With a kid whose name derives from the same source as the name of the month, I've grown to like this new month. Paired with the last day of June, the first day of July was one of breakthrough. The biggest deal, of course, what that - after much (literal) crying, gnashing of teeth, and tearing of hair - Julia finally used the potty chair for both intended purposes. I won't go into the details that will embarrass her in three, thirteen, or twenty-three years, but suffice to say that as proud as were her parents , she was still more. (Okay, one detail: on finally going, she exclaimed, "My, that was a strange sound I made!" Indeed. Honey, you've identified the secret of entertaining 75% of the men you'll ever meet, and a good percentage of the women.)
Nothing can really compare to that scatological high point, but I took advantage of the girls' early bedtimes to run my favorite long route in the Arb. It was my seventh workout in eight days, and I could feel it in my dead, dead, dead legs. But there were distractions aplenty: beautiful weather, the full florescence of the prairie, cool glades in the woods, a three-member raccoon family, and, most amazingly, a nearly nose-to-nose encounter with a deer. We weren't more than six feet apart when we surprised one another. I'm sure I haven't been closer to a (live) deer since an elementary-school field trip to Jim Peck's wildlife park.