Julia stopped wearing diapers to bed overnight and and nap time last Friday evening. This was something of a Big Step, especially given that her daytime track record—especially for BMs—has been less than perfect. Thus far, however, she’s done really well: she’s only had one nighttime accident, on Sunday night, and even then, she came sheepishly into our bedroom the next morning to tell us what had happened.

My biggest concern was that she wouldn’t be able to get the door to her bedroom open if she decided she needed to use the potty—the door to the kids’ bedroom sticks, and she’s never been very good with doorknobs under the best of circumstances, but she hasn’t had any problems yet.

On the Joseph front, he apparently decided he no longer needs his bedtime bottle last night. I was in charge of putting him down on Sunday, and he wasn’t being particularly cooperative, chewing on the nipple and playing with it in his mouth. Last night, he flat-out refused it when Julie offered it to him, and I didn’t even try tonight, yet he still went to bed without a hitch both times. I have no idea what we’re going to do with all the kitchen cabinet space we’re about to reclaim.

A few months ago, Julia made one of her sadly infrequent visits to story time at the library. She picked a good day to go, however, because the nice story time lady brought favors for the children: small tomato plants and corn seeds, which the kids planted in paper cups.

Being parents in possession of large, open spaces in our yard that desperately needed filling, we waited for the corn to sprout and then dutifully transplanted the seedlings into a flower box behind our bedroom. Then, learning that we couldn’t expect the corn to actually produce corn without other plants to facilitate proper pollination, we bought several more stalks and planted them, too.

The rest is history. Or, as Julia says, “My corn is getting bigger and bigger and bigger!”

Well, we’re still way behind in going through pictures—we’ve taken something like 800 between last Thanksgiving and today—but here’s a short video that illustrates what it’s like to be Joseph Richard Wong in a harsh and unforgiving world.

The video is titled The Brief Adventures of Baby Joe, but rest assured that Julia makes her presence felt as well. She is a force to be reckoned with, even when she’s just a disembodied voice offscreen.

It’s a pretty big download, but we think most everyone reading this nowadays has DSL or some other kind of broadband connection. As usual, you’ll need QuickTime 7 to play the clip.