My Daughter's First Word

We were sure her first word would be "mama." My wife had been practicing with her for weeks. I had secretly been practicing "dada" during diaper changes.

Instead, one morning at breakfast, she pointed out the window at a robin on the fence and said, very clearly, "bird."

We both froze. Then we cheered so loudly that she started crying, which made us laugh, which made her stop crying and stare at us like we'd lost our minds.

Now she's three and she knows the names of eleven birds. She stops on every walk to listen. She makes me stop too. I used to walk to work with headphones in, looking at my phone. Now I notice the cardinals and the crows and the little wrens that live in the hedge by the bus stop.

My daughter taught me to look up. I didn't know I'd forgotten how.