...you get excited over a simple word like house. Why did I get so excited over the word house? Well, it's because my son, who is just shy of turning 1 and 1/2 years old, was watching his Baby Einstein DVD this afternoon and instantly pointed to the first image to appear and cried out, "House!" I was elated! So much so I didn't believe my ears at first. Then he said it again. And then I was certain, as was he, that he named it correctly. What a joy! Lately, he seems to be making more attempts at saying words but can thus far only manage beginning sounds, such as the [k] in car, though his mouth forms the [ar] blend, it's just that no sound comes out. But it doesn't matter because I'm excited about that, too!

My daughter has since made a proud achievement of her own. For the longest time, she has harboured a slight fear of knives, mostly instilled by us, her parents, as a safety guard to ensure she won't go near one, let alone touch one. But now that she is four, she has mastered the use of a butter knife. Last Friday, her nonna invited us over for dinner and enlisted the help of her sous-chef, my daughter, in making her delicious homemade gnocchi. My daughter is almost a pro at this since she's had more experience than I have had at making them. When she ran out of little balls of dough to roll into the gnocchi shape, she wanted to cut a chunk from the large roll of dough. Under her nonna's supervision, she carefully picked up a blunt serrated knife (for the first time) and cut a piece of dough, and at that very instant she turned around to look at me with a grin from ear to ear and proudly exclaimed with near bewilderment, "Mommy, I did it! I used a knife and I didn't get hurt!" That moment was priceless!