Lilah Speaks!
My daughter is a morning person, like her daddy. She awakes pretty consistently at the butt crack of dawn (that is to say 6:00 AM) every freaking day. While she's well-rested and rarin' to go, I'd much prefer to still be sleeping. But I can't, because I'm a mommy. So every morning when I hear her cooing through the monitor, I stumble out of bed and shuffle about to prepare for her morning feeding.
Fortunately, my daughter is not a screamer. She doesn't awake wailing and crying because OMG SHE WANTS OUT OF BED NOW NOW NOW. No. Thankfully, she's a gradual waker. She rolls around and "talks" to herself. She plays with her lovies, a plush monkey her daddy bought her the day of her birth named Monkers and a My First Dolly. She'll do this pretty contentedly for a good twenty minutes if I just let her go. If she gets fed up with being alone, she still doesn't scream. She just rolls over to her monitor and turns it off. This causes the receiver in our bedroom to go off like a smoke detector, which is probably more annoying than a screaming baby. I swear to you, my daughter is a genius.
This leads me to what happened on Good Friday. For us it was a morning like any other. The baby awoke cooing while her daddy was getting ready for work. He came upstairs to get her up and change her diaper for me while I stumbled around emptying my bladder and gathering up the things I'd need for the first nursing session of the day. One of those items I need is my cell phone, which is an awesome smart phone. I play solitaire or jewels on it while I'm nursing the baby so I don't go comatose from milk maker boredom, IF I'm awake enough to use the brain power, which at 6:00 in the freaking morning isn't often, but I always have my phone on hand just in case. It has many uses apart from time-killing games.
That morning I flopped out of bed, wobbled to the bathroom to empty my bladder, and while sitting on the toilet realized that I had left my phone downstairs. Again. This meant that I had to stumble downstairs to get it and then back up the stairs. Mind you, I'm half awake and zombie like, but that's normal for me for the first good half hour after I wake up. When I wobble out of the bathroom, I see China licking her crotch (which she does all the freaking time) in the hallway. I go to take that first step, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Lilah on the floor in her bedroom with her daddy working on changing her diaper.
Lilah has become very squirmy these days. This is likely because she's kind of sort of crawling. I'm reluctant to mark it in her book as crawling, because she's not really using the typical method motor skills associated with crawling. There's no one arm and leg and then the other rhythm going on with her. However, she's become VERY adept at scooting and rolling. She CAN reach her arms out in front of her and pull her body forward now. And she's starting to get really close to the real crawling motion. I've learned that major milestones don't happen suddenly like I had expected. Nope. They're actually rather gradual. Here I am waiting for that "one day" where she "takes off", but she's been pretty mobile for at least a month now. Seriously. I have barriers set up in the living room. Remind me to take pictures.
So anyway! Friday morning there was this split second pause in time where my foot was descending upon the first stair to head down the stairs to retrieve my phone. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lilah rolling onto her side and reaching/stretching toward the cat, China, who is in the hallway a good five feet away licking her crotch. And I SWEAR TO SHIT that I hear the baby say, clearly and distinctly, "CAT." I stopped for a second and mumbled, "Did she just say cat?" Which in my zombified first thing in the morning state probably actually came out as like, "Mmffbugnduck?" My husband didn't respond, so I chalked it up to me still dreaming or sleep-walking or something and carried on.
Two days later, it happened again. Yesterday, on Easter morning, I was holding Lilah in my lap and China came walking by demanding everybody's attention. Because she's like that. The cat is an attention whore. Anyway. Lilah was watching her because OMG CAT IS BEST TOY EVER LOVE LOVE LOVE, and starts vocalizing sounds again. This time it wasn't quite as distinct, but she was working it out like this: "Kuh-tuh. Kuh-tuh. Kuh-ah-tuh-tuh-tuh." She ONLY makes these precise sounds, the hard K and T sound, when she's looking right at the cat. Any other time she's doing the usual "ba-ba-ba" and "da-da-da" babble noises along with the typical pigeon coo.
Is this her first word? Is she actually saying "cat"? I don't know! But I do know that Jamie confirmed that he too had heard her say "CAT" on this past Friday morning. I wasn't just imagining things! He heard it too! He also heard the same "cat"-like intonations come out of her on Easter morning. And we both stopped and stared at each other like O_O when it happened. I don't know for sure if this counts as her first word. Most babies don't actually associate what they're saying with actually being something until closer to their first year. But I SWEAR TO YOU! I heard my baby say "CAT" loud and clear. And she's not even yet seven months old.
Fortunately, my daughter is not a screamer. She doesn't awake wailing and crying because OMG SHE WANTS OUT OF BED NOW NOW NOW. No. Thankfully, she's a gradual waker. She rolls around and "talks" to herself. She plays with her lovies, a plush monkey her daddy bought her the day of her birth named Monkers and a My First Dolly. She'll do this pretty contentedly for a good twenty minutes if I just let her go. If she gets fed up with being alone, she still doesn't scream. She just rolls over to her monitor and turns it off. This causes the receiver in our bedroom to go off like a smoke detector, which is probably more annoying than a screaming baby. I swear to you, my daughter is a genius.
This leads me to what happened on Good Friday. For us it was a morning like any other. The baby awoke cooing while her daddy was getting ready for work. He came upstairs to get her up and change her diaper for me while I stumbled around emptying my bladder and gathering up the things I'd need for the first nursing session of the day. One of those items I need is my cell phone, which is an awesome smart phone. I play solitaire or jewels on it while I'm nursing the baby so I don't go comatose from milk maker boredom, IF I'm awake enough to use the brain power, which at 6:00 in the freaking morning isn't often, but I always have my phone on hand just in case. It has many uses apart from time-killing games.
That morning I flopped out of bed, wobbled to the bathroom to empty my bladder, and while sitting on the toilet realized that I had left my phone downstairs. Again. This meant that I had to stumble downstairs to get it and then back up the stairs. Mind you, I'm half awake and zombie like, but that's normal for me for the first good half hour after I wake up. When I wobble out of the bathroom, I see China licking her crotch (which she does all the freaking time) in the hallway. I go to take that first step, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Lilah on the floor in her bedroom with her daddy working on changing her diaper.
Lilah has become very squirmy these days. This is likely because she's kind of sort of crawling. I'm reluctant to mark it in her book as crawling, because she's not really using the typical method motor skills associated with crawling. There's no one arm and leg and then the other rhythm going on with her. However, she's become VERY adept at scooting and rolling. She CAN reach her arms out in front of her and pull her body forward now. And she's starting to get really close to the real crawling motion. I've learned that major milestones don't happen suddenly like I had expected. Nope. They're actually rather gradual. Here I am waiting for that "one day" where she "takes off", but she's been pretty mobile for at least a month now. Seriously. I have barriers set up in the living room. Remind me to take pictures.
So anyway! Friday morning there was this split second pause in time where my foot was descending upon the first stair to head down the stairs to retrieve my phone. Out of the corner of my eye I see Lilah rolling onto her side and reaching/stretching toward the cat, China, who is in the hallway a good five feet away licking her crotch. And I SWEAR TO SHIT that I hear the baby say, clearly and distinctly, "CAT." I stopped for a second and mumbled, "Did she just say cat?" Which in my zombified first thing in the morning state probably actually came out as like, "Mmffbugnduck?" My husband didn't respond, so I chalked it up to me still dreaming or sleep-walking or something and carried on.
Two days later, it happened again. Yesterday, on Easter morning, I was holding Lilah in my lap and China came walking by demanding everybody's attention. Because she's like that. The cat is an attention whore. Anyway. Lilah was watching her because OMG CAT IS BEST TOY EVER LOVE LOVE LOVE, and starts vocalizing sounds again. This time it wasn't quite as distinct, but she was working it out like this: "Kuh-tuh. Kuh-tuh. Kuh-ah-tuh-tuh-tuh." She ONLY makes these precise sounds, the hard K and T sound, when she's looking right at the cat. Any other time she's doing the usual "ba-ba-ba" and "da-da-da" babble noises along with the typical pigeon coo.
Is this her first word? Is she actually saying "cat"? I don't know! But I do know that Jamie confirmed that he too had heard her say "CAT" on this past Friday morning. I wasn't just imagining things! He heard it too! He also heard the same "cat"-like intonations come out of her on Easter morning. And we both stopped and stared at each other like O_O when it happened. I don't know for sure if this counts as her first word. Most babies don't actually associate what they're saying with actually being something until closer to their first year. But I SWEAR TO YOU! I heard my baby say "CAT" loud and clear. And she's not even yet seven months old.