Gra-gah

It may not be obvious in writing, but "Gra-gah" is Nicholas for "cracker." Try saying it out loud (with a somewhat guttural second g) and you'll see. (Joe thinks it is closer to "ca-ca" so obviously this effort at phonetic spelling is not precise.) And this word only applies to graham crackers. (It reminds me of the story my grandmother always told of me as a little kid insisting that only chocolate chip cookies counted as "coookies.")

I don't know if it is technically his first word, because he has been saying bunches of things recently that seem to be efforts at words. The other day in the grocery store, for example, he repeatedly said "ap-pa" as he reached for apples. (And, yes, I let him get some apples even though I wasn't planning to buy any because if he asked for them by name he got the reward of putting them in the bag.) And in this video he is working on saying "block," although I don't know whether or not he actually got it. (As a side note, you can see his new very serious nod "yes." He is actually really good at using this in conversations in the perfect place, usually leading us to break out laughing.)

He has a bunch of other things that seem like words at the time but then I start to second guess because he isn't consistent with any of them. I am only now counting cracker because he has used it deliberately on multiple occasions over a span of days. But even that he only uses about 1 out of every 10 times he wants a graham cracker. The rest of the times he whines and looks longingly towards the counter where they are stored.

This whole "firsts" thing is hard because (at least with Nicholas) it is really ambiguous. When was his first step? I certainly don't know and frankly am not sure how to answer the frequent question of whether or not he is walking yet. And, yes, I know that it really doesn't matter at all.