Mama Dolittle

Yesterday I was at Children's Hospital for a helmet fitting appointment (10 weeks down, at least 4 to go). We arrived before the office opened so we were outside in the hallway waiting for a few minutes, when I heard someone's voice coming from around the corner...

"Do you like your pumpkin muffin? Of course you like your pumpkin muffin! Should mommy eat her breakfast too? Maybe later mommy will get herself a coffee. Oh looks like we are early like that other little girl and her mommy. Should we stand in the hallway with them? That other little girl has a pink helmet on. Maybe you will get a pink helmet! Would you like a pink helmet? Remind me to do blah when I get home....yada yada yada..."

Todays topic: Crazy Moms

This woman was talking to what I thought was about a 6 month old baby (which turned out to be 10 months and turned out to be walking already - I shit you not I saw it go down in the waiting room and was embarrassed at our walking situation) so loud an obnoxiously so everyone around her (mainly me) could hear her. I did my best to ignore her and go about my business of putzing with my iPad (my new BFF) while Marlo ate some Cheerios, but she kept doing the "that little girl" this and that - which obviously this kid doesn't understand, and is obviously directed at me so that I would give her the time of day.

Of course I was nice and talked back (directly to her and not through my baby) and just silently thought about how crazy this woman sounds...until I stopped at ABP for a tea afterwards.

I stroll up to the tea counter, where there is one other woman fixing her tea, and what do I do????

"What kind of tea should Mommy have? Should I have Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast? Hmmm...feels like an Earl Grey morning! Oh! Maybe I will put lemon in my tea today...that would be different. Boy mommy is hungry. Maybe I will go next door to CVS and get a Pria bar...does that sound good?"

The woman next to me literally goes, "excuse me?" and I almost died inside. "Um, I was talking to my child (who was about a foot behind me in the stroller and was paying no attention to me)...sorry! I talk out loud to her a lot."

It was at that point that I realized that I am that crazy woman from the hallway!! I do the exact same thing to Marlo that she did to her baby. I talk to Marlo as if she is going to talk back and help me make decisions throughout the day. That woman was annoying the crap out of me, and here I am doing the same thing that she does. Talk about throwing stones in glass houses.

Now, I have always done this when it comes to my dog, because I deep down inside believe that one day my furry baby will actually talk back to me. You just wait...when no one is looking she will talk human talk!

Are you Mamas as crazy as I am???

Elegant

One of Hannah’s first words that she said with regularity was elephant. Except she pronounced it “elegant.” For over a year, every time she would spot an elephant she’d point and excitedly say “elegant” and I’ll get this fabulous mental image of an elephant wearing a sparkly gown, a tiara perched atop its head.

I would seek out opportunities to let others hear this little bit of adorableness. You’d be surprised how many elephants there are out there - on tv, billboards, store windows. I was sure (like all parents must be) that any friend or acquaintance, or even stranger on the street wanted nothing more than to hear my daughter mispronounce “elephant.”

And then the other morning, while watching Sesame Street, she pointed to an elephant on screen (who I believe was riding a bicycle and may have been wearing a tutu) and said “elephant.”
“What?” I said, certain I had misheard her.
“Elephant.” Clear as can be.
“Yes,” I said, feeling a little sad. “That’s an elephant.”

And I kicked myself for yet again not capturing on film something that I had KNOWN wouldn’t last forever, and yet had seemed like such a part of her, of who she is, that it was hard to imagine a time when she wouldn’t say elegant instead of elephant.
It sounds like such a cliché (and kind of cheesy), but there really is such a “living in the now” element to having a child that it’s hard to appreciate how fleeting these moments are until they are gone. In fact some of the more difficult phases (teething, bedtime struggles, learning to walk while holding your fingers as, hunched forward, you lurch around behind your child…) seem to go on forever until suddenly they’re over and you look back and think, ‘huh. That was only a month.’

So I’ve started a list of things my daughter says or used to say that crack me up, so that I won’t forget them as I turn my focus to each new phase that seem to be coming like rapid fire now. Here are a few highlights:

Beow – Cat. Interestingly, beows say “meow”
House – Owl. Whenever I ask her if she wants to go back to the house she says “hoo hoo.”
Oggies – Frogs. They say “bibbit”
Fufferfies – Butterflies
Nana – used for: Nana (her grandmother), Anna (her cousin) and Hannah (herself). At the end of the alphabet song, instead of “now I know my ABCs” Hannah says “Nana know my ABCs…”
Apatow – Octopus. So we’ve named her stuffed octopus “Judd”

Any mamas out there have some chatty toddlers with some of these gems? Share them here!