Neighborhood

The weather was cold, the school announced that the children would stay home right at the end of the year, and Ms. Ha's business was extremely busy. Mr. Huan could not take a day off from work to stay home and look after his child. In the countryside, his grandparents were renovating their house so they could not go to the city to look after their grandchild. All of these things could not make Ms. Ha confused. At that moment, there was a call outside the gate. It turned out to be the neighbor Mrs. Hai calling out:

- Sister Ha, open the gate for me.

If it had been before, Ms. Ha would have been very annoyed with the neighbor's "natural" way of calling her. She would have been resentful and tried to find a way to refuse but would definitely not open the door. But now it was different. She hurriedly opened the door and invited Ms. Hai into the house:

- It's so cold, why did you come to my house?

- What else? I just received a notice from the kindergarten that my child is not going to school because it's too cold. I know that you and your husband are both busy working, so I came to ask if you need me to help look after the child tomorrow. I'll be home looking after the child anyway, so it's two birds with one stone, and having two children to play with is fun.

Hearing Mrs. Hai say that, Ms. Ha was very happy. It was true that at times like this, she felt that neighborly love was truly precious. But she had not thought so before. Luckily, her mother-in-law had helped her out.

The story is, when Ms. Ha gave birth, Ms. Xuan, Mr. Huan's mother, came to take care of her grandchild. During the days at Ms. Ha's house, Ms. Xuan realized that her daughter-in-law was very indifferent to the houses around her. Even when Ms. Xuan went to visit the neighbors, Ms. Ha knew what was going on and was very upset. Once, Ms. Ha even hinted to Ms. Xuan:

- If you come to take care of the baby, just stay home. Don't go to the neighbor's house or you'll cause trouble.

- Oh, why do you say that? Wherever we live, we must have neighbors.

- Mom, that's just in the countryside. In the city, everyone knows their own family. If you ask questions, people might not understand and think you're nosy and gossiping about their family.

- Well, I understand, in the city, everyone is busy, working all day, with little free time to interact with neighbors. But I think it's not like what you said. If we truly care and share, the neighbors will definitely understand and treat us well. See, today I went to visit Uncle Hai, he also invited me to drink, and talked happily. He also said that he just retired so he has time now. Sometimes he wanted to come over to ask about you guys but seeing the door closed all day made him shy. When we met outside, you just said hello and left.

- Sometimes when you come over to visit, people say things like that as gifts, but it's not necessarily true, Mom.

Seeing that her daughter-in-law seemed very prejudiced about her relationship with her neighbors, Mrs. Xuan shook her head in disappointment. She didn't say anything more and went to put her grandchild to sleep.

A few days after giving birth, Ms. Ha had a lot of work at the store, so she had to leave her baby with her mother-in-law and go to work early. In the following days, she would come home in the middle of the day to breastfeed her baby. Every day, she saw Mr. Hai come over to play with his mother-in-law, and then the two of them would bathe her baby together. Mr. Hai was a nurse, so he was very skillful. The baby lay in his arms and bathed obediently, not crying like when Ms. Ha bathed her baby. He also instructed Ms. Ha in many ways to take care of the baby, especially when she had a fever, because this was her first time giving birth, so she had no experience. Gradually, Ms. Ha truly realized Mr. Hai's kindness. It was true that she was wrong to think that in the city, neighbors did not care much about each other. From then on, she changed her mind, not only with Mr. Hai's family but also with the surrounding families, she became much more open. Thanks to that, on this occasion, Ms. Ha and her husband easily overcame the difficulty of finding someone to look after their child.