Now that Juimiin is resuming her flight training, I get to spend more private time with the little brat. Just to balance out some of the prior articles about the boy, this one is a bit more positive.

Being alone with Eric lets me experiment with different strategies to handle contention, without Juimiin’s eagle-eye and eagle-ear second-guessing. It is how I’ve figured out what are some likely times that the brat will be willing to go to sleep on his own, even if he starts out with some fussy crying in his crib. It is how I can have long discussions with him in English or baby babble, without inhibitions.

Being the only two humans in the house also leads to some totally charming moments. It was a belated bath time this evening, and I did it all. The brat has started to enjoy these wet minutes. He shows this with a largly constant grin, flapping limbs, and vocalizations, from his initial undressing to beyond the final redressing. He may be a good little nudist someday. Surely unrelated to that prediction, I find it real hard to put him down in the bath-time euphoria.

Eric’s transition routine from evening to night is also sometimes pleasant. If he is otherwise satisfied, and is simply being held for a few minutes, he will try to “nest” by rubbing his big head on all sorts of spots, until he finds a comfortable one. Then, he can quietly fall asleep, and turn into a big warm barely-moving lump prosthesis.

Such nice moments can be very touching, especially if experienced privately.