clara's first word(s)!

This is more of a tale...of how Clara's first word came to be spoken.

It's no secret to my friends and family that I say, "mama," about one hundred times per day (hehe!) to Clara.  I'm so excited for her to know my name and call out to me.   She has been babbling and cooing and working on different sounds for months...she has rambled dadadadada and mamamamamama and ohohohoh and babababababab....but nothing that ever really resembled a single word.

The other day she was eating some apples that I pureed for her.  I have a little habit of talking all about the food that she eats...where it comes from, what color it is, what other foods can be prepared from it...it's our foodie conversations.  And goes something like, "apples are a pretty fruit, apples are grown on trees...we went and picked apples together this fall, do you remember?  the apples grew so high on the trees!  apples are usually red, but apples can also be red and green or even pink!"  You get it...I work in the "apple" a ton into the convo.

A little later in the evening, while Tommy and I were busy putting Christmas decor away she was getting a little fussy for attention.  So I said to her, "do you want some more apples?"  To which she replied, "apple." 

Tommy and I froze.  Looked at each other with quizzical expressions as if to silently say "whatthe#$%&didshejustsay?" 

"What was that honey?" I then ask her with a slight shrill to my voice- as my heart was pounding because SHE MAYBE JUST SAID HER FIRST WORD AND OHMYGOD THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!!

"Mama" was her reply.

It was at that point I start jumping up and down and clapping and gallivanting about and having her repeat herself a dozen times...which she does by the way, "mama, mama, mama, mama."  The more she says it, the more shrill my voice gets with excitment.  I grab our camera and turn it on...to which she is fairly silent (probably stunned by my ridiculousness and screeching happiness).  But she does manage to chirp out a couple "mama's" in there.  Music to my ears.

So.  Her first word could have very well been "apple" but we didn't quite understand if she really said that in the first place  However she has yet to say it again.  And she said "mama" immediately after the "apple" incident...and we got that on camera. 

Initially I was going to count that "mama" was her first word.  Except, I guess, in order to be honest, her first word could have very well been "apple." 

There you have it.  Talking at 9 months.