Long Vacation

One of the good things about having a husband who works at city hall is that he usually gets public holidays off. His winter vacation this year was from Dec. 29 to Jan. 3. Plus he took the bold step of taking today off (bold because it's the first working day of the year and because he's one of the younger members of his department), so his vacation is 9 days long.

I suppose we could have taken a trip somewhere, but it's not really a good time of year to travel (due to the high expense as well as the crowds). So instead we stayed at home, occasionally venturing off to nearby Shingu for some shopping or dining. It's not very easy to take Evan out, because he's still prone to crying fits. We've also avoided it because it's flu season.

Staying at home has its benefits, though, because we can catch Evan in his good moods. This is especially important for Ko-chan because by the time he gets home from work Evan is in one of his sour moods, and even if he's not, the evening schedule of our dinner → bath → feeding → bedtime leaves little room for playful interaction.

So this morning, after our daily ritual of dancing to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood," we were treated to a few minutes of Evan's cooing. I've written before about Evan's cooing, but lately his cooing has become more deliberate and imitative.



Just seconds later Evan started up with one of his crying fits, but those become much easier to deal with (or forget) when we have good times, too.

...

Well, it's 11 hours later, and I'm writing because Evan had a couple more cooing sessions to offer us. To a third party it's probably all the same, but to us every second of every session is precious, so we're uploading them. We actually worked really hard to edit them down first, although it may not seem like it...

Evan Talks, the Extended Version


I was feeling a little left out, but Evan decided to share the love after our bath.
(Warning: The following features me engaging in what sounds like babytalk...)