"Ball. I get it."

I had a moment of panic tonight when I realized that I have not been good about writing down Parker’s words! My mom has a faded, totally 80’s, teddy bears and too much pastel calendar where she wrote down each word I learned on the day she first heard me say it, and I have…. Nothing.

I have some mom guilt about it, but this is another one of those forgotten things that I attribute to being a working mama. After working 40+ hours a week, making dinner, doing laundry, doing homework, and pinching my husband’s cute butt, I just don’t have the energy (or the memory) to write all of that down! But just for you guys, I’m going to try.

Parker’s first word, believe it or not, was “Light.” He has always been fascinated with lights and anything that lights up, so one day we heard him in the living room saying “Ba, Ba, Ba” over and over – and we realized that he was talking about the light that was on over our dining room table.

Ok, so “Ba” for “Light” isn’t a reeeeeal first word, but that was the first time that we could tell that, in his mind, he was matching what he was seeing to something he could verbalize. Which to Mommy, the English major, was, well… major!

(Confession time: His first actual real word was “Da-Da.” But I am in denial about this. Wasn’t I in labor for 21 hours?? Didn’t I have 50 stitches? Didn’t I pull the night shift until month 4 when he started sleeping through the night? Can I get a “Ma-ma”?? No.)

Since then we have also learned to say:

• Ma-Ma (thank God)
• Mimi
• Nana
• Lala (our Monday babysitter)
• ba-ba (Are you starting to see a trend with these two repeating syllable words? Yep, me too. I speak in them all day long)
• Uh-oh
• Bye-bye
• Night-Night
• Aaaaaaaaamen
• shoe
• sock
• ball
• pee-pee
• poopy (my personal favorite…especially when he pulls it out in public)
• yogurt (which is more like “yuh-guh”)
• go-go (for Goldfish)
• diaper (he says “dipey”)
• sleep sheep

And tonight, for the first time, he said “Pizza.” So. Stinking. Cute. It’s actually more like “Sa-Sa” and he sticks his tongue out at the start of each syllable. I wish I had a video.

      We also have some phrases!

• I get it
• Thank you (does my heart proud, y’all)
• Bye-bye Da-Da/Ma-Ma
• Night-Night Da-Da/Ma-Ma 

Ok, ok, I’ll stop bragging. I know he is very advanced for a 16 month old. You don’t have to tell me he’s a baby genius. (Just kidding guys! I just have some Mommy Pride over here!)