We bought a little potty for Evie figuring that we wouldn’t really try to train her yet or anything, just maybe set her on it so she gets used to it.  I’ve obviously never potty trained anything before, but I assumed you just had to wait until they went by luck and then praise the heck out of them.  Do that enough times and they eventually figure out it is a good thing.

Just to warn you, it may get a little graphic from here on in…you might want to skip a bit, brother.

We started setting her on in the morning and evening.  Probably about the 6th time we set her on there, she went.  Poop even!  Sara actually woke me up to tell me this.  About two times after that she peed in it a little bit.  So it was quite an amazing, but we knew we needed to temper our expectations.  I said to Sara, “Now it will probably be 40 more times before she goes in it again.”  Then, this morning she went yet again!  And this was like no small amount.  So I don’t want to get my hopes up too much, but this is going waaay better than I expected!

Okay, welcome back anybody who skipped.

I think officially we have to count “Nala” as her first word.  I think she kind of understands “da da” sometimes, like she will say it right away to me when I come home from work.  But she says it other times too when she doesn’t mean it.  Nala consistently means she sees Nala or hears her coming down the hall or something.  Sometimes it is more of a “a-la” or “la-la” but there is no doubt she connects the word and the object.  In fact, Sara was going through an animal book with her and making the animal sounds and when Sara would say, “Meow” Evie would say “Nala!”  It looks like her second word will be “uh-oh!”  She has been saying that a lot lately and it is only a matter of time before she gets the connection.

She is also improving in understanding things as well.  When asked, she can consistently point to Nala, the light, the door, her books, her mouth and Elmo.  She crawls like a fiend and is rarely satisfied to stay in safe (boring) areas of the house.  She stands next to things and “cruises” by walking along them holding on.  She has even stood still for a couple of seconds by herself when Sara has taken her hands away.

So basically she is learning skills at an exponential rate!

For some reason in the past week or so, Evie has learned an amazing number of new things that we can use to entertain guests.  Some of the things she will do fairly consistently (and I’ve talked about here before) and some are only 50/50.

Fairly Reliable

• How big is Evie? Soooo big! [arms raised]
• Can you clap your hands? [although she confuses this with “more” sometimes]
• Say bye bye [wave]
• No [violent head shaking]
• Can you give daddy five? [about 5 or 6 hand slaps]
• Can you give mommy a hug? [sometimes a nice hug, sometimes more of a head butt, but super adorable]
• Do you want more puffs? [sign language for “more”]

Somewhat Reliable

• Can you point to the light?
• Where is Nala?
• Where is da da?
• Where is ma ma?

She is much better at locating the light (the first one she learned) and Nala than mommy or daddy.  Also she points with two fingers, like an outstretched peace sign, rather than with one.  It’s just amazing that she’s essentially learned all of that in a week or two!