The "first word" conundrum

I always figured that babies/toddlers just one day said a word, and that was that. First word, plain as anything. But this whole business has been anything but clear cut.

To begin with, Sophie made a wide range of noises from pretty early on, but obviously without meaning. For example, one day when she was quite young, she said "yogurt", pretty as you please, but I'm quite sure she didn't mean anything by it. So there was absolutely no intent.

Then, she got into a mimicking stage - if you said something simple, like "mama" or "dada" or "baba", she'd parrot it back, but it was still lacking a certain something. She'd call me "dada", but she'd also call our refrigerator "dada". Very indiscriminate. But she was making the noises on a more consistent basis, so maybe that qualifies? Also, in terms of interest, "mama" or "dada" as a first word is pretty common, so it (like Holly says) lacks panache. (Holly also says her first word was "panache", but I'm not so sure about that.)

So now we're getting into the fun stage. Sophie is starting to associate people/things with words, and she's much more consistent in saying the same words, and more often in the appropriate context. This is where I figure we should be counting first words, and for the honour of first word, I put forth two candidates.

The first: "fan". Sophie loves ceiling fans, and she learned to respond to "where's the fan?" by looking up, even outside, sometimes. There were a few days where she tried to mimic us and say "fah" when we pointed at the fan, and that was pretty cool. However, it didn't stick, which is why I tend to lean towards the second option:

"Book" (pronounced "booh", like "book" but without the "k"). As first words go, I like this one. Simple, classic, memorable, and it follows in the footsteps of her bookworm parents. And what's more, she's sticking with it, and using it correctly. (Mostly. A few non-book things get lumped under the "booh" banner, although it may be that she's just thinking about books.) Holly took Sophie into a bookstore today, and Sophie was wide-eyed, looking around, pointing at everything, saying "booh, booh, booh, booh". Sweet.

There we have it. I say we go with "book", although to be fair, it's a sliding scale.