First Word

At some point in the past week or so, Edith started saying “milk.” Actually, she says “muh” but it means milk. She always says it in the same way — she gets upset and kind of panicky and starts whimpering “Muh! Muh muh muh!” It took me awhile to put this together, but once I noticed it, I could see that it was significant and intentional.

Everything with a baby is astonishing — watching these tiny oozy little blobs morph into actual people who have control over their bodies and language and everything else. Whenever they’re working on some new thing, it seems absolutely impossible that they will ever master it, you can’t even envision it happening because they’re so grublike and senseless, and then they just do it, and you’re reminded that they’re not some particularly adorable species of pet but a burgeoning human being.

Edith is currently working on walking, and I can’t really picture her body in a walking posture, it seems so very unlikely, but she is determined to do it. She’s been standing for a long time, and now she’s letting go with one hand and waving around testing out letting go. I know at some point, she’ll just do it.

I’m used to her physical milestones by now, but this “muh” was the first intellectual one, and it was pretty startling! One might perhaps wish that her first word would be, say, “mama” but I guess “MILK MILK MILK!!!!” in desperate tones is fine, too.