Okay, so I know this will sound like I am making it up, but I promise I am not. Believe or disbelieve at will, but Lydia talked! As in, she said WORDS at the tender age of 10 weeks old. We are still in shock.
It began with Abe saying “I love you” to Lydia. We say this regularly to her, and he has been saying it repeatedly to her for weeks now. The other day I found him repeating the phrase as he changed Lydia’s diaper, and she was cooing back to him. “It’s working!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I’m telling you, her first words are going to be ‘I love you’! She’s going to say it one day soon.”
“Mmmhmmm…” I said indulgently. Inwardly, I knew babies don’t talk this young, so I dismissed his prediction off hand. I mean, Lydia has been cooing up a storm and we totally encourage her sounds (we both read a bunch of research saying a baby’s tendency to verbalize is not based on how much exposure she has to language, but rather how much people around her respond to her vocalizations), but I never actually expected her to bust out WORDS.
And then…we were driving home from Springfield yesterday, and Abe was leaning over Lydia’s car seat doing his “I love you” repetitions. I was driving, and Clark was seated next to me. Lydia was cooing happily back to Abe, when all of the sudden we distinctly heard her say, “I loff oo” to Abe.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I almost drove off the road. We all jerked around and stared at Lydia.
“Oh my gosh,” Clark gasped, “she just said ‘I love you’!”
I was trembling. “Yeah,” I said shakily. “She totally did.”
Abe grinned proudly and said, “Oh, Lydia, I love you too!”
She tried again. We listened, and her next couple attempts at the phrase continued to mimick Abe’s voice. It was incredible. And scary. I just kept thinking, “Oh man, who is this baby? How am I going to mother this child?” I don’t know if it makes sense, but the whole thing freaked me out. By the time we got back to Hyde Park, I dismissed the talking thing as a fluke. I mean, almost 11 week old babies just don’t talk. They don’t! So I figured I wouldn’t worry about it and continue on as if everything were normal.
And then it happened again, only this time I was alone. Abe was out unpacking the car, and I was cuddling Lydia inside. She was smiling contentedly at the ceiling, and I asked her if she was smiling at her angels.
“Angel,” she said, still looking at the ceiling. I about fainted. The “g” was really gurgly, but the “An” and the “l” on either side of the gurgly g were quite clear. She said, “angel.” I really about died.
She hasn’t said any more words today, and I’m still waiting to see if these were just fluke sounds. In the meantime, I guess I have to stick Lydia’s “first words” sticker on her baby calender and try to remain calm.
(P.S. We also discovered Lydia may be getting ready to teethe this past weekend. We can see her teeth and she is drooling up a STORM. I checked the baby book and it says babies can teethe as early as three months, so this is not abnormal.)
Oh, and in addition to hearing my infant speak (AAAAGGGHHH!!), I also discovered that we’d been visited by an elf in our absence. Details and a pic in the next post. Elf, if you are reading this and don’t want a post out (there was a little hint in your letter that you wish to remain anonymous to certain people) feel free to let me know not to post about you. I have no idea who you are, but Abe has me convinced you are real. He said you’re a little more than 4 feet tall and wear green shoes. From your letter, I think you read this blog. If you don’t want to be blogged about, I suppose you are magical and can find a way to tell us not to blog about you. Otherwise, you might share Lydia’s spotlight in the next Darais Family Blog post. =)