Call Your Mother.

So I've had a bit of a swinging-at-windmills kind of week. Looking forward to more of the same, thanks so much for wondering.

For four days the four girls and I descended upon my grandmother-in-law who is also known as my grandmother-in-love. My husband's grandma, my girls' "Nana," is quite possibly the funnest great-(in the awesome sense of that word as well as generationally)-grandma known to kidkind. As I mentioned, she has a lot of touch lamps. She also has "artificial" (never "fake") flowers that Laura likes to "mell." She makes the best beans in the hemisphere. She introduced my children to Hometown Buffet and also to digging in gravel. She keeps a big toy box and a big sense of humor. Thanks, Nana, for a wonderful stay.

While in the fantastic state of California, we spent a lot of time with my superfun mother-in-law and my sweet sister-in-law and most importantly with my nephew. Rio. Now there's a kid who knows how to run a party! He has all of his cousins wrapped quite snugly around his smallest two-year-old finger. Not to mention Grandma, Nana, Mom and, er, me.

Of course while traveling we had to break out the DVD player. Don't hate me. It's three movies, interrupted by two potty stops, and we're there. Paul Bunyan, better known in our family as Papa Onion, is also graced with a visit both going and coming. This trip Babe (big blue ox... are you still with me?) was thankfully no longer beheaded.

Last time we drove through the Redwoods, the 30-plus-foot-tall ox had quite literally lost its head. Right into the parking lot. Sarah's horror is still fresh at the memory of his (must say that I had always thought Babe a her, but no-oo-oh, I checked this time and his parts are evident in massive lightweight concrete sculpture under which you can, ahem, walk and marvel) ... anywhat Sarah is still horrified to remember the gaping hollow neck.

So this time his head was back in place and the whole thing repainted in brilliant blue. HOWEVER. They forgot his nose ring. It didn't take my children 10 seconds to discern this. How many kids will be disillusioned, people, before the Enchanted Forest fixes it? We invite guesses.

After our Paul Bunyan-Nana's Beans-Drive Along Lost Coast-Shop Ferndale-Eat Hometown Buffet-Paul Bunyan trip we returned home to a happy husband and father who'd spent his week working, watching baseball, and contemplating how big and quiet the house can feel under certain circumstances.

Heh heh heh.

Little did he (or I) know that he was about to be sole practitioner of parenthood for three days while I ran away (my personal specialty) to the Sylvia Beach Hotel for a little bookish alone time. Reading! Watching the surf! Driving aimlessly! Taking photos! Meeting a strange (apparently under the influence of intoxicants) woman! Who hugged me repeatedly and told me to call my mother!

Okay. Just passing along what I learned on my trip. Literal and figurative.