Mami. How would you say this word? Well, if you were three years old and you lived in our house, you would most definitely not pronounce it the way it was meant, in a lilting spanish-accent "mommy" type way. Because maybe your mom had read to you from a book called "Dora's Treasure Hunt" and pronounced it incorrectly one time, and you were forever stuck on the mispronounced way to say it. Which would be "mammy." Not that I even took Spanish in college, so how am I supposed to know how these things are said? But that's not the point. The point is, if you lived in our house, you would decide that my new name should actually be mammy. Of course since you would only be three years old you would not be embarassed by any "Gone with the Wind" type associations that might be made in your, um . . . mammy's mind. And you would most assuredly not hesitate to run through the store calling "Mammy, mammy!!" as your female parent glances furtively around in embarassment.
And even your father would play along, unknowingly, by saying things like, "He misses his mammy. He just wants his mammy. He needs mammy to read him a story." Then your female parent would shoot daggers with her eyes and not-so-subtly mouth the words "Don't call me that!"
What? You're not a three-year-old living in our house calling me mammy? My mistake, that must have been Joshua I was thinking about.
It's so embarassing. And then several nights ago I was putting Jonah to sleep, and started laughing so hard I was shaking and making a wheezy sort of sound through my nose. I half dropped Jonah into his crib since I couldn't see through the tears in my eyes, and I had to run and find Tim to tell him my revelation. If I had to be mammy, then I would henceforth be calling him "Pappy." Guess who had a faster-than-fast about face on the topic? Ding-ding-ding, you guessed it! The male parent of the household!
Now Joshua gets reminded that I am either Mama or Mommy. Hopefully this will pass soon.
At least Jonah is calling me Mama now. And maybe we won't have issues like this to deal with again for a little while, because I might die from embarassment otherwise.
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