1.  My sister’s driver picked me up at the airport.  He doesn’t stand around with a sign, though.  I call him when I land and then he’s there when I walk out.  He had popped the trunk open and so, without really thinking about it, I started putting my bags in the trunk and he ran around and opened the door for me.  I decided that next time, I’d let him lift the bags and I’d open my own car door.  It’s weird.

2.   When I arrived, I met the new nanny.  She is pretty awesome.  My nephew was sleeping and so I took my niece out to lunch.  We ate at a little bistro and, as we left, we passed an obese gentleman.  My niece looked up at me and said, “Why he ate too much?”  There’s little you can say to that.

3.  My nephew is a year and 8 months.  He likes it if you ask him to whisper a secret into your ear.  I leaned down and he whispered something softly into my ear.  I asked my brother-in-law what he said (because the kid is fluent in two languages and choose the one I don’ t understand – and apparently he happens to tell the same secret to everyone).  My brother-in-law said, “We don’t know why but he always whispers the same thing. ‘One egg.’”.

4.  You may recall that my niece has an imaginary friend named Katcho. My niece was pretending to speak on the phone.  She looked at me and said, “I’m speaking with Katcho’s nanny.”  My brother-in-law looked at me and said, “Yeah… we’re on our second degree of separation.”  I laughed.

5.   I told my sister that I wrote about Christmas in our family.  She said, “It’s a transaction.”  I said, “EXACTLY!  I called it prostitution.”  My sister said, “EXACTLY!”

We’re very practical people.

6.  Back home in Chicago, I went to bed last night at 8:30.  No, I’m not kidding.  That’s about 4 hours earlier than usual.  You know why?  Because kids are like Ambien to single people.  I ran and played for three days, soaking in as much of the little ones as possible.   And you know what?

HOLY CRAP, ARE THEY EXHAUSTING.