Progress, progress, progress. Potty training is going very well, although I just don’t get it. Ella’s solution to not wanting to go at school has been: NOT TO PEE AT SCHOOL. The result is that she holds it in (or somehow absorbs it into her body) the whole time she is at school. She was dry all week and they keep reporting to me that she won’t use the toilet. (She still does it when I take her when I come by the school, usually once a week). Otherwise, Ella is going through a clingy phase I think where she doesn’t like to be away from Etan and I. I guess it had to come sometime. Beth reported that yesterday when she woke up from her nap she lead Beth into my office and when she saw I wasn’t there, she started crying. Also, we had a babysitter on Sunday. After Etan and I left, Ella was cranky and stopped eating. She was eating fine before we walked out the door. I hope she’ll continue eating at school. She didn’t eat her snack or lunch yesterday at school. You never know what Ella has up her sleeve. She had a playdate over the weekend with her summer “boyfriend” Tommy. Etan thought she really enjoyed the playdate even though she and Tommy were playing parallel more than together. Ella wanted to hold his hand and swing it. She also likes pulling shirts and hair which didn’t seem to bother Tommy like it bothers Netta. I guess that makes him a more suitable playmate. Tommy, who has downs syndrome, seemed very interested in playing ball with Ella but everytime Ella got the ball from him she threw it off to the side. On Sunday Ella went to a birthday party of a girl in her class. They had one of those big blow up trampoline type rides in the backyard. Ella was scared of it at first but then when her classmates started calling out “E-L-L-A” and she recognized them, and I went in with her to bounce she eventually warmed up to the idea and even enjoyed it. She gets anxious when she losses her balance so it was a delicate situation. The party, for Ella, was a bust. Ella just doesn’t do well with alot of commotion around. She was cranky and only wanted to turn magazine pages.