Ba Ba

Ba ba is the Chinese (Mandarin) word for "daddy". It's also the word for "poo poo". Ok, technically they are different words because they're spoken with different tones, but to tone-deaf westerners, they sure sound a lot like the same word. I guess that means I should think twice about trying to teach Elizabeth to say "ba ba" because she might think I'm issuing a command for her to do something.

Surprisingly, she's fairly well potty trained already at 11 months old. All you need to do is sit her on the baby potty and whistle, and she knows it's time to pee. If you add a carefully-toned "ba ba", she knows it's time for #2.

Her first night with us went quite well. It did take about 30 minutes of crying before she fell asleep, but we were pleasantly surprised that she slept all the way through the night; we'd been warned that she likes a midnight snack.