Words, Words, Words!

Her first word was "bye bye" spoken with the softest, airy breath you could imagine. Of course, she said other sounds before this, like: da (her favorite sound even to this day). And I swore, she'd sometimes see something, like a dog, and say, oggie. But her first, consistent, reliable, and understandable word is bye bye which started around 14 months old. This may be because we walk daddy outside every morning to see him go off, and wave and say bye, so she is getting the symbolism and the actual event of parting. Or it may just be the easiest words to roll off her tongue.

Another irresistibly endearing thing Avi says is bay-bee (baby) anytime she sees a kid. The child could be 7 years old, and little Aveah says "Bay-bee" and points to the kid. She can "baaa" like sheep, and when you say "What sound does a lizard make" she starts sticking her tongue in and out of her mouth real fast. She knows on demand and can point to her: nose, ears, hair, head, mouth, toes and (favorite of all) her belly button. (Her belly button supplies endless amusement to Avi.)

To my great pleasure, Avi hasn't learned the word "no" yet! Isn't that amazing? I know some kids whose first and only word is "no"! Well, so far we are lucky. I really tried to not use that word around her, we used "stop" or tried to tell her why she couldn't do something. (Instead of "no" we'd say, "let's touch this duck instead of putting it in your mouth because it is dirty". (I'm going to stop boasting about our great parenting because I almost bet that tomorrow she'll wake up saying "no" and it will become her favorite word!)

She says "Da-dee" when she thinks of Dad or sees him come into the room, but she will also call Mommy that! She started saying "me-me" the other day, so I capitalized on that and called Mimi on the phone and said, Avi talk to Mimi and then Avi started calling Grammy Peggy me-me. And she is still not saying mommy!