Let me tell you: Nothing revives the spirit like spending a weekend with your family at a hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia. Elijah did quite well. He slept on a sofabed, ate room service, and watched Canadian kids' TV, which is just as annoying as American kids' TV, only with fewer commercials and slightly less violence.

One morning, Elijah and I descended into the lobby while Regina and Hercules were putting on their faces up in the room. The seat at the concierge desk was empty. Elijah sat down. Another guest found that adorable and approached him, with a British accent.

"Pardon me," he said. "But can you recommend somewhere for lunch today?"

Elijah pondered this a moment, and then said,

"I think you should eat at Ice Cream Harbor."

A collective "awwww" wafted over from the reception desk, which was populated by cute women in their 20s who hadn't yet seen the dark side of child-rearing. Later that day, we returned home from our charming family bike ride. We found a card in our room, thanking Elijah for all his hard work, and bestowing upon him the gift of two free pints of ice cream.

He ran around the room, flapping his arms and saying "YAY! ICE CREAM!" I nearly forgave him for the on-the-floor temper tantrum he'd thrown earlier in a sandwich shop because his shoes had gotten wet in the grass. But not quite.

Also on our trip, I took Elijah into the steam room for the first time.

"It's too hot in here," he said.

"There are many mysteries of the steam," I said.

"What kind of mysteries?"

"People have been going into steam rooms for thousands of years," I said. "Especially Jewish people."

"You're Jewess," he said.

"Yes."

"Mama isn't Jewess."

"No."

"I'm kind of Jewess."

"Yep."

"Grandma and Opa are Jewess."

"Boy, are they ever."

"Daddy?"

"What?"

"It smells in here."

"What does it smell like?"

"It smells like an old man died."

I wanted to tell Elijah about the steam room I used to go to in Chicago, where an old man had actually died, and I'd also once found a turd on the floor. That's the kind of information that he finds interesting and useful. But he was already headed for the exit, and colder waters.