Big Girl Talk

Unless you'd heard for yourself, you wouldn't believe how Meg is talking these days. This is the same girl who just seven months ago began to say Dada, Mama and Nana consistently--now she speaks in sentences! It amazes and delights us. Our daughter's speech is a constant topic of conversation for Dave and me. It would make you sick to sit in on one of our recent family dinners. "Guess what she said today?" "No way! Unbelievable!" "Did you hear her the other day when she said...? "You're kidding me! Where did she get that?" "I didn't even know she knew the word ____________!"

So we're probably a little bit overly impressed. She is our own progeny, after all. But just to give you an idea of some of her verbal feats, I'm going to list a few recent quotations here. Mind you, her pronunciation isn't perfect, but all of these were clear enough for us to understand immediately.

At breakfast the other morning: "Everybody eat oatmeal together."

As her father left for work, unprompted: "Have good day, Daddy."

Looking out the back window: "Kids play basketball outside."

Having lost hold of some plastic shapes we were using in an activity: "I drop it! I drop it! Blue circle and red circle! I drop it!"

At the playground: "Daddy and Meg swinging together."

Pointing to the milk carton, explaining the finer points of life to her brother: "See picture cow, Matthew? Mooooo!"

Her current pronunciation of "Matthew" sounds something like MAT-muh. I think she has finally stopped altogether with calling him "Dees." Sigh. I know it's good that she's learning to say her brother's name, but her calling him "This" was just so terribly cute.

Being parents makes us so silly sometimes. We rejoice over every new achievement to the point of absurdity; then we turn around and mourn for the bygone days before she could talk, or walk, or eat by herself, or... whatever.

Ah well. If we must be fools, I suppose we may as well be fools for love.