Today is Baby's first day of daycare. She's been there about an hour now, and there hasn't been any phone calls, so she must be doing okay. It was so sad to wave goodbye and leave here there. But she seemed okay when I explained that I was leaving. She quietly said, "Okay," and kissed me. I definitely shed a few tears as I pulled out of the parking lot. This is the first time she has not been in the company of a relative. Hopefully she will make it until 3 when I pick her up. Sigh.

Potty training has been an interesting experience. I'm not sure whether to think it has been easy or challenging.

Baby has figured out the peeing part. She is able to pee almost on command now. The first few times (this is only the third day of trying), she would cry when she started to pee; I think she was afraid she would get in trouble for peeing. (She got in trouble the other day because she peed on the couch.) She doesn't cry anymore, which is great. She actually congratulates herself for a job well done. She hasn't had a pee accident since Monday.

The pooping part is proving a bit more difficult. She has not successfully pooped in the toilet yet. She has, however, managed to poop in her underwear several times, each time prompting her to cry hysterically. She frantically asks me to clean the poop and change her pants. Of course, upon getting a whiff of her own poop, she gags violently, which makes her cry even more. She doesn't poop at a regular time--in fact, it's been very irregular in the past week. (It may have something to do with all the major changes in her life.) She had some prunes yesterday and today, so, fingers crossed, she'll poop more regularly. I need to get her on a schedule.

All in all, it hasn't been as trying an experience I thought it would be, but there's no way I could have done this during the school year. Being able to drop everything and just sit in the bathroom for twenty minutes is the only way I could have done this. Whew. Hopefully she'll be completely potty trained by the end of the month.

We have started to do some serious potty training, with moderate success. Yesterday, Baby successfully peed twice, but managed to pee more often in the training pants. This morning, she peed on the floor after spending thirty minutes on the toilet doing... nothing. She also gave us two enormous poops--they required a few minutes of washing in the tub--but no success on the potty today. With summer fast approaching--and the end of the school year too--I'll be able to put more time and effort into potty training, assuming we have not accomplished it by then. Sigh. I keep hoping we'll get it soon, so having to buy another box of diapers is depressing. That's one thing I definitely will not miss about Baby growing up.

More pictures have been uploaded.

Baby has been showing off her jumping skills on the couch and the bed.



She has also learned not to take responsibility for farts.

We're working on the potty training right now, although we've yet to experience success. This morning, Baby--or rather I--gave up after 30 minutes. I put Baby in a pair of underwear and pants. When I told her she had to tell me when she needed to pee, she started to cry, which made her pee. She cried even more when she thought she would get in trouble for wetting herself. :) I hoped she would figure this out quickly much like she does everything else, but no luck there.

Yesterday we spent some time outside and got a few good pictures:

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And from this past week:

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Just posting some pictures to update since the birthday.

We went to a cousin's 1st birthday party. She is almost exactly one year younger than Baby. Baby looked very cute in her dress and shrug.

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Baby and I were invited to be in the Heritage Show at school; we participated in the fashion show, and we were quite the stars! We got a loud ovation as we walked across the stage.

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And today we went to the park for an hour. Baby got over her initial fears of the slides and had a great time!

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And she loves Doritos, by the way. Makes a complete mess of her face with the orange cheese!