OUR SWEET WAHKEENAH

As you probably noticed, we use many different names for our beloved baby girl, Vanessa. Mostly, Daddio calls her Pumpkin and I call her Little Kitten. Well, this past month I inexplicably started calling her Wahkeena (Wakina?). I couldn't figure out where I got it. At some point I thought maybe it was the Hawaiian word for girl or woman, but no, that's Wahine. Last night I finally looked up Wahkeenah and found it's a Pacific Northwest Indian word (Yakama/Yakima) meaning "most beautiful." Wahkeenah, indeed!

Vanessa's swim instructor Cindy calls her Pumpkin Pie. Nanners had another swim lesson yesterday - Cindy said, "She's so advanced!" without me even asking her to brag. Daddio phoned me up on his break to "hear the latest" on swimming. He always requests a blow-by-blow account of her swim activities, how she does, what the other babies are doing, and what her instructor says.

When we walked into the pool area yesterday, Cindy was in the middle of an adult private lesson, and there was a senior water aerobics class going on. Vanners let out such a monkey screech of obvious delight everyone stopped, looked, and cracked up. She proceeded to make eye contact with each swimmer, to to personally greet them with a screech of excitement.

Later yesterday, as I was looking up "Wahkeenah" no doubt, Vanessa rambled by on her exploration route. After a few moments of silence I went to check and I'll be darned if I didn't find her sitting in the bathtub playing with her bath toys.

She can get herself through the house on her new tricycle by pulling it along with her monkey feet on the floor. We can also push her through the house on it, and you'd think she was the Homecoming Queen in the Homecoming Parade, the way she grins and gushes at the crowd as she passes. Too bad her parents haven't taught her to wave bye-bye.

Here is a photo of the trike, with the handle tucked under to make it a rocking horse. She can't touch the pedals yet. Cephalocaudal principle at work, I suppose.

Yesterday Baby Nessa also cut tooth #4, so she has both front teeth now. If she takes after her mama, those two front teeth will be big, square ones. We shall call them Chicklets. The poor dear.

Today, as I kept a close watch on her scrounging around on the bathroom floor with her bath toys, I said, "Hey, bring that one with you." She looked at the toy and I distinctly heard her say, "Uck." It was her yellow duck! Can I count that as a word? Probably not, I know, but it sure was fun to hear her say it.

I will say that "dog," "dad," and "duck" sound an awful lot alike. Here is her vocabulary - can't wait until she can speak English, though!

"Ma Ma" = feed me

"Nay Nay" = I'm tired

"Da Da Da" = my, isn't this interesting/how nice

"Milah" = Milo

"Uck" = duck (I think)

She knows her name (Vanessa, that is), and the word No, although No gets her laughing hysterically, maybe because it is typically accompanied by our running towards her and/or a funny finger sweep.

There are two times when I use the word No - when she eats the dog's food (because dogs bite people who eat their food and because kibble is a choking hazard), and when playing with the houseplant becomes eating its dirt (because that dirt has fertilizer in it). See Nanners after I have delivered my severe "No!' for her offending rule number 2.

When I was a kid, I remember having a conversation with my father whereby I was trying to apologize for letting him down, for not measuring up in some way. I was shocked when he said, "Sweetheart, I'm proud of anything you do. I'm proud every little burp and fart you make." I thought he was bananas at the time, but notice how the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

P.S. These many faces of VanNanners were shot inside of two minutes. My inner stage mother/aspiring baby photographer had her immobilized in The Machine with a decidedly girly new bow in her hair. Note the teething drool.