I had never had a staycation before, but that’s what I ended up doing when I decided to take 2 additional weeks off work as the second half of my paternity leave. I forgot who, but I want to thank whoever gave me that advice — to take 2 weeks when your kid is born, then 2 weeks again later when all the visitors have gone home, the baby blues has kicked in a bit for your wife, and the baby has grown up enough to be a little more interesting to watch.

So for two weeks, I stayed at home — slept in, woke up with Yuuma, played with Yuuma, took many naps, read books to Yuuma, fed Yuuma with the bottle, went to see a movie on a weekday morning (Wall-E), watched a lot of TV (Mad Men and Weeds), cooked dinners, had a beer or two, stayed up late, went to Georgetown for lunch, went to a Mariners game, surfed the web a lot, went to IKEA to buy stuff for baby-proofing the house, sat outside in the sun, took a 2-mile walk, and most importantly, got to know my daughter well. And when we went somewhere, we didn’t go far (camping in Camano Island). It was, without a doubt, the best two weeks of my life.

I don’t know what else to say. I highly recommend it for anyone who has a chance to do this. I felt more re-energized than I did after any other vacation.