I give up

Mikayla is now 7.5 months old and growing like a weed. She still loves to stand up and refuses to admit that she can sit on her own, though she'll do so for 1-2 minutes at a time when she thinks that Mommy's supporting her from behind (the secret? I'm not.) Lately, she's shown an interest in walking and Alayna loves to hold her hands while they wander, ever so slowly, around the living room. She still sucks her thumb, though I'm getting used to it. I just hope I don't have to cut it off when she's 5 so that she can go to school. Mikayla also loves to watch her older sisters and no one can make her laugh quite like they can. They are the funniest, most entertaining people in her world.

But who really makes her world go round? Not Mommy, though she loves me plenty and has separation anxiety for only me, and I can calm her better than anyone else. No, just like her sisters before her, she's a Daddy's girl. She cries when he comes home from work and she can hear him but not see him (she's done this for months!). She watches his every move when he's within her line of view. She smiles and lights up when he talks to her, calling her Baby.

I could handle all of this, but the last few days have been my undoing. She now says Dada. I was hoping that it was random babbling and she was just experimenting with sounds and noises. But Tuesday I noticed that after the girls or I mentioned Daddy, Mikayla would start saying a-da, a-da. Hmmm, she must just be repeating us, right? Then Daddy came home from work. Mikayla saw him and what comes out of her mouth in a very excited, high-pitched voice? "Dada, dada!" As clear as can be. Since then, she'll say Dada every time that he comes into the room, she hears his voice, we talk about him. It's sickening, really. Not one of the girls said Momma first, and I really thought this baby, our last, was my best chance. After all, she's been saying "Mmmmmmm" for weeks when I try to get her to say Mama, but that's all with prompting. Dada comes with no prompt except the sound of his voice or showing of his face. I've decided that it's just not fair. I give up.