"Happy."

Elise returned from her weekend of work yesterday afternoon, no worse for the wear (except for two shredded feet and a sore hand from all the clicking) and ready to hit the ground running.

Fortunately, in the streets directly below was the Taste of Arlington, a food fair with live bands, vendors from all over the city and....a bounce house!

Elise ditched her camera and bag. Sam roused himself from his nap and pulled on his Crocs, and we all made for the door to head downstairs and see what all the commotion was about. Sam lead the way. I brought up the rear, pushing Pete in the stroller, and as Sam reached for the door knob, he paused and said, "Happy."

Elise and I kind of looked at each other as Sam continued, "Mom...Daddy...Sam...Pete....Sam happy." Mom was home. Everyone was back together the way it was supposed to be and Sam was happy.

Downstairs, we tasted a pistachio brownie and cold pea soup with a cayenne creame fraiche (umm...yeah....they didn't really play well together in the mouth), then we had burgers. On the way back from our favorite burger joint, we stopped at the bounce house. Previously, Sam had been somewhat skeptical of bounce houses, but this time, he said he wanted to go in, so I bought him some tickets (actually, Sam bought the tickets. All I did was give him a twenty when he turned to me saying, "Money...money" and I was thinking he is waaaaay too young to be starting that already!) and he climbed in with 4 other kids and started bouncing away!

A minute later, we saw the hand signal for 'all done' and Elise reached in and extricated him from the bounce house though he still had four or five minutes of bouncing left to do. I'm glad he remembers this hand signal, if no other (He remembers 'thank you', too, but it has become more of Sam blowing a kiss than the proper signal).

Next to the bounce house were play train tracks in a tight circle. A young twentysomething with a splotchy beard pushed three train cars with a broomstick around the tracks. Sam had to go on, so we waited in line until it was our turn. Sam got to ride in the lead car. Each car had a hand crank and Sam cranked on it with everything he had. I didn't know if the crank helped the train go faster or not. I didn't think so, but then when Sam went for a second time with two older boys, and all three of them were madly cranking, the train definitely seemed to be steaming faster.

I mentioned a second time, did I not? Well, when the train stopped the first time, Sam didn't want to get off and the only way he was going to get off was if we promised him a second go-around. Fortunately, the ride was free.

We headed back upstairs for dinner and bathes and to Skype with Nanny. Pete crashed early. Sam made Elise give him his bath, put on his "zump" (zippy pjs) and read books to him. I made a beer run.

We survived guys weekend...but it was definitely good to have Elise home. Sam wasn't the only one that was happy.