"Baby"

Over the past month, Reilly’s vocabulary has increased exponentially. She has moved from single syllables (da), to single repetitive syllables (da-da-da), to mixed repetitive syllables (ma-ba-da).

Over the last week, we have noticed Reilly getting closer and closer to forming words. To help her along, we chose four words for her to focus on: “mama,” “dada,” “duck,” and “baby.” When Reilly goes through one of her chatty stages during the day, we try each word several times to see if she’ll latch on to it.

The conversation goes a little like this:

Reilly: “ma-ma-ba-ma-da.”
Shawn: “MA-ma.”
Me: “MA-MA.”
Reilly: “ba-ma.”
Shawn: “Duck!”
Reilly: “Du.”
Me: “DuuuuCK.”
Reilly: “Duh.”

Today, during a similar back-and-forth, Reilly quite clearly said, “baby.” Shawn and I looked at each wide-eyed and said, in unison, “YAY! BAYBEE!” And Reilly said, “ba-by” again.

Later in the day, we went out to the west side promenade for a walk, and Shawn and I discussed whether or not to consider this as her first word, and decided that it was too early to tell. Reilly had gone through a similar stage before in which we were quite sure that she was purposefully saying “dada,” only to find that it was a one day event and not to be repeated again (much to my disappointment).

We strolled home, and as we were taking Reilly out of her stroller, Shawn said, “Hey, baby!”

Reilly turned to Shawn, looked her right in the eyes, and said, “baby.” And to ensure us it was no fluke, she said it again:

“Baby.”