Waste management

Two of Zachary's favorite features of aunt I and uncle S's house are the ceiling fans, one located in the bedroom where he's sleeping and the other in the master bedroom. This makes him constantly want to climb upstairs, where he happily runs around between the two rooms, smiling and saying "shah-siya!" [ceiling?] as he looks up at the fans. Meh even got him to say "fuh-fuh-FAH!" [fan?] as well. This morning, Zachary woke up fairly early, so I brought him into bed with us. We all actually slept nicely for a bit longer, then he sat up, made sure I was awake, and signed 'more' and then 'please'. I quietly whispered "more what?" and, just as quietly, he whispered back "shah-siya!" This was so cute that I simply had to go turn on the fan for him, though that just made him happily say "shah-siya" again and again in a regular loud voice; we scurried downstairs for breakfast to let Meh sleep some more.

Today we all drove down to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. They've got a ton of activities there, including the 1854 USS Constellation tall ship, a not-quite-as-old submarine (which sounded its diving alarm like every 5 minutes), and plenty of outdoor strolling. Zachary was eager to be in the stroller and 'gooo'-ing, so we walked most of the harbor with him. Then we spotted their children's museum and headed inside. Zachary was very not pleased for the stroller to stop moving, but we wanted to try to get him at least a little activity, so in we ventured.

There were at least a few minutes of happiness (or at least quiet exploration) in between whining and outright crying. Poor little man had around 20 minutes of Port Discovery before we gave up and headed out. He was not a fan of the ID bracelet, though the rest of us kept ours on in case we decided to venture back later. It was not meant to be though; 10 minutes later, Zachary was totally conked out. So we all went and had lunch (at a place with a *lot* of ceiling fans - his loss!) and then roamed around some of the shopping areas, one of which had freshly filled cannoli for Meh, and another which is the only licensed shop in the country to sell Charm City Cakes merchandise (more on them in a bit). Zachary was still asleep, so we walked the whole length of the harbor, down to some extra swanky-looking condominiums. He was still asleep after that, so Meh and I stopped and relaxed on some benches (I chuckled at the concrete lounge chairs) while aunt I and uncle S got ice cream. He finally woke up as we got back to the car.

Before heading back home, we simply had to drive the 10 minutes from the harbor to stop at the home of our favorite Food Network bakery. I'd looked on their website, and it was quite clear that they don't want their TV fans stalking them - no tours, no visits without appointments, etc. So uncle S pulled over the car, Meh ran out, and I snapped a quick photo of her in front before we dashed back away. The windows were all heavily tinted and/or covered; I'm not sure if they were in the midst of shooting for the show, or in general have had to get even more private. Oh, the inconveniences of celebrity!

Lastly, on to the title of today's post. Tonight, Meh was giving little man his bath, and he suddenly started making the face that indicated he was, ah, making. In the bath. Meh quickly pulled him out and put him onto the toilet. Rather than crying, he just completed his business; hooray for Zachary's first potty training moment!

(Editor's note: We had an alternate title for this post: "Maryland is for Crap." But despite chuckling approval from the few Marylanders we tried it out on, I couldn't quite bring myself to blemish the Old Line State in a blog post title.)