The Uses of Mama
My son's first real word was Uh-oh.
He picked it up at daycare, along with about sixteen different viruses.
He doesn't use it as a wrinkle-browed apology or mea culpa after he has accidentally dropped or destroyed something. He likes to say it before he takes action, holding a book, hapless stuffed animal, or cup full of liquid aloft. Then he lets it go, preferably with a loud clatter.
He's so clever.
It's incredibly fun to hand him things, say "Uh-oh!" and wait for what my husband calls The Glint of Chaos in his eye. It's a fun family activity, not just because it's bananas, but because we all know what we're saying to each other.
I say it's his first real word, because he can not only pronounce it fully, but accurately assign it a specific meaning. He has bent it a little to his own context, but he knows what it's for.
He's been a little looser on mama, what I had maybe hoped would be his first words. He's been able to string together the syllables for months, but despite pounding my own chest and making manic smiley faces at him to indicate that I am that very mama to which he refers, he doesn't seem to be making that connection.
In the last few weeks, over the course of one of those fabulous viruses from daycare, he has found a highly effective use for mama. He uses it as a distress call. My husband and I have to bundle him in a towel to make his arms and legs immobile so we can insert a plastic syringe into his mouth and squirt foul-tasting medicine into his throat. He screams, wriggles, and fat tears roll down his tiny face and get into his ears, making me wonder if they're going to contribute to yet another ear infection. And he yowls "Mama! Mamaaaa!" whenever he can get a word in around the dreaded syringe.
It breaks my heart. My husband's kind spin is that he is calling me for comfort, but he's not. For him, Mama is the only word he has to say he's not happy, that he's in pain, that he's lonely, that he's outraged and betrayed. He uses it because it's the one that makes me run the fastest and do my very best to make things right. How hard it must be to have so much to say and have one little phoneme and two little syllables to express it all.
He's so clever.
Goddamn it.
He picked it up at daycare, along with about sixteen different viruses.
He doesn't use it as a wrinkle-browed apology or mea culpa after he has accidentally dropped or destroyed something. He likes to say it before he takes action, holding a book, hapless stuffed animal, or cup full of liquid aloft. Then he lets it go, preferably with a loud clatter.
He's so clever.
It's incredibly fun to hand him things, say "Uh-oh!" and wait for what my husband calls The Glint of Chaos in his eye. It's a fun family activity, not just because it's bananas, but because we all know what we're saying to each other.
I say it's his first real word, because he can not only pronounce it fully, but accurately assign it a specific meaning. He has bent it a little to his own context, but he knows what it's for.
He's been a little looser on mama, what I had maybe hoped would be his first words. He's been able to string together the syllables for months, but despite pounding my own chest and making manic smiley faces at him to indicate that I am that very mama to which he refers, he doesn't seem to be making that connection.
In the last few weeks, over the course of one of those fabulous viruses from daycare, he has found a highly effective use for mama. He uses it as a distress call. My husband and I have to bundle him in a towel to make his arms and legs immobile so we can insert a plastic syringe into his mouth and squirt foul-tasting medicine into his throat. He screams, wriggles, and fat tears roll down his tiny face and get into his ears, making me wonder if they're going to contribute to yet another ear infection. And he yowls "Mama! Mamaaaa!" whenever he can get a word in around the dreaded syringe.
It breaks my heart. My husband's kind spin is that he is calling me for comfort, but he's not. For him, Mama is the only word he has to say he's not happy, that he's in pain, that he's lonely, that he's outraged and betrayed. He uses it because it's the one that makes me run the fastest and do my very best to make things right. How hard it must be to have so much to say and have one little phoneme and two little syllables to express it all.
He's so clever.
Goddamn it.
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