This one's for you, Brian.

Oh man...busted. I haven't written in a few months. And here I thought I was getting away with it because my parents and the few friends who take a look from time to time are too polite to say anything. The sad truth is that disappointing one's parents is generally not enough to spur most of us into action. And those who see you day to day aren't too concerned about your latest blog post, because chances are they were there. But when someone decides to dedicate a chunk of his valuable time to spend on checking out my life, it's fairly embarrassing to admit that this blog thing is one of the many, many, many things that get neglected in the great toddler race.

This guy Brian is the husband of my friend June. June and I used to work together, and have kept in touch on and off over the years. They have a pretty spectacular little girl named Zoey who is a week older than E, and together they make a pretty awesome team. Brian has his own blog. For the past few months I've made it a habit to visit it almost daily. It's just a nice place to be. It's mostly about Zoey, which makes sense.

Although I've known for some time that June and I have a lot in common, it turns out that Brian and I have quite a bit in common as well. Most notably our delightfully rambling love affair with words. Also, a rather strong attachment to our daughters and a sense of awestruck gratitude toward the tolerant natures of our spouses.

So just for you Brian, I've made a point to give you something to read tomorrow that hasn't passed its expiration date.

My daughter is so friggin' adorable these days I can hardly stand it. When I'm out in public, I'm constantly looking around to make sure that onlookers are catching her adorableness. When we're alone I find myself looking around and saying to myself "Seriously. Am I the only one that gets to enjoy this right now?" She pretty much spends her day listing everything she sees, with a few descriptive adjectives like awesome, cool, crazy or nice. She even knows a few French words, and I couldn't be more proud. She's just now starting to put a couple of words together, like "Help you" when she's asking for help or "I'm sitting" when she doesn't think that we realize that she is, in fact, sitting. So darn smart. She also has a mean Downward Dog, thanks to Toddler & Me yoga, and would spend all day in the water if she could.

The very best thing about E right now is that she has started to poop on the toilet. Wheeee!!!! I can see my days of scraping poo off of cloth diapers and dragging said smelly diapers to the laundromat twice a week coming to an end! Not an imminent end, mind you, but at least we're in the ball park. It all started about a month or so ago when she started saying "poop" about a million times a day. Then she started giving me her bath toys and telling me they needed to poop. So I started holding them over the toilet and making "poop noises" and telling her they were pooping. What we do for our kids. Since then I've made a point every time she says poop to ask her if she needs to go, then ask her if she wants to sit on the toilet. One day it was "Yeah" to both, and she just went for it. I made a huge deal, cheering and clapping and saying bye to the poop as it flushed away. She just looked at me like you would expect her to look at you if you did the same thing when she was fifteen. Priceless. But it was a start. And her enthusiasm has grown. Now she sits on the toilet and grunts and makes faces and when the inevitable toot slips out she gives us the classic "Gasp! What was that?!" look of delighted surprise. It's going well. And it's just the beginning of what will be a long road littered with poop stories. Stay tuned.