"doGGGGGGGGGGG"

And so we have the long awaited first word. By this, I mean word as in related to an object rather than a cute sound that we take as an indication that she recognises her parentage.

Somewhat bizarrely, since we don't own one, see many or even much like them, it is "Dog". Alice has long loved her "Babies" book, but now that it has completely disintegrated through affection, we have moved onto "Dogs". Although she has been saying Da-da for an annoying long time (even before Dada joined us on our holiday and when she hadn't seen him for three weeks), she seems to have temporarily misplaced the "d" sound. I took her to the beach yesterday and although dogs aren't allowed on the sand, some walked past on the footpath. Although she was supposed to be enjoying a picnic of meatballs and sweet potato chips - I have decided it is far less dispiriting when she refuses food if Stu and I get a meal out of my cooking too, rather than her eating a lovely fillet of fish in cheese sauce and us having Chicken Tonight - she spent the whole time pointing at the "Ggggg"s.

I've been concertedly avoiding baby talk and enunciating (too) beautifully. It would seem that the final letter of the word is what sticks in her mind. However, there was no mistaking the objects of her affections. Our next Baby Einstein book is "Birds". Or "those bloody birds" if you listen to her mother at 5.30am each morning. I wonder if it will be the word or the phrase which will catch on.