It happened on July 14. Lucy had been gone to Atlanta for the always-exhausting market and was due back that night. In the morning I called the Mattingly's because it had been a long time since Libby Lee had gotten to visit with dear Margaret and it was so good for both of them. (And single dad was needing to focus the 22 month's attention elsewhere, for at least a precious few minutes)
After I made plans on the phone and hung up, Libby Lee — who was sitting beside me on the couch proclaimed "Mar-get!" I'd said "Margaret" on the phone probably twice. And that was the day something clicked, and the girl started spitting words back at an incredible rate. Previously her internal vocabulary had been impressive, but her spoken words were confined to a slowly-growing few dozen.
On July 14, the river began to run and there was no turning back. After visiting "Mar-get" (and later also proclaiming "Buzz," — the dear Mr. Mattingly), we headed to the airport to get Mama. We were a little early and I decided to occupy some time by having us go to the top of the airport parking garage to watch the planes land (yes, I am an amazing dad). To take up even more time, we took the stairs — slowly, of course. I said "C'mon, baby," then quoting AC/DC, since I'd been learning some on ukulele: "'It's a Long Way to the Top if You Wanna Rock-n-Roll.'"
And she exuberantly proclaimed: "Rock ah roll!"
And we've been rockin' and rollin' ever since.
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