So there haven’t been many updates recently. Serena was on winter break, and since I usually write my updates when she’s either at school or at work, I haven’t really had time to do anything. And Serena usually does her updates, well, never.

Little has been going on. Odessa had a doctor appointment yesterday. Wasn’t that exciting to hear all about? Odessa still likes her mother about thirty times more than me(I guess I can’t blame her). That doesn’t really bother me. She likes me a lot when it is just her and I, but when Serena is around she prefers to stay near her mother. She will even sometimes cry when Serena hands her over to me. Even that doesn’t really bother me. However, the fact that she reaches out to every single strange woman she meets and begs to be picked up is something that I could do without.

And this is true. Any random female she runs across she flails out her arms, beckoning for salvation. It could be the grocery cashier. Or the nurse for her appointment. Every woman she sees when being carried down a hallway. It’s ridiculous. But give her to her father and the tears come out. Of course this has something to do with the fact that she is highly suspicious of men in general.

We have been trying to get Odessa to say things. She babbles incessantly, but none of it makes any sense to us. However, we are very proud to declare that she now consistently uses a word to refer to something. Yes, she learned the word ‘da da’, or at times, ‘daddy’. Isn’t that great?

Except she doesn’t exactly use that word to refer to her father. No, when she says ‘da da’ she is referring to a green octopus with a goofy smile, pink spots, and a single solitary triangle-shaped tooth–an image of which adorns a side of a play tent my mother bought her for Christmas. Thanks, Mom.

Every time she sees the eight-limbed apparent patriarch, she gets excited, uses her long index finger to point, and says ‘da da!’. Did I mention it has a triangle tooth? Her first real word association. What a milestone to remember.