I'm calling it: We've got a first word.

"Up".

She likes climbing the stairs. A lot. (Which I don't seem to have a picture of, oddly.)

We've had a variety of meaning-laden syllables crop op over the past few months; "Da da da da" is clearly me, "Ma ma ma ma" is clearly Heidi. "Waa" can mean either she's thirsty or that she wants to go for a walk. (Baby talk has homonyms? Who knew?)

She says "Yeaaa!" a lot, but I suspect that's more a sound of excitement than an affirmative. And a sound that is best spelled as "nnnnoooooo" usually means she's not happy about something.

So - clearly the language centers of the brain are solidifying. She's certainly making sounds that mean things, but they're vague things, and vague sounds. They're just that - sounds - not words.

Until "Up".

This started a week or so ago. The pronunciation is clear - it has two distinct sounds. Both the vowel and the consonant are in there, and the closing "p" sound is firm. One of the recurring aspects of the other near-words Iz uses is that she'll make the first sound of the word with the first mouth shape, and then just trail off. With "Up", not only is she using both letters, but she's reshaping her mouth while she does it.

And it only means one thing: she wants to go upstairs. She's loved climbing the stairs on her own ever since she learned how to crawl, and now she's got a word for it.

"Up." That's the right direction to be moving, Isabel.