I’m starting to think there’s no way to say exactly what/when baby’s first word is. Do we say it’s “mama” because of the “mamamamamama” playing of sounds she did when she was practicing her “m”s months ago? Is it “baba” (“daddy” in Mandarin) that she started doing a couple of months after that as she’s now working on the “b” sounds? Is it the not-quite-full-word sounds like “boon” when she pointed at the balloons floating in a corner of the ceiling when she got her first balloons at the beginning of last month? Or maybe it’s the “buh-buh” she did last night and this morning, accompanied by her waving, as she said good night to the stepkidlet before going upstairs to bed, and to me as we said our goodbyes and I walked out the door to go to work.

I guess I’d thought it would be clearer than that. I figured there’d be a first “meaningless” word, such as “mama” or “dada” (she’s still not doing her “d” sounds, yet) that has meaning to us, but not to her, and then later, there’d be a first “real” word that she says deliberately with intent to communicate. But there’s all this gray area. Do I count the sounds that I know mean something to her (such as the high-pitched moose shriek imitation she does, almost perfectly emulating her small furry stuffed moose toy that my parents got her as a souvenir from Yosemite, whenever we say “moose” or when she sees the toy) but that aren’t truly formed words, like “boon?” But then she didn’t do “boon” after the first two times, since the balloons deflated and Mr. W threw them away. We went on a walk and bought her a cute mylar balloon the other day after she saw a picture of balloons and then pointed to the empty corner of the ceiling where the balloons had been last month, so now she’s batting around the new balloon and saying “bah-bah” which isn’t quite “boon” but isn’t quite “bah-loon,” either.

I think “first words” are arbitrary to whatever the parents want to deem a first word, just like “first walk” is pretty arbitrary, too. Allie now takes up to 6-7 steps pretty quickly to get from one end of the couch to the middle of the room to one of us, or to a toy she wants to play with. This is only when she’s not tired and therefore doesn’t have the balancing skills of a drunk. Some would say this is not truly “walking” because it’s not consistent and she can’t keep taking these steps in a controlled way perpetually, as it seems like the last step of the series is the one where she knows she’s at her goal so she gives up and sort of lunges herself at the target, sometimes falling or sitting down with a plop.

So when people ask me what Allie’s doing these days, is she talking? Is she walking? I just say, “Sorta.”