"Heh, dee-dee"

Was this a milestone night for the Laney-bug? I don't know -- I'll report, you decide. It all happened at about 4:30 a.m. this morning. My wife had been up about a half hour earlier (we've gotten to the point where we both wake up now, so Des can give me a friendly reminder of how unfair it is that the baby always wants her whenever she doesn't sleep through the night. Why this conversation can't occur at 8 a.m. I have no idea.) The 10-month-old Laney-bug was about to get back to sleep when my son awoke with a bloody nose. In times of crisis, he also prefers my wife to me - sometimes it seems like I'm little more than a glorified playmate with a checking account who happens to know how to make cinnamon toast.

So I took over the business of getting baby back to sleep. She was babbling as usual about all things pppbbbpttt and ffffmmmttt, etc. It was during this noisy twilight interlude that Laney turns to me and says, clear as a bell, "Heh, dee-dee." Could it be? Did she just say "Hey, Daddy?" It sure sounded like it. She drifted off not long after that. For all I know, she was trying in her little limited-vocabulary way to say "Your hair looks even more ridiculous at 4 in the morning than it does during the day," but who knows? My son started saying "dada" at about seven months, which I took no small measure of pride in until I realized that in his world "dada" also referred to Mommy, the dog, and most of his favorite toys. But Laney does have some words going - she's gotten pretty good about saying dog ("daw") and just started "uh-oh," two words that go together often regarding our 11-year-old border-collie mix.