the world is my blue oyster cult Juniper has begun saying "mama". She says it when I walk in the room. She says it when she sees my boobs when I'm changing clothes. She calls her daddy "mama", our big black bald friend Paul is "mama", as is our hairy Mexican friend Adam. (It occurs to me that we have steriotypical friends- except our Jewish friends aren't lawyers or anything, just students and secretaries to real estate agents). The cat is also "mama", and she said it to her feet earlier. I don't really see a pattern here. She obviously has no idea that I am her mama. The people/objects that she says it to don't bear any resemblence to me. I'm not big and black or brown and hairy or skinny and male or fuzzy and four-legged. But still, whenever she says it, tears come to my eyes. "Did you hear her? She said 'mama'," I say to my husband, every stinking time she says it. He just nods and continues reading his book about Brian Wilson, or he fights back by trying to coax her to say "dada". But I will always say that her first word was "mama", even if she continues to call the cat mama and later starts calling me "Applejuice" or something. It doesn't matter. |