What do you mean, the kitties don't speak English?

It's so fascinating to me to watch the process of a baby learning language.  The skill is a combination of so many different things.  First there is the physiological process of making sound by moving air through one's vocal cords, and all the numerous elements that into that.  And also is the mental process of recognizing what language signifies.  Certain objects have specific sounds associated with them.  But then once you get past simply naming objects, you learn that invisible things have names too, like "I love you."  I just think the whole thing is so interesting!

Anyway, now that we've gotten the nerdy stuff out of the way, let's move on to the cuteness.  The BabyGirl is in a stage where she immitates every sound she hears.  She doesn't imitate the sound with 100% accuracy, but it's clear enough that you know she's trying, and it's adorable.  When the timer goes off on the microwave, she says, "Beep! Beep!"  When she throws a ball on the floor, she says, "Boom!"

She jibber-jabbers almost all the time.  As she's walking around our condo, or while she's on the floor playing, she keeps up a continuous string of babble.  During a Skype session recently, her Grandpa commented, "Aww, she's really trying to talk!"  The BabyGirl's response to that comment, however, would be, "I'm not TRYING to talk, Grandpa.  I AM talking."  Most of the time she acts as if the things she says make perfect sense.  She'll look me right in the eye and give a long string of sounds, and then pause to wait for my response.  When i don't respond in a timely fashion, she gives a big huff and goes away.

The three of us were at Target the other day and we got into a "Crazy Noises Contest."  It went like this: the BabyGirl said something (in babytalk) totally crazy sounding, and generally pretty loudly.  Then i would make some crazy noises, and we'd go back and forth.  It was hilarous!

During the process of imitating sounds, the thing that we laugh about the most is when she mimics the kitties.  When they say, "Mah-row," she says "mah-row" too!  She copies all the noises they make.  The Professor and i were talking about it, and realized that she has no way to discriminate between the sounds we teach her and the sounds the kitties teach her.  As far as she is concerned, "eye," "book," and "mah-row" are all ligitimate words!  She might be disappointed one day when she finds out that the kitties don't speak our language, and here she is trying so hard to talk like them.
 

Maybe Someday We'll Figure All This Out

Will one of you please distract The Professor so that he doesn't notice I'm not in bed right now?

It's way past my bedtime, and tomorrow i'm going to be whining about how tired i am.  But i can't go to sleep yet, there's something i need to write real quick.  Except i have a feeling that it won't truly be quick.  Twelve minute blog post, my foot!  I can't write anything in less than an hour.

Since i last wrote, i have done a lot of awesome things.  I went to Tennessee for my sister's college graduation, we had a fun Memorial Day Weekend, and i celebrated my 30th birthday.  I've really been wanting to write to you about all these events, but haven't been able to because -

Also in the intervening time since i wrote, we received the devastating news that The Professor once again was turned down for a full-time job.  That means that on three different occasions this semester, The Professor made it to the Top Two candidates out of hundreds of applicants, but the job went to the Other [aka Older] Guy.  90% of you reading this cannot fully comprehend the significance of what this means to us, and also how deeply it affects us.  And this is a quick blog post, remember?  So we won't take the time to explain it to you fully.

Basically the past 3 weeks have been filled with crying and complete loss of hope, interspersed with Big Events That Distract You From Your Real Life.  The weekend of my birthday was like a parallel universe.  I was there, and my friends were there, and it was the same city, but it wasn't real life.  Then on Monday morning when you are back in real life, it's confusing to be so deeply and painfully sad, because the day before you were happy and free and having a great time.

The Professor and I had a long conversation about it this afternoon.  We reached no conclusions during our discussion, and found no answers.  It was helpful to talk through some things, and he made some good points.   

After our conversation, we were so pleased to have an impromptu Great Family Night.  The three of us spent some quality time together with good laughs.  We grilled hamburgers for dinner.  I was hanging out in the kitchen while The Professor was on the porch grilling, and the BabyGirl twirled in circles like a ballerina.  Except she doesn't know the trick of keeping your head pointed at a fixed object like ballerinas do, so she gets dizzy very quickly and falls over in a heap.

We were listening to music, and the song "Someday" by Rob Thomas came on.  It expresses how i'm feeling, and i want to share it with you.  On my first draft of this quick blog post (ha! a quick post shouldn't have multiple drafts), i went into a detailed analysis of the song and why it's meaningful to me in this moment.  I'm going through a prolonged stage of uncertainty, and i honestly don't know if i will survive in one piece.   

Here are the lyrics:

And maybe someday we'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
And try to find a way to make things better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow, someday


Now of course you need to listen to the song for the words to make sense!