My flock
20th January 2010
At almost 15 months, Alice says many words: Bah (ball), wuff-wuff (dog), dah-dee (daddy), no-no-no-no (I’ve taught her to wave her finger like a diva) and nigh-nigh (night-night). She also throws perfectly pitched kisses, complete with sucking her palm, fingers splayed over her face, to produce the drawn out kiss noise.
But her favourite word on the planet is mom.
This comes in many forms: Meh. Mum-Mum. Mumma. Maw. Mam. More often than not, it’s in the form of a question, with a lilt at the end.
She repeats it. Over and over and over. Whether I’m in the room or not. During diaper changes. While playing. In between bites of food. At daycare. Even in the middle of the night, when she pushes the edges of wakefulness — “Mumma?” — then silence as she drifts back to slumber.
She’s like a lost, wandering, confused sheep. Mom?Mam?Mumma? instead of baabaabaa.
Over the Christmas holidays, when this really kicked in, we were at the Pickering Town Centre for the morning. Alice’s questioning call echoed through the entire building, wafting up to the roof and floating down. I was right beside her almost the entire time, smiling and rolling my eyes at everyone snickering at my repetitive munchkin, my skipping CD on two chubby toddler legs.
It’s cute and flattering. It can be annoying. It’s annoying at 6 a.m. when it starts, quickly yanking me awake (doesn’t a child’s call of “Mom?” do that instantaneously to every mother?). It borders on maddening when Lucy takes up the call. Then it’s Marco Polo “Mam?” from two ends of our upstairs, feeding off each other.
Behold my flock of bleating sheep-children.
Mum?
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I’m dying from the lone zeep zorp (my dad’s word for “pig tail”) on Alice’s head. Dying.
Totally loving the retro doctors kit you have – I too have mine from when I was little and the kids love it over their new ones!
Such a cute post. Love the aprons as well.
Love Lucy’s tilted head. They both look adorable in their aprons.
Cutest picture. Ever!
Love the retro doctor’s kit too. I wonder where it came from, hmmmm???
Love to all,
Little Eric and Little Carly are so cute
Mine do it to … “Mum … Mum … Mum ??” Heaven help you if you don’t respond before they’ve finished the question …
Enjoy these years Carly, they are fleeting.
My Mom got the girls the aprons for Christmas from a craft sale. They wear them almost every day. They both love matching things.
We received the old school doctor’s kit from Eric’s Aunt Janice this Christmas, and get a TON of playtime out of it. Lucy likes to measure people’s “hot” with the thermometer, and will spontaneously jab you in the ass with the needle and say you’ve been “‘noculated.” Alice will dig it out of the toy box, hand it to you, then stand patiently with her hands behind her back until you open it.
My two beautiful “Stars”, Nana misses you both!
So glad to know that the aprons are a hit!
Love to all.
A D O R A B L E !!!
You know that scene from “Findng Nemo” where the seagulls are fighting for the crab and they’re all saying “Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!…”
Change “Mine” to “Mum” and I think you’ve got it …
I had that exact doctor’s kit and loved it. One of my other favourite kids toys was my Magic set!