Potty update

Potty training is still going well. At first I was letting Julia run around at home half naked, which made getting to the potty easier. She seemed to have much more self-awareness while naked too. But children must wear clothes sometimes, so I started putting her in pants and underwear at home. There were a few accidents for a few days, but that soon ended and she hasn't had an accident in over a week. This has given me confidence to venture out in public. We've made 5 or so trips out and about and had no accidents so far. She's declined to use a public bathroom though. She'll let me sit her on the big potty, but no results so far. Still, her capacity for holding it seems to present no problems, and so we go potty when we get home. I've even backed off asking her every 20 minutes if she has to go potty since she seems fine with announcing "tee-tee" when she needs to go. I am mourning the change in profile. No more huge baby bubble butt from her cloth diapers. During the day, anyway. Still in diapers at night. This does mean that she can fit into jeans and other non-stretchy pants though! This has significantly changed the fit of Julia's pants wardrobe. She can now fit into the 24 month and 2T pants that were not going to get over the diaper. It seems most clothes now days are cut to fit the disposably-diapered baby.
And time for a little product promotion, Julia was caught coloring on the walls with pencil awhile ago, and try as I might to scrub it with cleanser and a rag, the graphite wasn't budging. Despairing that I'd have to re-paint the entire house before I left, I remembered the "Magic Eraser" sitting in the laundry room. I'd bought a pack because my sister Anna had asked me to send her one in China, and one was still in the box. Rather skeptically, I wet the sponge and scrubbed and rather like "magic" the graphite was gone!!!! I  applied the sponge to the dirt marks around the doorknob as well and I am forever sold on the wonders of the Magic Eraser. I did a little research and learned that one can buy melamine foam (which is the stuff of Magic Eraser and it's competitors) in quantities of 30 for $10 and 60 for $15 on Amazon so you need not pay $3 each for the thing at the grocery store.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/magic-eraser.htm is a good technical explanation of the wonders of melamine foam.
In case you have not tried it, I suggest you get yourself one!