Adelaida's First Words

Things have been pretty busy at our house the past few weeks, so this is going to be a relatively short post. But it is so exciting that I want to share it with all of you as soon as possible!

Before I had kids, I imagined that a child's first word would happen something like this: Baby spends the first few months grunting and cooing, then graduates to babbling with various syllables that have no basis in English. Then, one day, Baby and Momma are outside and Momma says, "look, Baby, a flower." Baby points to the flower and says, in perfectly enunciated English, "flower."

I don't know whether other children begin to speak their first words like this or not, but Adelaida certainly did not. Her vocalizations have gone more like this: she spent her first few months grunting and cooing and aahing, then started adding consonants to the "aah" sound, specifically "b" (starting around five months and abruptly ending around eight months) and "d" (beginning abruptly around eight months, when she stopped saying "baah").

The "daah" phase began so abruptly that the first time she said "daah," Dale and I both thought she was referring to him and saying Daddy in her wonderful baby way. Of course, she first said "daah" while looking at a puzzle piece of a pig, but we were certain she was talking!

After that first beautiful "daah," Adelaida's vocabulary was really limited to that one syllable for another five months: sometimes a single "daah," and sometimes repeated seemingly infinitely. She said "daah" when looking at her Daddy, when banging a wooden spoon on a plastic bucket, when talking to herself in the carseat, and when playing with her barnyard animal set. That one syllable meant everything to her. In the course of those five months, Adelaida became much more consistent in saying "daah" or "daah-daah" when looking at or pointing to Dale, so I have to claim "daddy" as her first real (meaningful) word.

Note: There were some reports that Adelaida clearly said "I love my Nonna" around six, eight, and twelve months, but those reports were unconfirmed and from a potentially biased source. :)

Around thirteen months, Adelaida really began experimenting with her consonants, making such wonderful sounds as "paah" and "maah" and "faah" and "raah." She also resumed "baah" and never really stopped saying "daah."

And then, Saturday, the most amazing thing happened. Dale was holding Adelaida, and said something like "now Momma is going to hold you while I let the dogs out" and handed her to me. She went into my arms, tapped me on the chest (her sign for me), and said "maah-maah." She said "momma," and it was in reference to me! It was such a wonderful, amazing moment, and since then she's done it several more times. I think "momma" is officially her second word -- about seven months after she started saying "daddy," but it is still pretty wonderful!

Of course I haven't gotten any videos of this yet, but I'll try to get one and post it here for everyone to see and hear.

(I also don't have any recent pictures of Adelaida, so I'm using some older pictures, from late December and early February. But I promise I'll get more pictures posted soon!)