Not on the whole a fussy baby

It has been commented to me that I have perhaps given an impression of young Yelena on our travels that is not fair. Frankly it surprises me that anyone is reading much of what I've written about our trip to Spain; I expect people to say to me, oh yes, I saw that you'd written about your trip, and I meant to read it, but I didn't have time just then, and then I never got around to it.

In any event, let me clear something up: Yelena is not, on the whole, a fussy baby. Did she fuss from time to time? Yes. Did we need to adjust what we were doing sometimes because she was fussy? Of course. Did I write about this? Apparently. But put yourselves in the booties of a 7-month-old in on a European vacation: your nap times are completely disrupted, your sleep schedule is off, everything smells different, and your world no longer revolves around you. Would you not pitch a fit? Well, Yelena pitched no fits. She just fussed a little from time to time.

I wish I could say the same thing for the other children around us. I recall sitting at the Café-Bar Altamira in Seville near a Spanish family with a ~3-year-old boy who was wailing and wailing for no discernable reason — old enough to know better, and old enough to communicate, yet sobbing and moaning as though he'd just been told Santa Claus was dead. It was really unseemly.

So Yelena was in fact a very good baby, especially considering the stress of travel. She did her parents proud on many an occasion.


Eric holding Yelena aloft at Café Modesto in Seville
Meanwhile: I have one more sketch to post from the trip. It's interactive, and it's taking me extra time to put it together. ("Interactive, what does he mean? We shall have to wait and see!") And if you do read my journals, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that I reveal the meaning of life right smack in the middle, somewhere after the point where I describe what we ate.

Labels: journal, personal, spain

posted by Tony at 9:35 PM