Hot, Hot, Hot

Burke Lake View. We spent a nice Sunday AM there.

Zach - Of Note

• Lollipops at Trader Joe's have been discovered.
• Zach really likes Stephen Kellogg’s Gift Horse album, in particular, My Favorite Place. He sang “days and days and days and days…” with me. 
• Loves swimming underwater, tried out his goggles, finished swimming lessons, and spent a lot of time in the water at Lewes and in Michigan!
• Zach loved swimming generally and the blue floating mat in particular in Lewes.

• Early morning excursions in Lewes to Nectar and to the park and in Michigan to Charlevoix and Boyne City
  
• Scooting and rollerblading together in Lewes and Michigan.
• On the drive to Michigan, Zach played with my hair while we played his Monster Truck game on the Fire.
• Zach loved the keyboard at the house in Michigan!
  
     
• A bit of a fever after he got back from Michigan. I blame Celestine. She was super-snotty. 
• This month Zach has read with me and asked me to go for walks with him. I told him that I loved walking him to daycare. 
• We bought a pumpkin for fall decoration. He wanted to bring it inside. He named it "Athena."
• New show is Leo, the Wildlife Ranger.
• Zach is loving his Bourbon Street Band is Back book (thanks Auntie Em), and it has instruments in it, so this week we watched videos of people playing trumpets and saxophones.

  

  Zach at Soccer Shots

Zach - Potty Training

• Still great; Julie put him in a diaper in Michigan because she didn't know he doesn't wear them anymore.
• He's having more accidents with us, but nowhere else. He gets so much prompting at daycare, and with us, he isn't always telling us when he needs to go now.... Not sure what that's about, but frustrating. One night he laughed when he told us that he peed on himself and the couch. Not cool. His program privileges ended, and he had a timeout. 
• I can see where if we were trying to potty train at 2 years 8-10 months, he would have been a lot less cooperative!

Zach's Words

• Mommy and Daddy's (and Nancy's) age inappropriate words of the day: "damage," "windpipe," "belligerent," "succulent," as in he has "succulent toes," "inordinate," “appearance," "resilient"
• Zach’s funny mispronunciation of hiccupping, hicking-up.
• "Sure, I can do that."
• At one point in Michigan, we sang the All About Firetrucks song, “...all you need is a hero...standing brave and tall all over this land. When darkness falls, all you need is a hero, an angel of mercy, a helping hand.” Zach belts it out! So cute!
• He says things like “this is cool,” and “so exciting.” 
• Zach is saying: “the potty and pacis don’t mix." (He dropped one of his pacis in the toilet a while back.)
• “Knives are sharp.” 
• “Did you see my trick,” even if it’s not a trick per se.
• Zach will pretend to be barely hanging on and say, “I can’t hold on much longer,” like in Fireman Sam
• I hate using the term threenager, but it seems to fit.
• He now say's that he's "frustrated," and things are "so annoying."
• “I’m ready to listen now” 
• Zach says, “okay, okay, okay,” in a really exasperated way when we tell him something too many times.Angie told us that she has the best conversations with him. They chat when he’s settling down for his nap, and he’s like a “little adult.”
• It's awesome when he says, “I love you so much, Mommy.” 

Susan & Frank

• Super fun date night to Crooked Run, tacos, and a walk around Lake Anne.

• So much fun in Michigan! Date night coming up next weekend. 

Good Food

Zach loves my
zucchini hash

• Sam's awesome strawberry daiquiris in Lewes
• Dinner with Auntie Em at Passion Fish
• Summer salsa of cherry tomatoes and that tasty basil olive salt. The lefotver juice made a tomato juice that Mom would like, I think.  
• Frank is trying to change his diet to help with his uppper endoscopy issues, and that's an interesting challenge to cooking.... 
• Mushroom, fennel, green bean salad with balsamic dressing, walnuts, and blue cheese

Visits with

• Grandad; he came right before and right after all our adventures!
• The Uberbuddes and more Zach and Zahra! Thanks, Kate, and it was great fun to hang with Sam, Julia, and Kathleen. See all Lewes photos and videos here. 
• Auntie Em. We see her most weeks at the farmer's market.
• Gamma and Bob in Michigan. On our date night in MI, Zach kept asking where Mommy and Daddy were and Mom eventually told him we were riding unicorns, and he said, “Oh, okay.”
• Thanks to Sara Gay, Nancy, and Edguardo for being awesome hosts as ususal.
• Auntie Em. A sad week for her as our kitty, Bess, is not doing well. 

Fun Stuff & Not So Fun Stuff (Personal & Professional)

• Emmy is so proud of Zach and us. She shared that she uses us as an example with other parents. She says, “Zach is just two and he….” She told me she tells other parents, “I didn’t think they’d just get rid of diapers, but they did!”
• Lunch at Dogfish in Lewes
• Kinda funny: Zach lost his balance and fell off the blue mat in the bay in Lewes. I dove under to "rescue" him. (He'd already grabbed on to the mat and saved himself. :).) I lost my contacts and then I got water in my ear again that did not go away. So, on the trip, I experienced not being able to see...not being able to hear....
  
• A new season of Heartland released on Netflix!
• Good books: First Impressions, Flat Broke with Two Goats, Once in a Blue Moon Lodge
• Promotion and raise for Frank!
• Terrific advice from Jenn
• A great talk with Patti about The Field Ops Teams' Communications Skills Training
• Salary study got me all preoccupied, but I was well-equipped to deal with it with help from Frank, Nancy, Katie, Candice, and Jeanne
• It has been a challenging few weeks with two of my favorite volunteers experiencing really difficult and heartbreaking personal situations. I have thought a lot about them. To paraphrase Marilyn, she said, "Spend time with family and do the things important to you because you don't know how much time you have."
• Boomer Works meeting