"HI!"

Layla has had a big new development over the last two weeks - she's started talking!!! I mean, really communicating!! There was no 'hey mom and dad, I'd like a sandwich' but rather a particular sound ('mama') that she started to use more and more when she wanted something (especially when I am nearby), along with an obvious understanding that I am her mama (she looks at me when someone says 'where is your mama?' - on that note, she also seems to know her own name now too). So after a week of debating we finally decided over the weekend that 'mama' is definitely her first real word. Then, very surprisingly, they reported at the daycare today that 'Hi!' is her second word!! She turned around to one of the daycare workers today, waved at them, and said 'Hi!', completely surprising everyone. Then she did it all afternoon, but of course she didn't do it when we came to pick her up. Fortunately, we actually heard her first 'Hi!' last week but we didn't think it was real (we were still debating 'mama').

So it's pretty obvious now that Layla is a baby genius. I am going to try not to be surprised when she actually does request a sandwich next week. They told us at daycare that she must have smart parents but I denied all possibility of it - it takes me three full days just to write a paragraph of a paper I'm writing for work so I'm not feeling 'genius' at all right now - and I don't think I was a genius as a baby either (although I must say I was pretty darn cute). But it's nice to revel in my baby's genius. And probably the rest of her family should revel too because if it didn't come from me it had to come from one of the rest of you all and you might as well take credit for it (while you can - baby genius may not directly translate into adult genius).