My Daughter's First Words

I have a daughter, much to her chagrin (mine as well). She's 4. Cute as a button. Bright. Not a big fan of mine. In fact, l can still hear her very first words as though she was saying them at this very moment.....

She had been trying to speak for a while, making those babbling sounds that sounded as though they wanted to be words but had no idea how to become them; unrealized potential uttered by an idiot savant in a diaper. She had come very close on a few occasions, once even possibly saying "mommy" but it was too hard to call so we decided not to officially declare that as her first word, opting instead to wait for something that was undeniably a fully articulated English word. And then it happened. She had been playing with her blocks, seemingly unfazed by any of the events surrounding her, when all of a sudden she looked up at her mother, then myself, then her mother again, dead in the eyes, and whispered, softly but very clearly, with the inflection properly placed at the last syllable of the word to denote the asking of a question, "Why?"

If she'd had the ability to, she would have said "Why him, Mommy? Why?" but still, the question she was asking was very clear to us both, and unfortunately for her there was, and still isn't, a sufficient answer. I guess the best I could ever hope for is to just stay out of her way as much as possible and try really hard not to ruin her now or embarrass her later.

Poor thing. You never do get to choose your parents after all.