First Words

This is the most exciting time in a mom's life.  Well. So far.  For me. My daughter will be 17 months old this Friday.  What's so exciting at 17 months? WORDS. Communication. Talking!!!

There is absolutely nothing like hearing real actual words come out of your baby's mouth.  It is the cutest and most miraculous sound in the world. It starts gradually and it's hard to put your finger on the exact moment it starts.  For Valerie, it started with animal sounds. Specifically, moo. The first thing she ever said that meant something was while looking at pictures of cows, toy cows and her stuffed cow.  It was a really energetic shout when you asked her what a cow says: "Boooooooo!"

I'm not counting moo as her first word though since I'm not sure it's technically a word. Looking back, I am going to say that Valerie's first real word was bye-bye, although I wasn't there the first time she said it.  We heard from her teachers at school one day that she had said bye-bye to one of them. It wasn't long before we heard it for ourselves! After over a year of babbling and nonsense syllables... to get a real word response was so amazing. Even just to have a word parroted back to you for the first time! Amazing.

I started writing down the words she knew as I figured them out to get an idea of how many there were. There were maybe 10 animal sounds, 10 real words and 5-10 signs when I first started keeping track. She likes signing a lot.  She uses the signs for baby, mama, daddy, dog, eat, more, ball, milk, please and flower all the time. She can say baby, mama, daddy, and ball as well, but she doesn't say eat, more, milk, please or flower yet.  Kind of interesting. I'm not exactly sure why some of the words and signs go together so easily and others she only signs.

It's absolutely fascinating to watch her learn at this age. Every day is some new discovery, for her and for us as her parents. It's a means for her personality to emerge, bit by bit, like seeing the light come on inside. When she wakes up in the morning, sometimes she will recite some of her words.  "Mama, daddy, huff-huff (dog), all done!"

She LOVES babies and dogs. We do not have either in our house (besides her) but she goes bananas whenever she sees one. Dogs she prefers in theory or at a distance. When they come very close sometimes they are a little scary, although she warms up over time. Babies are another story. She loves to grab and kiss babies repeatedly if given the opportunity. She likes kids her age and older, too, but her favorites are the littlest babies.  She vigorously makes the sign for baby, rocking her arms back and forth, and has gotten pretty good at saying "beebee." It started out as "ba" at first, then baba, and now beebee.

One of her funniest quirks is cat.  According to Valerie, instead of meow, cats say "aieee!" We keep teaching meow and at some point she will learn to say meow but I hope it doesn't happen too soon. It cracks me up when she chases my mom's cat saying "aieeee!"

Apple was a fun one the first time she said it. I was feeding her applesauce at dinner and said, "Ap-ple," very deliberately. And she said it back! "Ap-ple."  It was the first time I ever heard her repeat back a word to me so purposefully. I teared up I was so surprised and excited.

She finally, FINALLY learned my favorite word in the past few weeks.  The most beautiful word there is to come out of your baby's mouth: "Mama." Now it's one of her favorites.  When she comes home from school she says mama, mama, mama, mama until she finds me. Then she quickly moves on to gagoo (cracker), gagoo, gagoo, gagoo..... as in, get me a snack mama. Mama is still pretty much chopped liver.  But I will take it! It felt like so long I waited for her to say that one. I still fill up with sunshine every time she says it.

This morning when I was getting her ready for school she was being so sweet, her usual sunny morning self. She was laying on her changing pad and I sang her a good morning song and kicked her legs around to the beat.  She loved it.  She gave me a huge smile and a reverent, "Mommm-myyyy."
 I could not stop smiling all day, thinking of that sweet smile and that "mommmmyyy."  She ADORED her mama in that moment. I could have cried.

These are the days, friends. These are the days of our lives. These are the moments to remember.