The Cleverest Baby in the History of Western Civilization

9:18 p.m. -- 15 months, 14 days

Forgive the 8-month hiatus, for which I offer no excuses. I'm back at work. Baby A is in many ways a different being, though some traits remain unaltered: her precociousness; her desire for order; her quickness both to learn and to become frustrated; her generally sweet nature. At her 15-month checkup last week -- 36 inches (95th percentile), 24.6 pounds (75th percentile, between 25th and 50th percentile for her height), 19-inch head (98th percentile), entirely healthy -- our pediatrician reminded us that at six weeks he'd noted that she was "a baby in a hurry." That clearly hasn't changed.

Not that we're tracking or anything, but as evidence I present a list of the 180 words used (not just repeated) by one 15-month-old child in an early 21st century bourgeois American household. (Typical 19- to 24-month-olds apparently use 50 to 70 words.) At the insistence of my spouse, proper nouns were included in the count; over my spouse's objections, animal sounds were not. (All proper nouns are relatives except "Keith," a friend of our babysitter's whom she's never met but whose name she apparently likes to say.) Listed in the order we remembered them, the words are intended solely for academic study by linguists, anthropologists, aliens, and family members. The first 45 were recorded on 27 Nov., when Baby A was two days shy of 14 months; the remainder were recorded tonight. Most she has pronounced correctly, though she struggles with "L"s and "R"s and truncates the majority of the polysyllabics ("dishwasher" = "dish-a-sha", "harmonica" = "mon-ih-ka"). But her meaning, at least to caregivers, is lucid. On a couple of occasions she's turned the trick of combining two words: "Mommy nurse" is her favorite sentence.

Oh, yeah: she's also made sign language signs for "more," "gentle," and "sharing," and she's spoken nine letters: B, E, A, O, W, X, Y, D, T.

For sticklers, "duckity" is a family game quite distinct from the noun "duck"; the game's linguistic origins have been obscured by the mists of time.

Hot, hat, heat, cat (meow), baby, daddy, mommy, nose, eye, ear.
Doggie (arf), duckie (quack), bus, more, milk, uh-oh, me, meat, clock, car.
Yucky, yummy, no, bird, buddha, mouth, this, that, these, ball.
Duckity, cookie, geese, down, poop, book, biscuit, toast, you, mole.
Knee, cow (moo), shoes, up, pee.
Hi, bye, chin, cheek, toes, Adrienne, Joseph, Bella, Garrett, feet.
Help, nurse, nipple, boobie, strawberry, carrot, rice, juice, tea.
Ice cream, soup, gas, open, tubbie, oatmeal, smoothie, paper, red, truck.
Butterfly, caterpillar, pumpkin, basket, water, apple, socks, diaper, beef, fish.
Banana, rose, broccoli, happy, bear, music, dancing, monster, gloves, coat.
Yellow, slippers, boots, dishwasher, dish, laundry, lion (roar), monkey (ooo-ooo), sheep (baa), pig (oink).
Clothes, pants, shirt, Craisin, hair, head, we, pen, cup, train (choo-choo).
Tummy, kisses, blanket, drink, muffin, one, two, three, four, five.
Cold, hand, fingers, thumb, ring, sun, bowl, moon, stars, shoulder.
Elbow, flower, some, yawning, fan, bless you, yogurt, button, light, hurray.
Walk, keys, teeth, tongue, go, gate, wall, lemon, popsicle, tractor.
Bead, box, tree, harmonica, drum, owl, bee, zebra, Keith, tampon.
Gentle, beard, phone, laughing, green, circle, on, off, shampoo, bottle.
Snow, penis, shower, splashing, bed.