One week later . . .

One week ago, I put my child on a plane to Paris with her paternal grandmother. This was a trip that I had great apprehension about, especially after my husband and I separated.

This would be only the second time my daughter had spent more than four hours alone with her grandmother, so I didn't quite understand why my mother-in-law was so insistent that this trip take place.

My husband made arrangements not too long ago for the three of us to go and get our passports. (After getting them, I wondered if the big push was because he knew his mother wanted to take our child to Europe.) I thought it would be the beginning of some family trips.

Well, as we all know, life doesn't usually go as planned, and the only one who took a trip was my husband - - to Iraq. Once he returned, no other trips were destined to be.

I bought my daughter an iPhone before she left on her trip with her grandmother. She and I had a yard sale this summer to pay for it, and as it turned out, it was the best purchase I ever made. She was able to text every night to give me blow-by-blow accounts of her adventures. 

The experience taught us two things; 1) it is a challenge to travel with someone you know little or nothing about, and 2) you don’t really get to know someone until you have shared four walls with them.

This was not the dream vacation my daughter was hoping for, but it certainly turned out to be very illuminating.