Being out on the campaign trail is never easy, but it is even harder when Mrs. Denn is out of town for the day.

Saturday morning the boys and I started out at the annual Peach Festival parade in Middletown.  Between getting everyone dressed and dealing with some last-minute potty issues, we rolled in just ten minutes before the parade started (our campaign director Alyssa thinks I do this just to spike her blood pressure, but we really try our hardest).  We and our great volunteers then marched through the parade, with the boys waving and shouting “hi” from their wagon, until we were almost at the reviewing stand.  One of the boys (I will not say which in case they are reading these entries when I am old and I need them to care for me) announced that he needed to use the potty.  I told him we were almost done, and to just try to hold it in for a few minutes.  He took my suggestion literally, and by the time we made it by the reviewing stand, no one could doubt what the problem in the wagon was.  Fortunately, this was my fourth or fifth year in the parade, and we saw lots and lots of old friends and had a lot of people yell encouragement from the sidewalk.

After the parade, and a celebratory trip to Dunkin Donuts, we had to run home to let Lenny out, then we headed up to East Wilmington for Bishop Weeks’ annual community fair.  We were about to head south again to Middletown when I said to myself “did I let Lenny back in?  I think I did, but can I swear that I did?”  Images of Lenny taken hostage flooding through my head, I turned around and headed back to Newark.  Lenny, of course, was inside snoozing on the sofa—and in the meantime, both boys had also fallen asleep in the car.  So we headed back to Middletown, I rousted them from their slumbers, and an unhappy Zach responded by throwing one of his shoes out of the wagon while my back was turned.  We spent half an hour trying to find it (a special shout-out to friend Tara Quinn who saw me searching and spotted the shoe sitting on a card table).

Mrs. Denn, welcome home.