Thursday, December 14, 2006

In Fear of Wishful Thinking

Our daughter has started making a new combination of sounds that may, or may not, be her first word. Most of the time, the sounds she makes involve repeating a single phoneme. Sometimes the pitch varies and sometimes it doesn't. Variants on 'eeeee' are the most common, 'though she also frequently makes this 'nguh' noise that I can only come close to duplicating if I keep my mouth closed.

Over the past couple of weeks, she has occassionally said 'aaaaaaeeeeee'. DW has remarked that it is very much like the first time Stitch says 'hi' in the original Lilo & Stitch movie. It also shares many of the same qualities as the enthusiastic, stretched out 'hi's that we're in the habit of uttering when she greets one of us with an enormous, dimpled grin -- talk about joy being contagious! -- or when we find she's already woken up from a nap. She seems to use it appropriately; however, it is like a valuable treasure that she only occassionally allows us to glimpse, so it is hard to be certain.

Nonetheless, I find myself thinking about that 'Aaaeee' a lot lately and it always brings a smile to my face. At first. In about the same amount of time that it takes me to realize that I'm smiling, a voice in my head pops up and tells me "there's not enough evidence yet" and "don't get your hopes up". There's real pain and disappointment in that voice and I know it's just trying to protect me from experiencing more of the same, but it goddamn pisses me off. When did I become such an overwhelming grump? Would it be so bad to give up being a cynic for just a little while?

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