Nina is a riot these days. In addition to brushing up her walking skills, she is expanding her vocabulary. She has a sound for the cats and dogs that defies recording in text, but it’s a sort of sibilant hissing noise. It’s not random though — she only makes it when they’re around. But her four best words are “boo-bah”, “mama”, “dada” and “crk-er”. What do they mean? Well, the middle two are probably self-explanatory. The last one means cracker. I purposefully omitted the vowels in the beginning because that’s how it sounds. I think Nina could speak German pretty well right now. But the first one? That is her very favorite word. Guess what it means?

If you guessed bottle, you probably don’t know us outside of this journal. Nina is breastfed and “boo-bah” is her word for “booby” which in her vernacular, means FOOD or DRINK. And she chants it like a little savage, usually at my feet, and occasionally while yanking on my shirt. Yesterday we were in Kohl’s, buying nice professional job-type clothing for Jeff. I was holding Nina and she started tugging at my shirt, saying “Boo-bah! Boo-BAH! BOO-BAH! BOO-BAH!” I’m sure no one within fifty feet of us had any doubt what she wanted.

So speech. It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, she can now start to indicate when she needs something. On the other hand, she can now start to indicate when she needs something. Sheesh!

PS: For anyone out there shaking their head with a disproving “When they can ask for it, they’ve been breastfeeding too long,” I say plllllllbbbbbbbbbbttt! She’s ahead of her age in speech and motor skills and the AAP recommends breastfeeding for at least a year.