Eleven is Heaven

There's a lot of things that are great about eleven. It's... Well, it's... OK, so off the top of my head, there is not much to say about eleven. In fact, eleven is pretty nondescript. It's made up of two ones, which everyone knows is the loneliest number. Eleven is half of Seven-Eleven, which I used to hit up for Slurpees when I was a kid back in Chicago, but they don't have Seven-Elevens here in Jacksonville.

Eleven months, though, is way better than eleven the number. There are tons of mind-blowingly awesome things about eleven months. Micah and Malorie are both on the precipice of walking. Micah has actually taken one or two steps a few times. The first time he took a step, I was in Gainesville for MBA classes. Rachel sent me a text message informing me, and that was rotten, but when I got home the next day he did it again for me to see. Micah stands up on his own without holding on to anything all the time too. Malorie's a bit slower with the standing and walking on her own, but she loves to walk about the house holding my hand, which is just as fun for me.

Another great development happening at eleven months is the rapid learning. Micah and Malorie have started truly mimicking each other. For instance, if Mal hears a song and starts dancing, Micah joins in. If Micah snarls and makes a snorting noise, Malorie does it back. They have begun to elicit us to play games with them too. Micah will come up to me with a basketball when he wants to play. And both kids will go straight to the off limits area of the living room and start shaking their heads before Rachel can even tell them "No." Both kids have also become very proficient at sticking their tongues out. Unfortunately they have not yet learned not to do it at church during communion.

By far my favorite thing about eleven months is communicating with the twins. Micah has learned new signs like "bath" and Mal signs more and more each day. Malorie said her first word too. She loves chasing her brother, and as she does it, she now yells out, "Cah. Cah," until she catches Micah. Then, she either pats him or knocks him over, depending on why she was chasing him in the first place, but either way she keeps saying his name as she does it.

As cute as it is that Malorie's first word was her brother's name, Micah is simply not into cute. His first word was not Mal's name... we don't think. I put video of Micah and his first word below, because we simply can't figure it out. Our best interpretation is "Duka," which we are aware is not a real word. But he says it so convincingly and repeats it so much that we think he is trying to tell us something. We have tried everything reasonable: book, look, duck, do good, dog, and I even tried Ditka (Just in case he takes after his father, who once started a chant of "Ditka, Ditka" for Da Coach at a Monday Night Football game he was announcing). However, he has not responded to us like we've understood him correctly yet, so we just keep trying. He has been telling us "duka," for about a week and a half now.

So, as you can see, even if eleven the number is pretty lame, eleven the month is cool as all get out. Now, is there any way I can get a Slurpee around here? Hey, maybe that's what Micah's been trying to tell me...