Linguistic milestones

Just over the last couple of days, Fiona has started babbling: "bwa-bwa-bwa-bwa" and "ma-ma-ma-ma". They're still not words yet, but she has discovered that she can make these different sounds with her mouth, and she is experimenting with the effect they have on us. The effect is generally that we go over and pay attention to her. The other effect is that we've reverted to saying "bwa-bwa-bwa" a lot ourselves, so the (little known) Law of Conservation of Linguistic Ability remains inviolate.

Also, as I was strapping Alex into his car seat at the supermarket on Sunday, he sang the alphabet song ("A-B-C-D-E-F-G..." etc.) all the way through--perfectly. He doesn't recognize all the letters by shape yet, but he can almost find all of "A-L-E-X" on a computer keyboard. He'll type before he can write.

Another amusing (predictable, but amusing) thing is that he pronounces the letter "J" the Edinburgh local way. Which is not "Jay", but rather "Jiy": sounds like "eye", but with a "J" at the start. He's already speaking with a local Gilmerton accent.