After months and months of anxiously awaiting this moment, my little friend Reagan
finally decides to call me "mama." Actually it's more like "Mom-Mom" - her own little nickname for me. She has said it in past months by accident, and coaxing, clapping, and making stupid happy faces on my part can only go so far. This girl does not like to be forced into saying anything she doesn't want to. I guess you can say that she not not only has me wrapped around her finger now, but probably fingerS, toes, leggies, and squishy belly as well. It's remarkable that one little word can have such immense emotions attached to it. Every time she says it, my eyes start that annoying "mommy-watering" again and my heart feels full to the brim. Then I remember the talk my parents had with my years ago, as I was entering high school. It's the talk that all parents and teenagers alike dread and when the time comes, they sit and squirm in their seats trying to uncomfortably talk about it it...no, not the birds and the bees talk silly, the "we don't want you to call us mommy and daddy anymore, and instead mom and dad" talk. What? Your parents didn't have that one with you? Shoot. But that's besides the point. I know there comes a time in every parent's life when mommy, mama, or mom-mom doesn't sound so cute anymore - like at the supermarket when they are using it to beg you to buy a certain toy, or yelling at you from upstairs because one of your children has pooped in the bathtub (these may or may not be based on real events in my childhood. Names have been removed to protect the innocent...er, guilty). Well, for now, I say BRING IT ON. For now, I enjoy being at the beck and call of our little princess. She doesn't demand much...just a few squeezes and a pat-a-cake here and there. Nothing I can't handle...for now. Don't ask in a few more years when we are in the line to check out at Target and she is grabbing the gum in handfuls onto the floor as she rolls around in it, almost certainly having some sort of a meltdown while I panic and "calmly" with clenched teeth try to tell her to keep it down because everyone in the store is looking at us as she yells..."but mom-mooommmmmmm... I want the GUMMMM!" Actually, I take that back. Mom-mom? Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
"But mooooooooooommmmmmmmmm-moooooommmmmmmmm!"
