7 days

Things that happen when your four-year-old visits her grandparents for a week:

• you work really hard and it still feels like a vacation (how can that be, really?)
• you see Julie and Julia and are inspired to make Boeuf Bourguignon but instead go out for pork buns at Momofuku with friends after the movie.
  
• going to a movie and dinner makes you feel like a real grown-up again, until you stay out way past bedtime and realize that you've gotten too old to do these things
  
• your daughter doesn't want to speak to you on the phone because she's too busy having fun (and this is a good thing, you tell yourself)
• you go shopping for real, grown-up skincare products. You spend a lot of money on them and are surprised at how well they work right away
  
• your husband buys reading glasses
• you realize that you and your husband are getting older
  
• you hang out with your husband and share some good laughs and conversations without interruption
• your daughter gets an inexplicable fever that seems to have no cause and doesn't slow her down at all
• you worry about the fever
  
• your daughter tells you that she misses the cat most of all
• you discover that the television program your mom talked about 15 years ago really was as great as she said (My So-Called Life on Hulu)
• you feel a little guilty that you're not quite ready for your daughter to come home yet
• your daughter returns and carries the cat around the apartment for three days
• you're thrilled that your daughter had such a wonderful time with her grandparents. And without you.
  
• you can't believe how much you missed your daughter. And how much she's grown. In just one week.