The babies are beginning to put words with objects. Most of the time we don’t really understand what they’re saying but it’s obvious they are attempting speech.

Bri’s first attempt at a word is appropriate on a couple of levels. First, you have to know that Swee’Pea is the second-coming of Shakira/JLo/Paula Abdul because she has dancing moves you haven’t dreamed of. Anytime music comes on, Swee’Pea will rock her body to the music. And it’s not this herky-jerky rocking that looks like Steve Martin dancing in The Jerk, no it’s a stylish, rhythmic sway that matches her slight smile and sparkle in her eye. I can almost hear her thinking, “Yeah, can you dig it?”

Because of her penchant for dancing, I have coined her my Dancing Queen. Now, this is appropriate because, as some of you may remember, Swee’Pea prefers the cat to her parents loves our cat Nutmeg. Anytime Nutmeg strolls into the room (and this cat always strolls) Swee’Pea squeals in delight and wants to touch the cat (Memo to Nutmeg: Your days of knowing the babies can’t chase you are numbered. Consider yourself warned.). Now, whenever she sees Nutmeg, she utters the phrase “Abba”. I’m not sure where she gets this because we don’t go around discussing Swedish disco bands in general conversation but Swee’Pea insists on Abba. So, Abba it is. Nutmeg is quickly becoming Abba the cat. If this sticks, we’ll just tell everyone that Abba the cat was named after our Swedish disco-loving daughter Bri.

Now, TheMonk has has been working on the word Dada for a while now. He had the nuances down but never seemed to say it at the right moment (“No, TheMonk, that’s Nutmeg, not Dada.”). Yesterday morning, however, we had our moment of glory. Andrea was holding TheMonk in her arms and he had not yet seen me. As she turned him towards me, he caught glimpse of me and broke out into the hugest, most excited smile ever and practically yelled out “DADA!” Yes, I floated around the office all day yesterday. I might have told a few everyone in my office about it. Unbelievably nobody complained. (It’s good to be the boss sometimes.) This wasn’t a fluke either as he did it again this morning. It’s about time he finally got it. I’ve only been saying the word Dada about a thousand times a day for a while now.

What’s that? Oh, if you’ll excuse me, my son is calling me. Now if I could just get around the little girl boogying on the floor…