47 Weeks

So, you know about the walking. Let me tell you about the talking. My little miss is quite the chatterbox.

When she’s playing, she’s almost always making some kind of noise, chattering away to herself. She has “reading noises,” a certain set of sounds that come out whenever she’s looking at a book. She has generalized chatter while she’s playing, d’s and b’s and a’s and little squeals Long ago she learned how to wiggle her fist or her fingers against her mouth while yelling and make funny noises. She does that a lot. She’s a really LOUD kid. Nobody ever loses us in a store because you can always hear her four aisles away. Which is not bad, but I can always count on having the loudest kid at any given function and sometimes I really need a quiet kid.

She’s had some words for a while, and even if they were of dubious clarity we always counted them because she used them in context. Mama, Dada, bath, cat, and so on. Recently those words have gotten clearer and she uses them more. “Mama! Mamamamaaa!” she howls every single night while I’m trying to make dinner and she is wrapping herself around my legs because she wants my attention. “DADA!” she cries when Ryan walks through the door, and crawls up to him as fast as she can. “Cats!” she squeals when it’s kitty feeding time and the area around their food bowls is one solid mass of yowling fur.

But by far the cutest word she has right now is “thanks.” It comes out like “ats,” but it is “thanks.” She says it all the time. She’s very into handing you things, so she says it when she gives you something: “Ats.”
And when she takes it back: “Ats.”
And when she gives it to you again: “Ats.”
And takes it back again: “Ats.”
When she offers me some of her graham cracker: “Ats.”
When I decline but she shoves it in my mouth anyway: “Ats.”
When she reaches into my mouth and takes it back: “Ats.”
And when she offers it to the cat, who eats it out of her hand: “Ats.”
So I give her another one: “Ats.”

There’s also “uh-oh.” She used it a lot more about a month ago. Eveything was “uh-oh.”
After she hurled a toy out of the shopping cart: “Uh-oh!”
And watched me pick it up twenty times: “Uh-oh!”
I gave it to her and she threw it out again twenty-one times: “Uh-oh!”
So I chucked it into the basket instead of giving it back this time: “Uh-oh!”
When one of the cats came up and grabbed food out of her hand: “Uh-oh!”
Or when she gave it to them: “Uh-oh!”
Sitting in the high chair, dropping crackers over the side one by one: “Uh-oh!”
And watching the cats eat each one: “Uh-oh!”

She wakes me up most mornings by poking me in the eyes. “Eiss? Eiss?” she asks. “Am-am-mamaa…iss?” And I can never be mad. “Yes, those are Mama’s eyes,” I say. “Mama’s very tired eyes.” Then we get up and I teach her how to use the coffee pot.

On Wednesday of this week, she walked all by herself, for real. I set her down in front of me and she just charged off. She went about six steps alone, before she realized nobody was holding her up. Then she sat down in front of the toy box. But – it was real walking. No hesitation, no stumbling, just WALKING…holy shit!!