Houston, we have language, over.

It's not the Queen's English, not by a long stretch. In fact most of it could not properly be thought of as English at all. But it gets its point across.

Sydney learned, a few weeks ago, to say 'no'. She's been shaking her head 'no' for quite awhile, so it was almost an afterthought when the word came out of her mouth, an emphatic, clear, beautifully simple 'no' which, though I knew I'd come to regret it later, I promptly encouraged. Now she uses the head shake for a different purpose, to indicate that she knows the thing that she is saying and the thing that she is pointing to are not the same. For instance, a hand straight up to the ceiling, a shake of the head and the spoken word: "baby" means: "There are no babies on the ceiling."

It's true, too. There aren't.

"Shoe!" she told me in a plaintive sort of way, the other day, having lost one between the cushions of the couch. "Shoe! Shoe!" she continued to whine, until I retrieved it for her. "Shoe!" she said, relieved.

But we're not done with the language feat yet. She continues to surprise us with just how much she understands, now that she can tell us, in her limited way. We were talking about the kids she'd see tomorrow in playgroup, and we mentioned one rambunctious child by name. "Bmp!" Sydney said, with a sorrowful expression and her hand on her head. I knew immediately what she meant, "yes, he's kind of bumpy, isn't he? But he doesn't mean to."

"Wow!" my husband said. That was a leap we hadn't quite expected to make, given that we're still just on nouns, yet. Perhaps perceiving she'd blown our minds, Sydney safely retreated to known territory, pointing to the ceiling and shaking her head. "Baby!" she said.

No, there's no babies up there. I'm not sure there's any here.