Wordsmith

Vivian is 13 months old. She has yet to say her first word.

Occasionally (about 10% of the time), she'll say "Hi" when she waves, and I've heard her say "Ayes-ah" for Isaac once or twice. I'm starting to think that she does have a word for Mama--"Ba-bie"--but I could be wrong. I mean, it's not exactly close phonetically, so it's hard to tell. She also has a toy monkey which hangs in front of her carseat, and "mo-bah" seems to be the word for that. She always says it with a question mark--"Mo-bah?"--which I suppose makes sense, since everytime I'm strapping her in, I repeat over and over, in my happy baby voice "Monkey? Monkey? What's this? Monkey? Monkey! Hey Viv, what do you see? Monkey? Monkey? Say Monkey? Monnn-kkkey. . . "

She talks all the time, however, in her own language, and this just about slays Isaac, every time. "Bwah!" she says, pointing to some unidentified object in the next room. "Bwah!" mimics Isaac, pointing, and giggling hysterically. "Bwah! Bwah! Bwah!" Or, "Uh-oh, ba-bie", she'll say, for no apparent reason, and then Isaac repeats it, loudly, for the next twenty minutes, laughing all the while. It would be annoying if it wasn't so cute.

Of course if Isaac laughs, Vivian must laugh, too. Whatever tickles him immediately sets her to giggling too. I'm not sure if his laugh is just that infectious (it is), or if she is so desperate to be like him, and liked by him, that she copies his every move.

Lately, the soundtrack of my days have been these silly words interspersed with the laughter of my children.

I can definitely think of worse ways to spend my time.