Happy New Year Y’all,
There are moments where I’m proud of the gains The Kid made in 2018:
- Met her milestones. (new parents: each baby grows in their own time but PLEASE listen to your intuition)
- Crossing over to two- and three-word sentences.
- WALKING. (She walked a couple weeks before her second birthday after months of occupational therapy to get her strength and coordination up)
- She sings which melts my heart every. Single. Time.
- Dancing to Gangnam Style (that was the first time she danced on her own which is a big deal. I’m a children’s librarian, so I do a lot of dancing with toddlers, and that moment, I realized that I could dance with mine.)
- Her eating is my favorite of all the things we’ve accomplished this year. MY BABY LOVES TO EAT! And drink! And eat more. I love it so much.
But that snapshot of goodness does not dismiss the moments where I am ready to pack her up and send her to her Nano (my mother’s chosen ‘grandma’ iteration).
This Kid calls me by my first name.
AND MEANS IT.
Let me set the scene:
Some friends and I are sitting at the dining room table on Sunday playing in makeup. We are trying to get our makeup weight up. (and by we, I mean me, I’m the novice in this arena. I can’t be saying I’m a mom blogger looking like a potato. Albeit, I’m a funny sweet potato). But we’re chilling and giggling and gorgeous and I hear the pitter-patter of The Kid’s feet coming down the hallway. She turns the corner. We make eye contact and she boldly says:
Lina.
(which sounded like wina but we all knew what she meant)
And kept saying it until she got my attention like I was bothering her. THE AUDACITY. I replied, “that’s not my name, you call me mama.” And she gave me this look like ‘Lina, please, you answer to whatever I call you. Don’t be acting brand new in front of your lil friends’ and then walks out of the dining room.
I’m a flexible parent. She’s had a rough 2018. So, I forgive or accomodate of a lot of behavior I never thought I would:
To get her to eat new foods and chew, first we play with it to get her to touch it, then we use it as lipstick. After that, I do a cheer to get her to put the food in her mouth and I have another cheer I have to do to get her to actively chew. Once her mouth is empty, I have to say ‘yay, you did it’ and give her a high five. Every meal is a production. But it’s whatevs because she’s gaining weight.
But the first-name calling I will not stand for. It’s a direct insult to all the love and care and extra tenderness I give her. And for all of you, ‘she hears others call you by your name’ sympathizers. You can suck a pickled egg. She knows my name. She calls her Dad, Dada. She doesn’t ever call him ‘D’ which is what EVERYONE ELSE CALLS HIM. So miss me with that bullspit.
The wilder part is that she’s been calling me by my first name for a while. The first time it happened she was in her crib and wanted my attention. She had been saying mama, but because it was bedtime, I wasn’t responding. So she flat out says ‘Lina. Lina! Lina?’. My husband and I look at each other because we wanted to be in disbelief because we knew the truth. She was calling me by my name.
But for her that’s not my name.
It’s Mama.
I will continue to redirect her to call me mama. But if I’m out in public and she calls me Lina if you laugh, you better be prepared to take her home with you and have her disrespect you where you pay bills.
M’kay.
Parents:
Has this ever happened to you? What did you do when ‘first-name calling’ happened to you?
Non-Parents:
Have you ever called your parent by their first name? What happened? (Obviously, you lived to tell the tale)
Dassit,
Lina.
P.S. day one of the #StrokeYoLetters Challenge is live on IG. 🙂
