Mommy Love

Author: Xixi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: Mami Ai is a name of a medicine, which can be used as supplementary treatment when a baby has poor digestion. It is considered quite tasty among medicines, and most babies are willing to take it. Of course, the best thing is that the name itself embodies a mother's most fundamental wishes. Mami Ai (Shanghai People's Publishing House) is written by Xixi, a young mother, from a unique perspective filled with maternal love and wisdom. With a humorous touch, she uses a diary-style format to describe the little moments in her daughter TT's life from the age of four to starting primary school. The book is also accompanied by many illustrations drawn by the author's daughter TT, creating a harmonious blend of text and images.
Each entry in Mami Ai is not very long, and it mostly talks about very small things or short conversations between mother and daughter. What makes it special is that the author expresses the confusion, pressure, and even pain of a young mother in the text: she fears TT will be unhappy, fears TT will be physically unwell, and does not want TT to be a genius child—"Being a genius child is terrible. I don’t want TT to be a genius child." If she could make another choice: whether to have children? She thinks she would find it very difficult to decide. Raising a child is a bittersweet experience, where the () and () are relatively balanced. Therefore, it is important to make the most of it and ensure both the mother and child are happy.
As a mother, it is easy to become overly proud and talk excessively about one's child when speaking to others. For example, during the terrible twos, she would unconsciously talk about eating, drinking, and all the little details of her daughter’s life. She has always tried to avoid this and only shared her daughter’s funny stories with friends as jokes. Most of the text in this book was originally published as a personal column in the lifestyle section of The 21st Century Business Herald for two years, while the rest was written randomly on her personal homepage and blog.
At first, some friends told her she was making money off her daughter, and she was also afraid her daughter wouldn’t like others knowing her private life. But later, when TT saw her stories online, she was quite happy. So, she decided to publish this book. Dedicated to her beloved daughter Tong Tong (TT), and to all the friends who have supported and watched her grow.