What did you just say?

I think the 80/20 rule applies to baby speech. 20 percent of Mikey's words make up at least 80 percent of his talking. Those words are: nana, dada, bella, mama, yeah, and no. He generally just repeats the word he is thinking about until he has a fresh banana in his little mitts or some other desired outcome.

That's why what happened Saturday morning surprised us. I'm still not sure I heard what I did.

Chris Floyd stopped by in the morning so we could play a round of disc golf at Brushy Creek. While I was getting my discs and shoes together to leave, he was playing with Mikey. Chris asked Mikey, "Where's your ball?" The little guy immediately swiveled and headed over to the fireplace where his toys are stowed. He spotted his quarry, the goofy rubber ball with a puppy photo screened on to it.

"I wanna see the ball," said Mikey as he reached for it.

Jaws hit the floor. Was that what we thought it was? How could a complete sentence just come out like that? Surely it was a perfectly random confluence of basic sounds which, combined with our preconceived notions and context, sounded like a by golly sentence. 

He hasn't spoken like that since, but those of us in the room know what we heard. Our little Mikey is all grows up. I can't wait till he's telling me all about dinosaurs and asking crazy questions about the world.