Ben is becoming a big babbler, often just sputtering nonsense as he's cruising around the furniture or playing with his toys. When he sees me he likes to go "Mamamamammamama!", but as I said before, he says it to his toys, too. But I like to think that his first word is "Mama".

The other day Claudine was over and we sent her to get The Greatest Tacos Ever at the local Mexican grocery. At the back of the checkout lanes, there's a little cart where a little Mexican lady makes tacos, tostadas and champorado for people for really cheap prices. She never speaks english so I always have to use whatever Spanish I remember from college Spanish (which I got a C in because class was at 8am and we were graded on attendance, and, well, I don't do too well with 8am classes after a night out at C-Street).

Claudine came back with all the parts to make a taco, since the lady was busy and Claud asked for a dozen tacos, she just packed together a "make your own taco" set for Claudine since there was a long line behind her.

So when she got back, we all say down at the table together and strapped Ben into his highchair so we could keep an eye on him. He was content at his chair, just babbling and playing with a spoon. I decided to make the tacos for everyone and said, "I'll be the lady at the produce store! Hola!"

Then I heard a little squeak - "Hola!"

I looked at Ben and he was looking at me and smiling. I looked at Dave and Claud and they were like, "Did he say Hola?" "It sounded like Hola!" "I swear he said Hola!"

So I said it again. "Hola!"

The Ben smiled and squealed, "Hola!"

We laughed and smiled at him and he knew that all the attention was on him. "Hola!" I said again, waiting for him to mimic me. Ben was all excited and screamed, "Umabdabadibudaabamamamaaama!"

The moment was over.

Yes, my son's first word isn't even in English. We are still waiting for his first English word.

Posted by Yano at January 8, 2007 09:11 AM

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