"It’s okay, you can sleep a bit longer. I’ll play with Zhouzhou. Or do you want to have some breakfast first and then sleep?" Today was Saturday, and Shen Yi didn’t have to go to the office.
"Then I’ll sleep a bit more," Ye Wanwan said lazily, as she had originally planned to get up, but was persuaded by Shen Yi’s craftily phrased options to choose sleep instead.
Shen Yi sat up, kissed Ye Wanwan on the lips, and then stood up to take Zhouzhou away to wash up.
Zhouzhou still wanted to find his mom, but Shen Yi gently told him, "Mommy is tired and wants to sleep. Zhouzhou should let mommy rest well, otherwise mommy will feel uncomfortable."
Hearing this, Zhouzhou obediently followed his dad and didn’t keep asking for his mom.
Ye Wanwan smiled silently to herself, and then, overwhelmed by sleepiness, gradually closed her eyes again.
When Ye Wanwan woke up again, it was already past ten o’clock. Although she was still lying in bed and didn’t want to move, she eventually got up to wash and change her clothes.
The moment she came downstairs, she saw Shen Yi and Zhouzhou playing with building blocks in the living room, and Shen Yi was very patient, playing along with Zhouzhou as if he were a child himself.
Ye Wanwan had mentioned to Lin Xu before that Shen Yi could play games with Zhouzhou, to which Lin Xu had expressed great surprise.
After all, Shen Yi himself had only played with toys when he was very young, and once he started kindergarten, he had begun to "pose and pretend," thinking he was a little adult and shouldn’t play with toys anymore.
Unexpectedly, now that he was a father, he was able to engage so wholeheartedly with his child in play.
"Mommy!" Zhouzhou, sitting on the crawling mat, called out loudly when he saw her.
Shen Yi looked at the time, "Let’s just eat something light to fill our stomachs, and in a little more than an hour, it will be time for lunch."
"Mhm," Ye Wanwan replied vaguely, feeling a little embarrassed for sleeping in so late.
With lunch approaching quickly, Ye Wanwan had a light snack and then carried a plate of fruit over to sit down on the crawling mat.
"Zhouzhou, eat the fruit," Ye Wanwan said as she sat down, forked a piece of fruit, and handed it to Zhouzhou to eat on his own.
Zhouzhou obediently started eating his fruit, and Ye Wanwan nudged the fruit plate closer to Shen Yi, signaling for him to eat as well.
Shen Yi opened his mouth as if expecting to be fed, not making a move to eat on his own.
"So you’re the real child, huh!" Ye Wanwan glanced at Shen Yi but eventually fed him a piece anyway.
Shen Yi smiled without a word.
The family of three sat together as Ye Wanwan and Shen Yi discussed where to take Zhouzhou for the afternoon outing, taking advantage of the weekend and the weather which hadn’t become unbearably hot yet.
In the end, they decided to take Zhouzhou for a picnic and brought Taozhi along too, choosing the place where they had found Taozhi before.
Zhouzhou had a great time and fell asleep in the car on the way back.
Shen Yi carried Zhouzhou straight into the bedroom, and Ye Wanwan followed, surprised to see that both sides of the bed had been encased, "What’s this for?"
"I hadn’t considered it before, but Zhouzhou is still small and could easily fall off the bed because he moves around so much, so I enclosed it," Shen Yi explained while he placed Zhouzhou back on the bed.
Then, Shen Yi stood up and turned to look at Ye Wanwan behind him, a hint of laughter in his eyes, yet also seriously said, "This way, I can hold you as we sleep."