"I Did It!"

Helios' first word was, we think, "Dada." Almost indistinct from normal baby gurgling and syllabic stuttering, this was the sound he made most often. It covered the full range of emotions from "I want that sharp knife out of the dishwasher" to the more predictable "pick me up, big guy, and carry me around on your shoulders!" After a while, it became very specific to Daddy where he'd gesture and caterwaul when he wanted something or someone else, but saying "Dada" when that's who he wanted.

Hesperos has been a little more varied in his speaking, learning to say both "Mama" and "Dada" at the same time and interchangeably. But he doesn't really use them often enough or with any consistency for us to really consider them words so much as nonsense talk. So, when we finally heard his "first words", it came to us with startling clarity.

"I did it! I did it!"

Recently, Hesperos learned (to our dismay) to climb up the stairs, which he does with irrepressible glee generally when we're looking the other way. Then, he gets to the top landing, sits, stares down in a lordly fashion, waves his fist, and yells, "I did it, I did it!"

Now that he's finally interested in walking, Hesperos will creep across the wall. When he comes to the end, he'll turn his sparkling blue eyes toward some adult to look for praise, and gurgle, "I did it! I did it!"

Most amusing (and perhaps most characteristic of the dynamics of their brotherly relationship), Hesperos recently sat behind Helios while Helios was concentrating deeply on his trains. Helios lurched away for mere moments, giving Hesperos the opportunity he needed. With lightening fast movements that belie his pudgy size, Hesperos lunged in behind Helios, grabbed the treasured Murdoch, and promptly shoved it in his mouth, as though to hide it (or at least disgust Helios with enough drool that perhaps he wouldn't want it back).

And what words did Hesperos chew out around a steel toy train that was amassing drool in every gear and rotor?

That's right.

"I did it, I did it!"