, worrying. ’The baby clothes are all ice-cold. It won’t be good to put them on their warm little bodies. And if one of them pees again while I’m waiting for Huai Zi to bring clean clothes, this quilt will be a lost cause, too.’

Just as she was wondering if she should get up and avoid breastfeeding in bed later, she heard the door being pushed open. It was He’s voice. "Banli, Cong, not up yet? Did you two give your mother a hard time last night?"

He was carrying a large bundle of baby clothes in her arms. Seeing Juhua sitting on the bed in a daze, she suppressed a smile. "Wet the bed? When you bring them to sleep with you, why don’t you put a thick cotton pad down? And when babies sleep, they need to be bundled up tightly. You stripped them down to just their under-things. They might have been comfortable, but now you’re the one paying the price!"

As she spoke, she stepped onto the stool in front of the bed and sat on the edge, handing the clothes to Juhua. "First, get their undershirts and pants on them under the quilt. I’ll handle the outer layers."

Juhua took them sheepishly and picked up Banli first to dress him.

It was only then that she discovered a serious problem: she had apparently never fully dressed a baby before. She was usually quite deft when changing their diapers, mainly because she’d had practice on Hulu. She had even felt proud back then, thinking, ’Once a girl becomes a mother, she can learn to do anything. Motherhood makes you strong, after all!’ But as she actually tried to dress the tiny, milk-scented baby, she found it was no easy task at all. Holding his soft little arms and legs, she was completely at a loss for how to get them into the miniature clothes.

He watched as she held her precious grandson’s chubby, lotus-root-like legs, trying to stuff them into the tiny pants. With every push, his leg would go limp, and then with a mighty kick from Banli, his foot would end up right in the crotch of the pants.

She grimaced at the sight. "First, get one of his feet into the pant leg," she instructed hastily. "Then grab his foot from the cuff and give it a pull while you use your other hand to pull the waistband up... like—Aiyah! No, that’s not working. Here, let me do it!"

He offered a few more words of advice, but when she saw Banli’s bare little body exposed outside the blankets, his little tummy and belly button out in the open, she worried the baby would freeze. Unable to bear it any longer, she took off her shoes, climbed onto the bed, and started dressing her grandson herself.

Juhua scooted aside to make room, watching in embarrassment as her mother-in-law climbed onto the bed. In a flash, He had Banli dressed in his under-things and his diaper secured. She handed him to Juhua to hold and then started on Cong.

Just then, Huai Zi came in carrying a basin of steaming hot water. Pu Pao followed behind him, holding toiletries.

Juhua’s mouth twitched. ’I really am useless,’ she thought. She had wanted to take over the twins’ care, but she’d just ended up making a whole group of people run around after her. ’At this point, who’s serving whom?’

’Enough idle thoughts. I just have to learn everything from scratch.’

She placed Banli back in the warm quilt and took the hot gauze cloth Zhang Huai handed her. First, she carefully cleaned her nipples, then quickly washed her face and rinsed her mouth. After that, she picked Banli up to nurse him, her eyes fixed on He dressing Cong. She mentally took note of the key steps, determined that tomorrow morning she wouldn’t be in such a chaotic mess.