Friday's Lessons Learned: On Monday

I seem to be having trouble getting back into the swing of my Friday bullet points, but I still like them so rather than skip them for another week, I've decided to just post them on Monday instead. It is my blog after all so it looks like I can change the rules whenever I want. It is the only place in my life where that is true, so please don't complain much.

Anyway, bullets...

• I really love summer. Now that it finally feels like summer around these parts, I have been quite happy. I like not having to worry about jackets or even sweaters. I like the beach, I like the pool, I like cook-outs and ice cream trucks. Summer is good.
• I really love fall clothes. Despite my enjoyment of the summer weather (see above) I've equally been enjoying the catalogs arriving with fall clothes and the early fall collections that have hit the stores. Unlike buying sandals in March which is just a terrible tease, I don't mind buying fall clothes early. They are probably the only good part about the weather getting cooler. OK, the leaves are nice too.
• Zoe is slowly turning back into a girl. At least a little bit. She has been wearing more of her clothes from the girls department lately. This weekend she wore French braids in her hair. The other day she asked me to help her pick out an outfit that was "cute" and this morning she asked for sneakers that weren't boy's as her current pair are. Of course the current pair are only a few weeks old, but I said yes, she could have a second pair. They are shoes, after all.
  
• I heard on the news early last week that we had just hit the mid-way point of summer. Is that really true? I guess I always think of summer ending when school starts, but really it continues until September 20. In the spirit of extending summer to its true length I've decided we're keeping our pool open until at least the last day of summer and at least once we're going to crank the heater on a day when it really is too cold to swim.
• Chief has a new habit of sleeping on my clothes or shoes. I usually put my dirty clothes on the floor by the door of my bedroom to be brought to the hamper in the morning. Now those clothes are usually covered in dog hair every morning. If I don't leave any clothes he will sleep on my shoes and worst-case scenario he goes over to Rob's side of the bed where there's always some clothes on the floor (ahem!) and sleeps on those.
• Sometimes when I buy something for Zoe that I think she will really like, she doesn't and I am disappointed so it was with trepidation that I bought her a copy of one of my favorite books from my childhood, "Little House in the Big Woods." (BTW, I bought this book on the quest you can read about here and here.) Her initial reaction was to turn her nose up a bit, but when I offered to lie in her bed and read it to her at bed time, she figured it was worth a shot. I am so happy to report that she just loves it. I've decided to read the entire book to her so we've been having lots of fun bedtimes lately. It does my heart good to see her loving this book.
• On the flip side of that, sometime last year I bought Zoe a color book called "Scribbles" which is unique because it is not just a color in the lines book. The pages have parts of drawings with directions like "Its a beautiful day today: draw a bright sunny sky," or "this is a leopard...draw its spots." Great idea, right? Zoe wouldn't touch it. Just last week we had some house guests who brought Zoe a very similar book called "The Girls Doodle Book." It is the same idea, but this time she loves it. She takes this book with her everywhere. I am happy to see her enjoying it, but do feel like telling "I told you so!"