Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there who may be reading this. As it was the first Mother's Day in the MDD household, we wanted to make sure it was special, and I think we succeeded. We happened to have around both modern day mom and the two modern day grandmas which was special, plus we decided to go out to eat on Saturday instead, which proved to be way less crowded and hectic. (As an aside, my sister-in-law, one of the modern day aunts (OK, that's enough - sorry) says that the worse day of the year to be a waiter is Mother's Day brunch, because everyone eating is uptight, not used to going to a nice restaurant, and never tips well. Plus multiple beverages make for a lot of trips back and forth.)
Anyway, it was a good day, and as I was thinking about it this morning, it occurred to me that Madame has given her mom the best gift of all. A couple of weeks ago when we were on vacation and the baby was sick she started saying "mama." At first we were thinking it was really more of a distress call because she was hurting so bad, but the more she did it the more we were convinced that she was in fact associating that word with her mother. The clincher for me was one morning we woke up and her mom went to go make her a bottle and left her with me (like we do most every morning) and Madame was not pleased. I got three straight minutes of "Mamamamama!" that no tickles, kisses or funny faces could distract her from. Once my wife came back thought everything was instantly better.
At first I have to admit I was kind of pissed. Here I am, taking care of her every day, spending most of my waking hours thinking about how to make her happy, entertained, comfortable and generally a better person, and she busts out with "mama" as her first word. Isn't that a kick in the pants? But now that it's been a few weeks I've got some more perspective. I'm happy being the go-to guy for lunch, a diaper change, a ride in the car or someone to pick up that toy that she's dropped. But when her mom comes home and Madame lights up like a Christmas tree and gives her a big "Mamamama!" it's really more of a gift than her mother, or I, could have hoped for this Mother's Day. Hope yours was just as good.