We do have our fun. Ok, so the photos are getting a little outdated, but I try never to miss the chance to post a shot of me where I have my eyes open.

A few nights ago, my eyes were open at 1 in the morning in the emergency room at Newton Wellesley Hospital. May I say that NWH has the cleanest, nicest emergency room I have ever seen. Max had a little rash on his foot at bedtime, and when we checked it at 11 it had spread. The doc thought it might be an infection, so off we went.

Max slept through the car ride and first hour of our visit. He did wake up momentarily on the way downstairs from his bed to say, "Dada, I want to go in the yard," but then he went right back to sleep. Last week he yelled to me at 4 am, "Dad! I want to see you!" So I went in. I found him messing with his sock. "Put my sock back on," he said. I did, and he went back to sleep. But I didn't let him play in the yard.

When he became alert at around midnight, he was given a slew of Elmo stickers by the triage nurse, and we were off to the races. He covered himself with stickers, dazzled the doctor by reading his name off his bracelet, and ordered the social worker whose job it is to keep kids amused to, "Make a bracelet that says 'mom' and 'dad'." Her name was Dina, and she was fantastic. She was wrapping up a 12 hour shift, but she made us those bracelets. When she tried to sneak away, Max yelled, "Dina! Come back! I want to sing to you!" And sing he did. After that, she started introducing him as her boyfriend and snuck him some apple juice.

The doctor gave him a delicious cocktail of a penicillin substitute and benadryl, then ordered us to stay for a while in case he had an allergic reaction. When she found Max trying to jump rope twenty minutes later while yowling, "Dada! Don't take off your bracelet!" (it was itchy), she sent us home.

Who doesn't love the tape measure game? When I was younger, we used to sit around the Albertson's living room and see who could get those most tape out without letting it bend. Those were the days. I am glad Max is heading down that path, especially since he left his baby tape measure in Canada, where it is worthless. They have no idea what an inch is up there.

Max has started a new school and he loves it. In a bulletin to be filed in the "how did we ever get along without it" folder, I am pleased to report that the new school sends us daily emails - sometimes two - reporting on Max's progress. Today, for example, we learned that he had sung a song in Spanish at morning circle time and did a little dance for everyone. When asked about his new school, Max says, "They're so happy to see me!" Which seems to be true.

Quite a drought, I know. Somehow summer felt busier than the rest of the year, or maybe I just didn't feel like sitting in front of the computer any longer than I had to when it was hot out. Your wrists get sort of sweaty from leaning on the keyboard and, well, yuck. First things first: after months of trying, Max figured out how to harness the strength to jump. Very cool. He spent weeks bouncing around, 2 inches at a time, announcing, "Dad, I'm jumping!" and inviting everyone around to join the fun ("Dad, jump now. You like it!"). It is tiring to jump, and, actually, I do not like it. But Max likes it a lot.

This shot is a good representative of the entire summer, because we managed to score almost 3 weeks lounging on Cape Cod. A typical day saw us at the beach by 10 am to squeeze in a few hours of swimming before nap time. Max got himself so wiped out from jumping around in the sand that he rarely was awake when we left the parking lot and sometimes didn't make it to the car without crashing out on someone's shoulder. This fantastic napping left hours of afternoon to fill with such delights as weeding the driveway at my parents' house, figuring out what math books to buy for school, and sitting around with no particular objective. Hurray for that.

We also were able to devote time to creating messes, generally food-based messes, and cleaning them up. Here you can seeMax getting familiar with a bowl of cherries, or maybe having just finished being a vampire. The day your toddler can reliably spit out the pits of fruit is a very, very happy day for a parent. Any time one more way that the baby can die because of your incompetence is crossed off the list, you feel like you have more time to devote to stuff like opening 6 months worth of mail or wearing clean clothes.

So we all lived through the summer, and even made it to Canada, a place so vacationey for Max that he continues to refer to good things as "Canada," as in "Hey Max, do you want to go outside and play baseball?" "Yeah, and we will be in Canada!" This nice association is probably because our stay included parties, baby goats, and Bill Friedman (who Max refers to as The Big Man) and Matt Garfunkel (known as Sofie's Dada or The Little Man). More on all this later.