first words? and other baby stuff

i always thought these "firsts" were clear cut milestones - you know, i'd be able to tell musa in five or six years - your first word was "X" and you first sat up on "X" day and took your first steps on "X" day. but it's all so much more "sort of" than i thought. i've picked some arbitrary days - i took a photo with my cellphone on oct 14 when i first saw him really sitting up straight with no hand support, but he had been sort of almost doing it for a few days before that. and he started crawling within the next three days or so. so i say oct. 17.

so two evenings ago - that would be jan . 8!!! - my hubby was playing one of musa's favorite games with him - holding him on his lap standing and letting him bounce, but helping him turn them into great big jumps, and saying "jumpy jumpy jumpy!!" musa loves this. so he was going on with his bayyoo bayyoo babble, when all of a sudden he says, "jumpy!" we both heard it, i am not making this up. but it might have been a fluke. so hubby keeps playing the game, and tries to get him to say it again.
and he does! like three more times!
but, he hasn't said it again since then. he has, however, been saying mamamama, but it's only sometimes, not every time he wants me.

so, is musa's first word, "jumpy"? or is he saying mama?? i would think it's way too early for a word like jumpy. maybe he just sort of accidentally repeated it, like the sound and our reaction, did it a few more times, then forgot how. but he did say it... i can't tell you how cute that sounded...mashallah!!!

poor baby has another sniffle. it wouldn't be so bad if cleaning out his nose wasn't such a battle of screams. butu alhamdulillah.
i am looking for winter clothes for him - now that it's actually getting cold - well, i have warm clothes but i need outerwear, a bunting or snowsuit, coat, booties - and i am monstrously irritated to discover that they are coming out with spring clothes already and if i can't find the right clothing in the right size on the clearance rack, i'm not going to find it at all. i want something that has built in mittens because otherwise there's no way i'm keeping his hands covered. any suggestions?

in other news, i haven't been able to make it to the library again yet, so i'm rereading LOTR again. love it love it love it!!
this time, i have been focusing on the descriptions of middle-earth's lands and regions, and i am awed again at how meticulously tolkien imagined this entire world - did he close his eyes and see the hidden topographies of the Old Forest, the distance between the anduin and the rolling grasslands of rohan as covered by the "three hunters," the magnificent approach to minas tirith? could he stand on any spot in middle eart and look north, east, west, south, and tell what he saw there under the growing Shadow? such a yearning place, the realm of faerie...