Dada?

One year and two weeks...wow!

Bailey is growing every day (and learning new words every day...guess Tammie and I have to start watching what we say) and she is a joy to watch. Every new morning brings a little more personality with it (and these days a "special" prize. We try to make it to daycare before that one drops) and new things for Tammie and I to experience with Bailey. But this past Friday she wound her daddy around her finger a little tighter.

Bailey has been saying "mama" and "dada" for a few months now. For a while there, each one was her favorite word, and depending on the day we heard "mama/dada" ALL day long (don't get me wrong. Tammie and I love to listen to her talk. But we are trying to nurture a linguistically superior mind here...let's try some variety in our word selection). Lately when I'm around her, everything is dada. The flowers on the wall, the pictures on the refrigerator, ...the dogs. As we all expect, she was just pointing (her new favorite activity) and saying her favorite word at the time (dada...it's so cute).

However, when I picked Bailey up from daycare on Friday, she turned and saw me coming in the door. She then laughed as loud as possible, waved her arms in the air, then pointed at me and pronouned "dada." 

I was surprised to say the least.

And what made it even better, was she waved at me, crawled over to me and put her hands up to be picked up (is it being prissy if a man cries at being called dada?). Well, I didn't cry, but I can tell you that she made my week! This was the first time that Bailey has ever shown that she associates the word with the object (or person in this case. Because people aren't objects. Especially women. They should be loved and treated with the utmost respect. Women fought hard for equality, and I for one will not objectify women...except for some of the actresses on TV and in movies. But hey, they're ASKING for it!). Now I can delude myself into believing that all those times she pointed at objects and said "dada," she was really saying, "Dada, what's that?" or "Dada, look at that!" (I'm a first time parent. I'm allowed to make these kinds of assumptions...right?).

Needless to say, I have shared this experience with ANYONE who will listen. And now you know too...

(There needs to be a little clarification. When I say that Tammie and I need to "watch what we say," in no way am I implying that we are being foul-mouthed sailors in front of our child. As a matter of fact, we are already trying to be careful with our choices of words when the little squidget is in earshot. She mimics things so quickly that she can really surprise us with what she says. 

So far we are up to the following:

dada, mama, mmmm...., uh-oh (current favorite), titty (Grandma Burke SWEARS it's "pretty," but I'm not so sure), hi, whoa, wow, ta-oo (thank you, I think), uh-uh (another favorite, unfortunately), and various assorted swear words that I have "no" idea where she picked them up (had to be daycare...had to be).

More to come, I'm sure.)