Requested by a guest. I hope you all enjoy! :)

—

The bright September sun was low in the sky, it's rays shining down and peaking through the blinds of the Cooper residence. It was 6 am and Sheldon found himself barely awake with a ten month old that seemed to possess far too much energy for this hour of the day.

"Okay, this is a dog? Can you say that word? Dog?" Sheldon asked, emphasising every sound as he held up one of Emily's cuddly toys. He currently had her sat in the centre of the living room surrounded by various stuffed animals that he was trying to get her to say the names of.

Emily didn't respond in Sheldon's desired way, instead she babbled something inaudible and excitedly reached out for the toy in her fathers hands, she had proceeded to do this with every toy that Sheldon had decided to hold up.

"Are you not going to give me anything?" he asked sounding defeated, looking into her dark brown eyes, if she wasn't so cute he would probably be rather annoyed at the fact this wasn't going his way. He allowed her to play with the toy, the object heading straight to her mouth, it was where most things seemed to end up these days. "No, no, no" he said gently pulling her arm away from her mouth. She laughed and shook her head from side to side. "What about cat?" he asked holding up the toy ginger kitten. "Surely that has to be an easy one"

Emily completely ignored her fathers request and continued to play with the toy dog. She gently stroked the cuddly toy, he found it incredibly sweet that despite not really being around dogs she knew how to behave, carefully petting the toy animal. She was such a caring little thing.

"Oh no, is daddy making you do this again?" Amy sighed with soft laugher, this had been the third time this week that she had walked in to see Sheldon prompting Emily to speak. She crouched down to the ground and scooped up her daughter who was babbling with excitement at seeing her mother, her little arms and legs flaying. "Oh good morning, it's lovely to see you too" she rose to her feet placing a kiss to Emily's chubby cheek.

"How come your awake?" Sheldon asked. It was the weekend and he liked to let Amy sleep in as much as possible. It had been part of their routine since Emily was little and Sheldon had returned to work.

"I couldn't sleep" she shrugged as she shuffled Emily round to her hip. "And I could hear you two out here so I thought I'd come and rescue Emily from one of your speech lessons" she laughed as she bounced the little girl up and down.

"Very unsuccessful speech lessons" Sheldon mumbled.

"Sheldon" Amy sighed as she walked over to the kitchen with Emily and started buckling her into her high chair. "She'll talk when she's ready. We should make the most of it because I'm sure when she starts she won't start" she knew that a future of a non stop talking toddler was on the horizon. "I'm making pancakes, do you want some?"

Sheldon nodded his head, his eyes lighting up. He began to tidy away, bundling all of the cuddly toys he had used to coax his daughter into taking into his arms. Quickly throwing into her room before returning to his wife and daughter.

"You know statically babies should say their first word between 9-12 months old. She's 10 months and we haven't had a hint of mamma or dadda" he explained as he moved around Amy in the kitchen to make tea. "I mean are you sure she's even mine" of course he was joking but Amy knew that he was ever so slightly disappointed that this daughter hadn't broken some amazing record by talking at a ridiculously young age.

"Stop putting pressure on her. She's only a baby" Amy lectured jokingly as she mixed the batter in a bowl.

"I'm supposed to have a genius!"

—

It was two weeks later when Emily said her first word. Sheldon was working on his laptop at the kitchen table finalising a paper he had written whilst Amy was giving the apartment a quick once over.

Now that Emily was crawling, they needed eyes in the back of their heads, considering she was such a small, tiny person she could move like the speed of light, taking their eyes off of her was never a good idea. Amy had lost count of the amount of times she had to divert her out of harms way.

"Have you seen what she's after now?" Amy laughed as she addressed Sheldon. It amazed her how he was able to tune out Emily's whining and continue with whatever task he was doing, maybe it was her maternal instinct but she could never quite switch off.

Emily was currently sat on the floor in the living next to a tier of shelves which contained some of Sheldon superhero figurines. She had her arms outstretched and was kicking her legs excitedly as she whimpered, demanding one of the toys from her shelf.

"She has good taste" Sheldon smiled as he finally looked up from the screen and glanced over at his daughter.

"You can't have those, they belong to daddy" Amy explained as she went over and picked Emily up. She knew how important the figurines were to Sheldon, the last thing she wanted was for Emily to ruin any of them. Emily whined in her mother's arms, her bottom lip trembling on the verge of tears after being told no. "Here, how about if mummy holds it and then you can play with it" she explained. "Nice and gently. These belong to daddy" she told her again as Emily swipedher hand forward.

Maybe it was because Amy had just mentioned how the figure in her hand belonged to Sheldon, but as she was resting on her mother's hip, Emily finally said her first word.

"Da-da, da-da" Amy gasped with excitement and turned around to face Sheldon who was suddenly very much aware of what his daughter had just said.

"Did you hear that?" Amy asked as a smile spread across her face.

"I did" Sheldon stood up from his chair and made his way over to them. It took a lot for Sheldon to abandon science and never once did he think it would a little baby that stole his attention but this was his daughters very first word. It was a special moment.

"Emily, who does this belong to?" Amy asked again as she held up the Batman figure. She wanted to make sure both her and Sheldon had heard correctly.

"Da-da" Emily smiled as she turned her attention to Sheldon, not only was she babbling her first word but she understood what was being asked of her. She could put a face to the name and that warmed Sheldon's heart more than he thought any little human would.

"Oh you're so clever" Amy gushed as she squeezed her and held her close. "Typical, I do all of the hard work and it's your name she's says first" Amy laughed.

"She's a genius" Sheldon beamed. "And she loves batman!"

—

Thank you so much for reading. I really have been so surprised by all of your lovely, positive comments. Thank you so much :)