More Madeleine babbles

Madeleine is really honing her talking skills, using her new words more and more frequently. She seems to have dropped "ball" like a bad habit, but I'm sure it will re-emerge once her newer words have become old news. She is pretty consistently labeling Ethan and I; when she sees Ethan, she'll squeal "DA-da!" in delight, whereas she prefers to use my name as a lament, particularly when I'm standing in the kitchen and she's gated into the dining room. "Ma-maaaaa! Ma-maaaaaaaa!" she'll wail from her prison, broken-hearted that although I am in her eyesight and just a few feet away from her, we're separated by wooden slabs. And though we have not had any more success getting it on video, she HAS said "baby" for a number of people now, so at least we have witnesses. Usually she'll pick up one of our many baby dolls and proclaim, "Beh-bee. Beh-bee," as she flaps it in her arm excitedly and bonks its plastic head on the hardwood floor. It's a good thing she knows that word, seeing as she is newly an aunt to sextuplets, one of whom was named after her.

Unfortunately, she has not yet given up "shit." We had the following conversation yesterday:

MADELEINE: (holding up her shoe) Shit.
ME: Shoe. That's a shoe!
MADELEINE: Shit.
ME: Yeah, it's a SHOE.
MADELEINE: Shit.
ME: Shoe.
MADELEINE: Shit.
ME: Yeah, close. Shoe!

At least she has the starting consonant blend so that it shouldn't be too hard to tweak the ending when she does finally decide to switch from "shit" to "shoe." Hopefully that day will come sooner than later.