you! boob!

January has been a busy month. I have legitimately returned to work full time and my child has legitimately started work on becoming a little person with a discernible personality, moods, likes and dislikes. Like me, she seems to enjoy the mornings and can usually be counted upon to wake up smiling and in a good mood (this is in stark contrast to her mother who tends to wake up angry). Now that Mommy and Daddy have figured out how to safely cut her nails and so have removed her protective mittens she has discovered her hands and is currently obsessed with attempting to fit them fully into her mouth. She has also discovered the joy of slobbering.

Perhaps most critically for us she embraced smiling as a mans of emoting. While she still can be counted on to smile whilst soiling her diaper, she also consistently smiles because of something Clara or I did. This is a huge morale booster for us. It makes us feel like maybe we don't suck as much at this parenting thing as we originally thought.

She is also starting to play around with her voice and will sometimes seem to "talk back". I know this is just us projecting our linguistic predisposition onto her, but it's fun to do. She has the second person pronoun "you" down pretty well and has taken to looking at me straight in the eye and saying "You!"

"Yes", I say, "This is me." In doing so I may be glossing over some of the more relevant existential questions of what I mean by "is" when I state "this is me," but there will be time to discuss that later.

Anyway, I couldn't help but notice the other day that she looked at my wife and modified her declaration to be, "You! Boob!" Clara and I are still internally debating whether or not our daughter was expressing an observation (You! You're the one with boobs!), a request (You! I want a boob, now!) or an endearingly mild insult (You! You're a silly boob!).

Whatever her intent we think these utterances are precious and hope they continues so long as they remain relatively free of judgement. For example "You! Inadequate!" or "You! Disappointment!" would not be nearly so cute.