Before the Vacation Ends
Rattle-rattle…
“Ehh…”
“Yeah, these are the living room curtains, Luca. The old ones are going up in Daddy’s workshop.”
Rattle-rattle…
“Eh…”
“And these are for the bedroom. Pretty color, right? I matched them to the bedding.”
After weeks of scrolling through product photos and videos, my eye for design had improved by leaps and bounds. What had once felt perfectly charming in Unit 303 now looked like a beginner’s first blush of pride. I could no longer settle for cheap ready-made goods.
So from dawn onward I sat chained to the sewing machine like a factory slave. A craftsman’s speed was something else entirely, and Luca, perched in his Bumbo seat, watched me with rapt fascination, never once looking away.
Curtains for every room, baby blankets, pillow covers, and then…
“Ta-da! All done, Luca. Here.”
“Boo…?”
I pressed a small white stuffed bear into his hands. It was still a little early for a comfort toy, but once I went back to work and he was at daycare, I thought it might help. I’d half-expected him to fling it the second it landed in his grip, but luckily Luca took an intense interest in the little thing. I’d followed a video titled “Toys Babies Love,” and it seemed to have paid off.
“You like it?”
“……”
He just stared at it without answering, which was answer enough. If he liked it, I’d make more. There’d been a puppy and a kitten in that video, too. When he got bigger, maybe a giant dinosaur. I snapped photo after photo of Luca clutching his new bear.
What to make next? The sewing machine’s uses really were endless. At first I’d only thought of clothes, but once I started on bedding and curtains, stuffed animals and a dozen other projects opened up.
And if I was honest, the things that felt like the best purchases of all were the kitchen tools. Under the [Editor’s Pick!] tab I’d spent a total of 275 points on a high-end cookware set and a six-piece knife collection, figuring they’d just be useful. With the absurd ability to recreate any recipe book or cooking video note for note, I was eating three of the best meals of my life every single day. Realizing I could pull that kind of flavor out of ordinary ingredients almost felt like cheating—and then I’d feel a twinge of guilt for the baby who still only got the same formula every morning.
“Oof.”
I stood and stretched long. Morning work was mostly done; time for brunch.
“Okay, Luca, look this way.”
I spun his Bumbo toward the kitchen and launched into cooking with energy. Fluffy pancakes drowned in maple syrup, sausages and bacon crisped exactly the way I liked them, a cheese omelet plated with care. Couldn’t forget fruit—I washed an apple. As for coffee…
“Hmm.”
I usually took it black, but today I made a syrupy latte, piled on whipped cream, and finished it with chocolate drizzle until it was practically a mocha.
I was deep into brunch when I noticed Luca staring at me, unblinking. Feeling a little guilty, I offered a peace offering.
“…Just wait. Once our Luca graduates from formula and starts solid food, Daddy’s going to make you so many delicious things.”
“Boo…”
“I mean it.”
“Eh…”
Baby, you’re making me self-conscious. Stop staring. You already had your morning bottle.
The next day.
“Thank you—have a good one.”
The packages I’d been waiting for arrived one after another. The delivery driver for our new neighborhood was friendly. I wouldn’t see his face every time, but since I ordered often enough, that was a relief.
“Man, there’s a lot.”
I double-checked the living room full of household goods, the mattress, the lumber, and put away whatever I could. All of it was DIY material sized for the new house, so the bulk of the boxes was the bulk of my to-do list—but for now I was simply happy.
Big furniture first: I hauled the wood into the room that would be the bedroom for me and the baby and started building the bed frame. Leveling, double-drilling so the wood wouldn’t split. Simple design, but I followed a video I’d watched once and built the frame without a single mistake. After sanding, I finished it with eco-friendly varnish, cracked the window open despite the chill, and spun the ceiling fan for the first dry.
While the varnish set, I moved to the next room—closet and workshop combined—and started assembling shelves and a hanging rod. I filled one whole wall with shelving and hangers, put up a partition wall to divide the space, and joined my two old work desks in front of it. Not making the furniture too big to move alone had been a stroke of genius.
More sanding, endless varnish, and looking after the baby in between—by the time I looked up, lunch was long gone. I wasn’t sure, but if I’d hired a carpenter for this much work, it probably would have taken two days. Keeping every design deliberately simple helped, but filling a wide-open space piece by piece made me truly feel the weight of this ability. The scale was nothing like the little one-off furniture I’d made before the move, and even though the skill wasn’t mine, I felt a little proud of myself.
“Luca, time for bottle.”
“Ung…”
I put the bottle to the mouth of a baby too sleepy to open his eyes; a second later those eyes blinked open and stared up at me, wide and solemn.
“Oh, my sweet boy.”
A child who slept through Daddy’s work without crying or fussing, who woke up on his own after a full nap—I couldn’t have found him more precious if I tried.
“Starting tonight, you’ll sleep in a real bed.”
When I said it while meeting his eyes, he beamed, and it was almost too much. Eating well, sleeping well, never getting sick. I’d heard of babies who wailed all day and drained their parents’ souls; how was our Luca already this steady?
I entertained that shamelessly doting thought while I played with him until he went down for another nap, then finished the second coat of varnish on the bed frame. After that, my back threatened to snap clean in half, and I collapsed flat on the floor.
“Aigoo…”
Even with good stamina, working straight through from morning without a break had been too much. And yet, sprawled on the boards, I was smiling. Body overheating or not, watching the walnut grain bloom under the varnish made me deeply, quietly proud.
“Up we go!”
I forced myself vertical again. While the varnish dried once more, I unpacked the clothes bags and organized the wardrobe. I’d purged everything I used to wear when we moved, so the closet was now packed with clothes I’d made myself from good fabric. How much would all of this have cost if I’d bought it? One cardigan for four hundred dollars—I didn’t even want to know. How much money did people who only wore expensive brands actually have?
Still… it was nice having so many nice clothes. For most of my life I hadn’t had the bandwidth to care about design. Looking at a walk-in closet sorted by color and purpose almost felt like I was finally assembling a proper kit. And where I used to buy only neutrals, once I started choosing designs and sewing them myself I’d begun wearing pastels, too. Lately my hand kept reaching for a cardigan with a soft gray-and-sky base and thin white stripes. Was this how taste slowly formed?
Taste. Taste…
I’d always thought of taste as pure luxury. But it turned out that if you simply paid attention to what you liked and disliked in daily life, taste arrived pretty quickly. All this time I just hadn’t had the emotional room to choose.
I set the mattress onto the fully dried bed frame and pulled out the bedding I’d sewn before the move. The size was perfect. Even without much other furniture, the bedroom already felt cozy.
Bedroom and dressing room, kitchen and bath, the workshop I’d carved out with the partition, and the living room—after the one-room apartment, the sheer amount of space felt enormous. I worked through it all, taking recycling and trash out in between, sweeping up the last of the dust and finishing with a mop. The living room still looked a little bare, but the places where we ate and slept were in order…
“…Move complete.”
Only then did it really feel like the move was finished. After a shower I carried the baby to the new bed and lay down, overwhelmed.
“Baby, this is the biggest bed we’ve ever had, huh…”
Watching him thrash his little arms and legs made me laugh. I flipped him back over the second he tried another roll, then stretched as far as I could. Even with my whole body stretched out, there was still room to spare.
“Ahhh…”
A groan slipped out of me, but the bed was soft. My whole body felt like it was melting into the mattress.
“Ehhh…”
Whether he was answering me or just copying, Luca babbled away; I stroked his cheek. Then I sat up, caught him mid-roll again, and massaged his little legs, stretching them gently.
“Kyaa…!”
He giggled as if it tickled. I worked carefully over his arms and legs.
“This is how you get tall, Luca.”
“Hee…”
I’d sleep with him at least until he was ten. Or would he want his own room before then?
I’d done so much in a single day it still didn’t feel real, and I was exhausted—but just as proud, and just as glad. This was the space our family would keep filling. Here he would eat and sleep and live; he’d take his first steps, learn to talk, go to kindergarten. At kindergarten he’d make friends. And as he grew, maybe I would, too.
Of course there would be surprises, and hard days large and small. But today’s satisfaction was so large, and my body so thoroughly spent, that worry couldn’t find a crack to slip through.
His bright, alert eyes drifted shut.
“Good night, Luca.”
Tomorrow, let’s have another good day.
In the last few days before I went back to work, I spent every hour with the baby. Once the job started we’d be apart, so I treated it as a settling-in period for the neighborhood. On days that already felt like spring I took him out in the stroller for short walks, and when I met strangers’ eyes on the path I smiled and said hello. At the walkable grocery I found produce far fresher than what we’d had before, and even a paper cup of coffee from a street café tasted surprisingly good. So this was how people in a well-off neighborhood lived.
Sitting on a bench and replaying the last few days, I felt both newly grateful and a little bitter. Looking down the street, the Christmas lights that hadn’t been taken down yet were as beautiful as any famous city avenue. Spring, summer, and autumn here would probably be just as lovely.
Living here made the whole world look different—even though the old place was only a few kilometers away. And the more my eyes opened to this new life, the more I started caring about how I looked. I’d never been someone who fretted over other people’s gazes. Maybe it was like a kid transferring to a new school, wanting not to be left out of the group. Even if it felt a little uncomfortable, I hoped Luca and I would settle in smoothly and blend into the neighborhood without friction.
Ding-dong!
I stood as a shopping-app alert chimed.
“Ah, right.”
I needed a haircut before going back to work, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk into a neighborhood salon without knowing what the bill would look like, so a few days earlier I’d ordered a hair DIY kit. Once I got home, I’d research self-cuts online until the package showed up. Long live the internet, where you can find anything.
…And long live the max-level buff that let me do anything I watched once.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and checked myself from every angle. Finding a style I liked had taken over an hour of searching, but following a stylist’s self-cut video on camera, I finished the whole thing in under fifteen minutes. What was this? Way too convenient—and I actually liked the result. No appointments, no salon, and barbers hadn’t always given me a cut I loved anyway. I should have bought this kit ages ago.
Until now I hadn’t realized how much grooming yourself could affect your mood and self-esteem. Was this what a life with room to spare felt like—the kind of everyday that let you look at yourself and take care of what you saw? Maybe that was why the people I met on the street seemed so at ease, ready to say hello to a complete stranger the moment their eyes met.
While I was at it, I trimmed the baby’s soft little hair, then gave him a proper bath in comfortably warm water for the first time in a while.
Splash-splash.
“Ihi…”
Luca was doing his absolute best to dunk a yellow rubber duck, and it was adorable.
“Luca, do you like bath time?”
“Kyaa…!”
Splash!
His booming voice bounced off the bathroom walls and hit my ears hard.
“Whoa—our baby has some lungs.”
If he kept growing like this, I might have to put him on a stage someday.
“Okay, time to free the duck.”
I rescued the poor rubber duck from his grip, roughly towel-dried him, then wrapped him snug in a big towel and carried him to the bed. I dried his hair on low warm air, smoothed on baby lotion, and dressed him in the new sky-blue cotton pajamas I’d made.
“Our Luca… you look so handsome.”
I whispered it while stroking his soft, warm cheek, and he smiled, all squinty and bright.
I wished the whole world could see how beautiful our Luca was.