Panda cub Bao Bao celebrated her first birthday and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. threw a party Saturday in her honor, reports Seattlepi.com.

Bao Bao, whose name means “precious” or “treasure,” is only the second panda born at the zoo to live to its first birthday. The zoo marked the event with a traditional Chinese ‘Zhuazhou’ ceremony symbolizing long life. The panda cub was given pears, apples and a frozen fruit juice cake in celebration.

The cub has one sibling, brother Tai Shan. He was born in 2005 at the zoo and returned to China in 2010. Bao Bao has been a bit more standoffish from the keepers than her brother had been, said keeper Nicole MacCorkle.

As a newborn, Bao Bao was a wriggling pink baby, a little bigger than a stick of butter. She has grown to a 44-pound black-and-white bundle whose favorite activity is sleeping in a hemlock tree in the front of her yard. The cub also likes to wrestle with a blue cylinder-shaped buoy filled with sand, said MacCorkle.

Bao Bao recently tasted honey and has started eating solid foods, including sweet potatoes and bamboo. She has learned how to get on a scale and stand up when asked, which helps the cub keepers monitor her health. She is exploring her yard more, and is “getting really good,” at responding when her name is called, said MacCorkle.

“She’s really becoming an independent bear,” said MacCorkle.

More changes will occur during the next year. Bao Bao will stop drinking her mother’s milk and, between a year and a half and two years old, she will start living independently in her own enclosure, like wild pandas of the same age. Keepers will also teach her to present her paw for a blood draw, and lie down for an ultrasound.

The National Zoo is one of only four zoos in the U.S. to have pandas. The mother and father of Bao Bao, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, on loan from China, arrived in 2000.