CHAPTER 204: A MOTHER, A DAUGHTER AND A DUCK IN SUNGLASSES.

The moment of peace that Jingzhe managed to steal for Mei Mei only lasted for the evening. At 7:30 p.m, Mingzhu returned to the house, sharp pouting mouth, slightly red eyes and aggrieved look on her face.

She was all alone and in her hands was Mei Mei’s green alien man plushie. It had already been torn around the arm and the cotton was sticking out.

"Come in." Mei Mei invited her daughter into the house.

Mingzhu shook her head and held her arms up. "Mommy, carry."

Mei Mei was confused. When had her daughter last asked to be carried? "What is wrong with you? Why are you suddenly behaving like a three year old?" She bent down and touched Mingzhu’s head. "What is wrong, did someone make my Mingzhu unhappy?"

She nodded. "Great grandma would not let me come and see you. And grandma Feng said you were going to have another baby with daddy. Mommy, I am your baby. Don’t you want your baby anymore?"

Mei Mei carried Mingzhu immediately. "My baby, how can I not want you? You are mommy’s precious little darling. Even if mommy ever has another baby, it just means we are adding to the family not taking away from it. It will mean that you are a big sister and you will have a sister or brother like Tea has Biscuit or Lian has Ming." She patted Mingzhu’s back slowly and gently, rocking her like a baby. "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?"

Mingzhu nodded.

"Do you want mommy to give you a bath?"

Mingzhu’s body stiffened.

Mei Mei laughed and started walking to her bedroom "Yes, I am definitely giving you a bath, you smell like pineapple, cherries, strawberries and honey. Did you all have a fruit party?"

Mingzhu nodded. "It was for Meow Meow. Aunt doctor Liping said that she is having three babies so we threw her a fruit party. Grandma said she is a Jun. Uncle Lie said we must call her aunt Jun Meow Meow from now on."

Mei Mei laughed, pushing her bedroom door open. Only in their family did you find children calling an animal aunt or uncle. One of her mother’s cows was called grandma Lanlan. The grandma was added because Lanlan had birthed many calves, becoming the female cow with the most descendants in their family.

"Aunt Meow Meow slapped aunt Jun Yi with her wing." Mingzhu continued delivering her report on all that she had witnessed.

"Really!" Mei Mei gasped as she placed her daughter down in the bathroom. She tapped a blue button above the bath tub and waited for warm water to fill it.

Meanwhile, Minghzu was fighting to pull off her green polka dot shirt that suddenly seemed to have shrunk. "Mommy, I think my head has grown bigger." She complained, huffed and gave up.

Mei Mei opened the three buttons of the shirt which Mingzhu had forgotten had to be undone before the shirt could pass through her normal sized head.

"Buttons!" Mingzhu said in a defeated voice that had an unvoiced sigh.

Mei Mei tapped her butt softly, "Yes Mingzhu, buttons. I blame myself for buying you clothes with buttons. You are always forgetting them."

"They are inconvenient." Mingzhu said. "And small, and round. Buttons are evil mommy."

Mei Mei passed her hand through the water, testing for the temperature. She listened to the complaints with the resigned grace of someone that had lived through the shoelaces are evil era only three months ago.

"Between shoelaces and buttons, which is more evil?" she asked Mingzhu.

"Buttons." Mingzhu replied with the confidence of a researcher that had the data to back up her claims. "They are not finger friendly. Why can’t they be like zips? They go up and down."

Mingzhu repeated up and down a few times, squatting and standing to represent up or down. She was giggling too, like it was so funny. To Mei Mei, her daughter looked like a frog.

She carried the little frog and put it in the tub. For once, ever since the pets moved in, Mingzhu was taking a bath without pet distractions.

"Mommy, you have forgotten to put in my rubber ducks. You said that when I bathe, they must bathe too or we will all stink." Mingzhu reminded Mei Mei.

Mei Mei grabbed them from the shelf in the bathroom and tossed them inside. They were small ducks which came in every color. Some even had little hearts painted on, others had leaves and some were rainbow colored. None of the ducks was scientifically accurate, not that it mattered anyway.

"One yellow duck, swimming in the water....." Minghzu started singing.

As soon as Mei Mei started washing her body with the soft wash cloth, Mingzhu stopped singing. "Mommy, sing for me the song about the duck who wore sunglasses."

Mei Mei cleared her throat. "There once was a duck with a strut so slick, wore shades in the sun and said it’s my top trick!"

She made her arms into duck wings and Mingzhu did the same. "Quack quack." they both sung.

Mei Mei continued on her own. "While others went paddling, flapping around, this duck moon walked without making a sound."

Again, they repeated the quack quack movement.

Mei Mei’s voice picked up, entering the soprano arena. "Quack-quack-boom goes the rhythm of the stream. Living life bold in a feathered dream. Wings in the air and webbed feet to the beat, coolest duck this side of Sesame street!"

Mingzhu clapped her hands and cheered. Lian was right, her mother was cool.

Mei Mei flipped her hair back, the song was not finished. She stood up and grabbed one rubber ducky, using it as a microphone. "He dined on breadcrumbs with a pinky in the air, He told the geese...."

Mingzhu also stood up, covered in soap bubbles for clothes, holding her own rubber ducky microphone, "Style my friends is rare! and I have got it all, I dare. The frogs can testify I swear. Quack, quack, quack."

Mother and daughter forgot all about the bath as they put on a private bathroom concert. All that was missing was the melody to match.

What should have been a five to ten minute bath, turned into a thirty minute bath and then it was off to bed for Mingzhu, rocked to sleep in the arms of her mother. She went to sleep, dreaming of the duck in sunglasses. The last thought in her mind was that she needed to talk to her aunt Jun Yi.

No doubt, she would know where they could find a duck in sunglasses and bring it home.