The happiest place on earth.

Fain and I visited his father and grandmother in Florida this week.

We took the train there and back. On the way, we had a tiny sleeper car. I'm not sure who was more excited. I found myself several times sitting up in the crowded little bed, bouncing and squealing, "Yippee, we're sleeping on a train!" Fain would respond in kind until we were both ragged from our excitement. The wheels battering the track throughout the night proved to be one noise that could nearly drown out his puppy-like snoring. We had breakfast in the dining car - French toast for me and a cheese omelet for him. Again, we were over-whelmed by the thrill of doing something rather mundane aboard the train. Somehow the train makes the ordinary seem so adventurous!

I was nervous about the week, but it wasn't so bad. Fain's father played G.I. Joe with him, which worried me a little. Two seems a little too young to be handling even miniaturized play guns. And play guns somehow seems like an oxymoron. I was comforted to hear my little boy playing with the martial figurines alone - "Jo-jo feed duckies. Jo-Jo go Disneyworld." I'm sure Joe appreciated the R&R. His grandmother took him down to the beach to roll in the sand whenever she had the chance. He would come back gritty and grinning with earfuls of wet sand and saltwater.

I spent most of my time lying by the pool, something that I gave up years ago due to a fear of cancer. I figured one little fling with the sun couldn't hurt too bad so long as I liberally applied 30 SPF protection. I love the way the sun warms into me, especially after a few laps in the frigid pool. I can feel the rays absorb the droplets of water and settle over me like a heated blanket. It is the height of relaxation. Occasionally, I would have time with Fain, and I would bring him into the pool. He clung to my neck desperately with his feet joined behind my back. In the water, he was so light and buoyant. He felt the way that he did when he was a newborn. He was delighted and delightfully petrified of the cold water, by turns gasping for breath and squealing. He would press his cold wet cheek to mine, and I felt as if I just wanted to hold him that way forever.

Thursday we went to the Magic Kingdom, the happiest place on earth. Fain was over-awed by the colossal Mickey Mouse and Pooh Bear. "Mommy, mommy, look, mommy. Mommy, look." That was the music of my day. He buried his face into my neck during the Pirates of the Caribbean. I'd forgotten how loud and scary it could be. Oh, but he loved "It's a Small World." I would have taken him on it over and over again if the line wasn't so long. It really is a lovely little ride if you can suppress your jaded adult-self.

The woman behind us was informing her older son of the nationalities of the chubby-faced dolls. At the end of the ride, she said, "Look, see they're all in white now. White is the color of peace. This is what the world would look like if we lived in peace." The dolls rode carousels and ferris wheels, laughed and sang and danced. I know it is unutterably cheesy, but my throat began to ached and my eyes started to sting. I pulled Fain close to me and kissed his head, wishing that the world would be for him a little more like this ride.

Home.

A housewren has made her home in the K-Mart wreath on my front door. The nest is diminutive, perhaps the size of an eggcup. The three eggs that she laid, each the size of a jelly bean, have hatched, producing three wee babies. One fell from the nest this morning. I pulled on my workgloves and tucked her back in as best I could and said a little prayer for her. I hope that it isn't true that mother birds won't return to fledglings who've been handled by humans. My neighbor says that it's an old wives' tale and that he's returned thrush babies to their nests bare-handed.

I felt privileged when the family moved in. I locked the front door for good, hauling toddler, groceries, luggage, and anything else that must be lugged to and from the car around the back of the house to the side door. It seems that it must be good luck to have a bird live on your front door.

I've washed my hands of grueling yardwork until summer passes. I've done quite a bit to improve the landscape, though. I expanded the two front flower beds, planting roses, lilies, dahlias, violets, and lamb's ear, among other things. I have a gardenia shrub on either side of the front door. I also dug a new flowerbed along the side of the house and planted a snowdrift crabapple, a chaste tree, a rosebush, and a few other flowers. Dad came over and took down the unsightly fir tree that darkened the front yard. In the fall I'm going to plant several smaller ornamental trees to create shade and lend some privacy.

I like that home can be transformational. It doesn't have to be stagnant.