For a long time Boo hasn’t bothered to call me anything. He’s been calling Daddy ‘Dadadada’ for a while and, more recently, ‘Dadt’ (not sure why the extra ‘t’!). For a while I was also ‘Dadada’. We thought we heard a ‘mm’ sound a couple of months ago but that was quickly dropped to make way for more important sounds like ‘b’ (useful for ‘bus’, ‘bird’, ‘book’ and ‘ball’ – all infinitely more interesting than poor mama). However, a few nights ago, at 3am after 3 wakeful hours and clearly realising he was pushing his luck, Boo came out with a perfect ‘Mama’. It worked. My grumpy, I-can’t-believe-you’re-still-awake mood melted away and I found a whole new store of patience and joy. Since then he has said it a lot. First thing in the morning I’m greeted with a joyful ‘Mama!’; while he’s in the sling he pokes my nose, saying ‘Mama, Mama, Mama’; at random intervals throughout the day he looks at me from across the room, points and exclaims ‘Mama!’. It’s wonderful. I am Mama.
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Isn’t it wonderful when that happens? Jake called me Daddy until about 2 months ago, when the penny dropped. Now he calls me Mummy, my other half points out that at least he associates Mummy with me only. He still calls all sorts of people Daddy, and once shouted Daddy at a bloke walking by our window on the street!
Hehe, yes Thomas called the guy who runs our favourite cafe ‘dada’ the other day – he was a bit embarrassed, especially as Daddy was actually there!
‘Mama’ has already become a way to issue commands: ‘Mama raaaah’ means ‘Mummy, please pretend to be a tiger and chase me up and down the landing’