Finding Her Voice

I've been listening to these little cherub voices for so long now that I almost forgot the steps it took to get here.  It wasn't like they just sat up one day and said "Me no be silly and tissa in my khaikis, that baby stuff."  It was a progression of babbles and sputtering. ... kind of like starting up an old VW. ... it backfires and shakes and spews unidentifiables before it gets the familiar whistling/hum that we all recognize as Herbie.  And Rosaline is turning that key now.  She's found the sound potential in her vocal box. ... and she is working the crap out of it.  The other morning she woke up around 3AM to feed and Gina laid her next to me on the bed so she could reorganize life.  I rolled over and was greeted by those big blue eyes about 2 inches from mine and she launched right into a full blown discussion of god knows what. ... but she was very excited to tell me about it.  Yesterday I was changing her butt and we took nearly 15 minutes because we got so enwrapped in a dialogue.  Genevieve even climbed up on to the bed and joined us. ... unfortunately she wasn't able to translate.  I've got this opinion that babies know the secret to life, they just can't communicate it with the rest of us, and by the time they learn English (or what ever language you speak) they've forgotten what it was.  Genevieve is so out of practice with baby jibber that, she too, could not access the infinite knowledge stored by the young sage in the soiled diaper.  The down side of the voice is that the cry is no longer a simple cry.  It comes with a squeal and a scream and sometimes a gurgling sound that makes you jump from the couch, over the dog and somersault across the bed only to realize she's still asleep and not, in fact, dying some horrible death.  Also the "angry" baby sounds much more angry when the voice is behind it.  But it's a fair trade.  Nothing is as cute as the new found voice.  And to watch those babbles transform into words transform into sentences transform in independent thoughts and such classic conversations as "Me make a momma kakka and a baby kakka in the potty. ... now me get two m&m's?" .... it makes parenthood the most beautiful, shit covered experience in the world.