Uh oh.

When William started talking, his first few words were pretty typical for a baby.

"Cat." "Ball." "Duck." "Mama." "Dada." "Bye bye."

You know, the standards. He has a huge vocabulary now--how many other kids his age do you know who correctly use the words "awkward" and "devour"?--but he started out with the basics.

So what does it say about my younger son that his first real word was "Uh oh"?

That's right. Our sweet little guy


















has a little touch of the mischievous about him.

Oh yes he does. Andrew will drop his sippy cup off the tray of his high chair, lean over to look at it and say cheerfully, "Uh oh." Or he'll knock over a tower of blocks and chirp, "Uh oh!" Or he'll plop down on his bottom from a standing position and say, "Uh oh," like a warning, before rocketing off to get into something.

To be fair, we think he has a few other words now, too. He does say "Mama," although rarely on cue. And sometimes he tacks on an extra syllable so it comes out "Ma ma ma." He also sometimse says "Bye!" And the newest one is my favorite: "Cracker." It sounds more like "Kah-kuh" but it counts. He adores Ritz crackers, so we know what he's referring to.

I can't wait until Andrew starts trying to say "William." I know so many people who ended up with little nicknames because their little brothers or sisters couldn't say their first names correctly. In fact, my great-great aunt went by Bib Bib because some other, very young family member (maybe my grandmother, but I'm not entirely certain) couldn't get "Elizabeth" out. I don't know what "William" might end up sounding like, but I guess we'll find out pretty soon.

It does make me a little sad that Andrew will probably not say "CAT!" the way Baby William did. See, we no longer have the cats around our house; Corky and Smokey live at my in-laws' house, where they are treated like royalty. And as such, they are not subjected to the eager hands of small boys who want to pull tails. Andrew's only seen them a few times because they tend to vanish when we show up at Diane and Aaron's house. So they probably haven't even registered on his radar yet.

It should be fun, though, to see what other new words he starts to pick up. Guess this means we all need to be careful what we say, eh?