This weekend, we did something we hadn't done as a family since our oldest child was born--visit friends and stay in their home. We packed up our minivan and headed to Arkansas, or as I've dubbed it, New Jersey of the South. I just lost half of my readers. Whatever, just don't be all, "YOU live in MISSISSIPPI! THAT'S the New Jersey of the South!" Because Mississippi is really just the Mississippi of the South. You know?

We stayed with Elle, who is one of my best friends in the universe. That kind of makes it sound like I have extra-terrestrial friends. Actually, I sort of do. I met them one night during that crazy season when I was taking Ambien to help me sleep, when my husband was in Iraq and I had just lost a baby. They came to a cocktail party at my home, where everyone was standing upside-down on my ceiling.

Right now, my mother is dialing my number to ask me if I could please hold my cards a little closer to my chest. Joe is searching our cabinets to see if there are any prescription meds he should be flushing down the toilet. Nothing to worry about, folks. I'm getting all the help I need these days from calcium and magnesium supplements.

Anyway, we went to go see Elle, whose husband, Ted, is deployed right now. Elle is nothing if not practical and straightforward. Ted has told me that at any point if I don't want to be her friend anymore, I should just triple talaq her and make a clean break. He's been gone for five months, and we've made numerous plans to get together, but every time, I have canceled at the last second due to a feverish baby or a throwing-up husband. Elle was starting to question my honesty and wondering if I was trying to break up with her, but couldn't bring myself to say, "I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee." Fortunately, nobody got sick this time and we made it up to her house, Elle's security in our friendship in tact.

The thing about being in such close quarters with your peers is that your kids spend most of the time embarrassing the cooties out of you. For example, Luke initiated a game wherein he and Elle's oldest son, Max, sang the theme song to "Bob the Builder" THE ENTIRE WEEKEND. But instead of the word "builder", they came up with alternative words. Racy words!

"Bob the DIAPER, yes we can!" "Bob the STINKPOT, yes we can!" The second I heard the first round, I knew it was the brainchild of my offspring. This isn't the first time he's Mad Libbed a song with potty talk. There was intense giggling and subsequent hiccupping that went along with this game.

There was the time Luke kicked his shorts off to go to the bathroom, and they flew high into the air and landed in the toilet. There were the kazillion times George threw his sippy cup on the floor with all his might, leaving tiny droplets of milk all over the rugs Elle bought when she lived in Turkey, and on her walls and cabinets.

Having planned this last-minute trip for a holiday weekend, we were unable to get a kennel reservation for our dog. Even she tried to do me in. She chewed up one of Elle's younger son's dirty diapers. And then, as the neighbors were attempting to set Elle's bushes on fire setting off fireworks, Dolley became frightened and piddled on the kitchen floor.

Monday morning, as I walked in on Luke pulling scabs off of his arm and artfully arranging them very close to the spot where Dolley defiled the floor, I was a bit relieved that we had arrived at the end of our visit. Don't get me wrong--we had a wonderful time in Arkansas attending the famous Wagnon Fourth of July Party, sitting and gabbing for hours with Elle and another dear friend, Brooke, and holding my friend Shannon's eleven-day-old baby. But it's true what Benjamin Franklin said, that fish and visitors smell after three days. If there's anybody who I'm not afraid to show my family's true colors to, it's Elle. But I'm afraid my family was stinking to high heaven.

I'm sure we'll plan some more trips to a city near you sometime. Don't screen your phone calls yet--we'll travel again as soon as we're empty nesters.