She speaks.

Well, I think we can call it. We've moved past nothing but meaningless babble, and I think we can officially sign off on Winter's first real word.

For a while there we thought it was going to be 'da,' meaning 'dad,' because she'd quite clearly say it when pointing at me. But when we noticed she'd also say it when pointing to CK, we pretty quickly changed our minds.

And so, Winter's first word is [drumroll] (no, not 'drumroll', but how cool would that be? Not as good as dodecahedron, but still pretty good)... [um, another drumroll] it's... 'Ma.'

But before you ladies all start high-fiving each other like it's some kind of competition (alright, it is a competition), 'ma' does not mean 'mum,' but 'Thelma,' as in Thelma the cat.


Thelma is Winter's favourite friend, and few things will get her as excited as Thelma padding into the room. Winter only needs to hear her bell tinkling in the distance and she'll look around and say, "Ma?" And Thelma seems to like Winter too, because despite Winter's rather uncoordinated patting (which is more like a game of Whack-a-Mole), Thelma will always come up and lie down next to her, patiently enduring her attention.

And Winter's favourite stuffed toy, an orange cat called Comma, has also come to be called 'Ma,' although we've realised 'ma' is just Winter's word for 'cat.' Still, the '-ma' connection to her two favourite cats is a nice coincidence all the same.