Say My Name

My daughter, Lucy, has a new name for me: Mom. Not Mama, or Mommy or even, my favorite, My Mommy, but the plain vanilla, one syllable simple Mom.

Hearing myself referred to as Mom for the first time stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly both of us aged a few years. I always associated Mom with the name for a mother of older children, but my kids are just 3-years-old and 13-months-old --too young to call me Mom, which in my estimation is reserved for kids aged 5 and up. So by that logic, I just aged a few years and that’s something I’m not ready for.

And I’m not the only one getting called by an abbreviated moniker these days. My husband is now Dad – no longer Daddy. I think we are both hoping this is just a phase, that Lucy will revert back to her old, sweet littler kid names for us and then swing back to using Mom and Dad again when we are all a couple years older.

It’s funny how taking the cute vowel sound off the end of Mommy has my mind reeling. I guess that because I associate Mom with something older children say, it’s a reminder that every day, Lucy and Isaac are getting a little bit older, that they won’t always be so dependent on me and their father for everything. One day, they’ll get on the school bus – oh, how I’m already fretting about that day – and the next thing you know, they’ll be off to college.

Of course I want all those good things to happen, but can’t I be Mommy for a little while longer? I’m happy to be Mom for many, many years but I’m just not quite prepared for such a big kid-sounding phrase coming out of my baby’s mouth. All in due time, thank you very much.