StarGirl’s been babbling consistently for the last few months — she likes to “read” books to herself, sitting on the floor, paging through her picture books and mumbling along with each flip. She also likes to tell me how her day was when I get home, babbling on and off from the time I walk in the door until she goes to bed.
Last night, though, was different. When I stopped by my parents’ house to pick her up (they were babysitting for us), I took a break and sat on the couch with StarGirl on my lap. We were talking about how she’d started mimicking a clucking sound my parents had been making, when I decided to ask her to say “Daddy”.
To our surprise, she did it. It came out “Dah-dee”, and she said it a bunch of times. This is different from the “da-da-da-da” and “ma-ma-ma-ma” sounds she’s been making for quite a while — this time she actually said two separate syllables. She freaking enunciated!
When we got home, we tried it again, this time with Sue around … and she did it again! Then I asked her to say “Mommy” and she did one of her long, sustained baby grunts. We laughed our asses off, which unfortunately probably taught StarGirl a new game (a theory that’s backed up by the fact that she did the same thing a few hours later, once again reducing us to giggles).
Does she know that I’m “Da-dee”? I don’t know. I think she knows that the word “Daddy” means me, “Mommy” means Sue and “puppy” means one of the dogs, but I’m not sure if she connects the word that came out of her mouth with me. And does it count if she doesn’t connect the two? Well, I don’t know … but it seems close enough to Sue and I.
She certainly likes saying it though. When I was feeding her tonight, and asked her to say “Daddy” she happily said “Dah-dee” over and over again. Her babbles have also changed over the last day or so — now her baby talk has multiple syllables to it, where as before she’d just repeat the same sounds over and over.
It’s just too freaking cool … I can’t wait to see what she’s going to say next.