The Babblegail is three days shy of turning 19 months old. A few weeks ago David and I counted the words in her vocabulary. We knew she was a chatterbox – we wanted to see just how much of one. Over several days, we counted 110 recognizable words that she uses to communicate, not including names of family members or animal sounds. (If we added those in it would have been at least 30 more words.) We stopped counting after a while because we realized she was learning a new word or two every day.
Can the average listener interpret all her words? I don't know. But here are some of my new favorites.
At dinner:
Abigail is in her high chair, chugging a cup of milk. She burps. She looks at me, surprise in her bright eyes, and says, “Bup!”
“Did you burp?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she answers.
“After your burp you should say, 'Excuse me'. That’s the polite thing to do.”
She thinks for a moment, looks at me thoughtfully and burps again.
"What do you say?" I prompt her.
"Ah-boogie!” she says, and smiles.
Also at dinner:
Abigail is learning how to use a spoon and is eating yogurt. Most of the yogurt is ending up everywhere but her mouth. It's a rather sloppy affair, and Abigail knows it. Each night, she looks down at her tray, up at me, and says, "UH OH! It a bih meh!"
At bedtime:
Abigail is in her crib, pulling her blanket up to her face.
“Night night Daddy. Ub-ew, Daddy,” she says.
“I love you too, Abigail,” Daddy answers, smiling.
A pause.
“Fwee!” she cries happily.
And another pause.
“Nine!”
In other news, Abigail is also developing her own sense of style. She chose these shoes and hat the other day.
I won't even try to explain where I've been since September. I don't know. But here I am now. Aren't you so glad to see me?
I like being domestic.Maybe my more liberal-minded friends will roll their eyes at this, but I love being a stay-at-home mom. I wish I was better at it. The past few days have been remarkably productive. I'm always so proud of myself when I'm organized and busy around the home. I've planned menus for two weeks - and actually cooked them. I've baked cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip - spectacular!) instead of stocking up on store brands. I've organized closets and basement storage. I've done what feels like a billion loads of laundry. I've written thank-you cards. I've been working on stuff for our young moms' ministry at church. I feel like the Proverbs 31 woman - "she considers a field and she buys it". I'm not buying any fields, of course, but you know if there were any available around here, I might have considered one this week.
Seriously, you should be proud of me. It's not always that way. There are many days I just want to stop and take a nap when Abigail does. And since I'm 22 weeks pregnant, I usually do. But the energy I've had the past few days has been nice. It makes me wish that I had more of those domestic skills. Like sewing, for example. The panel in my maternity jeans tore the other day, and I realized we had NO needles or thread in our house. How is that possible? I had to go to the store and search out one of those little sewing kits, just so I could mend that hole. Now I need to figure out how to actually do it. I don't really know how. The tear is on the stretchy part, right by the seam. So, really - how do you sew it closed? Any suggestions?
He's an IT guy by day, musician by night. I was a teacher... now I'm a wife/mom/woman trying to find creative outlet. We were married in June of '07. Bought our first house in May of '08. Celebrated our first baby June of '09. Waiting for Baby Boy to join us in spring of '11.
