Is That A Banana In Your Carry On, Or Are You Happy To See Me?

Hello. We're back. We have been on vacation, and have senselessly returned home.

I expected that I would write a little bit while we were in California, perhaps provide a running commentary of our trip, but I have to confess that I pretty much completely checked out of my own daily life out there. I'm not going to apologize. There is a pretty hefty amount of stress in my life at the moment - nothing I can't handle, I don't think, just a lot of things bubbling over at once - and it felt wonderfully liberating to be thousands of miles away from it for a few days. So I will try to hit the highlights of our trip now, and possibly may need a few nights to do it justice.

It began with a banana. Actually, it began with a rampant bout of OCD packing on my part, which means I spent as much time packing the three of us for our five day trip as we spent on the actual trip. I am a chronic overpacker. But I was hell bent on not having to check any bags, so I arranged and rearranged our stacks of clothes and then switched bags a few times and ultimately managed to get each of us not only within the one carry on and one personal item limits but also still somehow slightly overpacked. In addition to being a crazed woman at the suitcase, I am also slightly obsessed with my children's fiber intake. So, as an act of maternal love, I filled their bags with a variety of healthy snacks for the plane including, as a last minute stroke of brilliance, a banana for Third Grader.

We braved the two hour drive into Boston in Friday morning rush hour traffic, then the ridiculously long haul on foot from Central Parking to our terminal lugging six bags, and made it to our gate a comfortable thirty minutes before boarding. This is when I should have noticed that Third Grader's pant legs were damp, but I did not. I didn't notice, in fact, until we were in our seats on the plane, at which time it was much too late. Seems the banana didn't make the commute so well. Seems the little bastard wriggled its way from the top of her bag, where I placed it, to the bottom of the bag, and was jostled and banged about enough to burst open and generously spread itself all over all of the other contents. Banana-covered Mad Libs, banana-covered iPod, banana-covered book, and, most upsetting, banana-covered Nintendo DS. Which stopped working and still has not started working again, six days later. If anyone has any words of reassurance to offer me about personal electronics that cost a lot of money to replace surviving an attack of squishy food, I am all ears.

We arrived in L.A. in the afternoon and were greeted by Miss S. and Little E., the most precious 2 year old I have ever laid eyes on. Maybe it was the banana fumes, but I think all three of us pretty much instantly fell in love with the little guy. The girls took about a hundred pictures of him in the car on the way to the house and spent a good part of the rest of that day studying him, playing with him, and just generally gushing over him.

I have now arrived at the end of our first day - in essence, our travel day - and I must stop. I must stop because, perhaps you didn't notice, I just accidentally dozed off. In the middle of writing. This might mean I need to get some sleep. I will come back tomorrow night to finish.