A few "traditional" milestones

I know I'm supposed to be writing about the non-milestone stuff here, but this is the only real record I'm keeping of this stage of our lives at the moment (Julia's baby book was only filled in up to 6 months and Evan's doesn't even have his name in it yet). So I wanted to record a couple of quick "firsts" here for posterity, since we've had a few since November began:

1. Julia's drawings have suddenly gone from unrecognizable scribbles to real pictures. She's now drawing actual people, complete with eyes, noses, mouths, hair, ears, arms, hands, legs and feet. Of course, the arms and legs come out of the heads, but it's a start -- and so much more fun to hang of the fridge than those blobby masterpieces!

2. Evan's got an official first word -- Mama. Not just a steady stream of ma-ma-ma-ma-ma babble (though we get plenty of that, too), but a real, recognizable two-syllable "Mama" used appropriately to convey a single meaning (me!). I'm a little giddy about the fact that I get first billing this time around. Of course, the shine of my glory is tarnished by the situations in which he uses his new-found verbal power (namely, to summon me at 2 a.m., protest when I leave the room or torment a babysitter in my absence), but isn't that the way motherhood always works?

3. I'm kind of afraid to say this one out loud for fear of jinxing things, but we've finally turned the corner on the potty thing. Julia's been in big girl panties for 9 days now and hasn't had a single accident. The first two days were rough -- I had to wait until the point of no return and then literally hold and hug her on the potty until she went, but we had a kind of a breakthrough after we'd done that a few times and she realized nothing bad would happen. For the past week, I've had an enthusiastic participant in the process -- telling me when she needs to go, trying to go when I ask her to and staying dry throughout. I'm even sending her to school and taking her out around town in panties without fear! We're still a ways from done -- she still gets a diaper for naps and bedtime and she's still requesting a diaper for poops (we put on the diaper, she sits on the potty and goes and then the diaper comes right off), but we're making great progress. I'll take it. :)

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program of minutiae and musing...