"Du, Du, Du"

I've debated blogging about this in fear that someone might think I'm crazy. But, Clay can vouch for me...he witnessed it this weekend. The big news is...Jack said his first word with meaning. Of course it didn't exactly sound phonetically correct, but I knew just what he was talking about. It all started about a month ago. Every evening I take him upstairs to his bedroom and we undress for bath time. He has figured out the ritual considering we have been doing it since his newborn days. But now that he is a crawler, as soon as his clothes are stripped off, his naked rear end takes off for the bathroom. When I meet him in there, he always has a handful of his yellow rubber ducks. And for the past month, I've been saying, "Jack, you've got your ducks". Then off to the bath we go, ducks and all. He loves those ducks. He just wouldn't even think of bathing without them. The baby duck goes straight to his mouth and the Mommy and Daddy duck float around in and out of Jack's wet slippery hands. It's the same thing every night. Well, a week ago, we did what we always do at bedtime...upstairs and undress. This time when Jack's naked rear end took off to the bathroom there was something different. Instead of squealing with delight, he was chanting, "du, du, du, du". Now I know what you are thinking he was probably just saying "da da", as all babies do at this age. But, I promise there is a clear distinction in his vowels. Initially, I thought "no way, he doesn't know what he is saying". But, sure enough I met him in the bathroom with a handful of ducks and he was still chanting "du, du, du". He even went as far as to hand me one and repeat "du, du" over again. I was pretty sure, his new sound had meaning, but I wanted to give it some more time. From then on out, every time we saw a duck, I showed Jack, repeated "duck" (stressing the /ck/) and sure enough he would start chanting again. This past weekend, during Daddy's bath duty, he saw and heard it too. This time there was even a little /ck/ with it (just a little one). So, I'm not an over analytical proud Mommy. It is true...Jack said his first word with meaning! I won't lie, I was hoping for "mama" first, but I guess "du, du's" with an occasional /ck/ are easier. Or at least I'm telling myself that...maybe "mama" is next!
And yes, that is a bruise and a scratch on Jack's face...war wounds from our "all boy" crawler!