not as rich as we'd hoped - ha!

yard sale profits: 12 dollars (oh well)

yard sale purchases from others in the community yard sale: 9 dollars (all things we needed! promise!)

going through every inch of our house and clearing out what we don't need/use, plus meeting many many more of our neighbors: priceless!!

and she speaks!

I just realized that it's been at least four weeks now since Sophia ventured into the realm of first words, and I had yet to post about it! *tsk tsk* Being a linguist and a former teacher of language-disordered kiddos, it's been such fun in a mama way and a nerdly way to watch the process unfold. :D She had never really imitated any sounds we had made - definitely babbled all kinds of strings of different sounds, but never in direct imitation of what we were doing. She could mimic intonation perfectly - 'jibberish' that sounded like adult conversations in some strange language, and strings of tones that sounded exactly like exaggerated things we said to her. ("mmmmm," tones going up then down when she ate something she liked, "mmhmmm?" when she picked up a toy phone, sounding just like when I answer the phone with, "Hello?" and so on)

Then....(April 4th to be exact)...Josh asked her, "Can you say 'Dada?' And out of her mouth came the sweetest little 'dada' that you have ever heard. Just like she had been doing it her whole short little life or something. Ha! "Can you say 'Mama?'" Sure enough...."Mama!" And then the best part...."Where's Dada?" She points...."Dada!" "Where's Mama?" She points again. "Mama!" Later that day, when we were out shopping as a family, she would point to whichever of us wasn't strolling/carrying her and 'label' us with a smile. I've never been so happy to be labeled! :D

Since then, she's added an occasional 'bye-bye' (more often than not, she blows a kiss), ball (baaaah or baaaaow), baby (behBEH), more (moe or meh meh MEH!), a whole host of animal sounds (including 'lalala' for pigs, thanks to the Sandra Boynton classic Moo Baa LaLaLa), and shaking her head yes and no. She's even doing "AH-hmm!" for 'open,' although I think she uses this for 'please,' 'yes,' 'more,' 'I want that," etc. We'll see what she comes up with next! No walking yet, but she does cruise the furniture like nobody's business, so I'll keep you posted. :)