woof moo

Harvey turned nine months yesterday. Hooray for olderness, especially since he's starting to give us the first inklings that he's understanding us, at least language wise. He'll repeat a simple sound maybe 40% of the time, which is enough to feel like more than zero, and he's particularly skilled with "DaDa" although I don't quite think he's linked it to the adult personage it represents. Nevertheless, I've been trying. In the two minutes right after he nurses when he's more pleased with me than any other time in the day, I've been trying to inculcate "mama. mama. maaamaaa." There have been some glimmering signs of getting it. The other day he looked at me quisically and then said "BraBra." Bra is about as close as he can come to Ma these days, so I squealed "Good boy! Good boy!" Then I smothered him with kisses. Pleased with himself, he looked up at me with a gleeful grin. Then he squinted his eyes mischievously and very quietly whispered, "DaDa."

That little brain of his. Something is going on therein.

But I'm not too worried about hurrying things along. We have a lifetime of chatting to look forward to, after all. Indeed, we were heartened by linguistic cuteness yesterday, during an outing with a cool family containing one very precious 2 year old. In the parking lot of Bedford Farms we parked next to a car with a very large St. Bernard. She examined the animal for a few moments, and then definitively pronounced: "Woof Moo."

Woof Moo. This girl should write dictionaries.

*Image courtesy of Ashley. "Courtesy" meaning I stole it from her facebook page. Thanks Ash!

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