Mama

Almost 2 months to the day he came home, Little Bro started calling me mama (and Appa, dada).  What was noted in Korea as a speech delay has turned out instead to be a mark of impressive and hardcore stubbornness and a fondness for pointing and grunting to get his way.

Not that we've been cracking a whip or anything, but yeah, that wasn't going to continue long-term here.

Within the first month home Little Bro had picked up a handful of words, and in the last month his vocab has exploded. Granted, his most consistent words are a bit random (cheese, turtle, hi, hawk), but he's actually got more words than I care to type out, many of them functional and appropriate for his day to day life, and he loves to repeat anything we say (when in the mood).  He's also a whiz at picking up baby sign language, to the point where I have to go back and review his DVDs to see what he is saying.  He strings together multiple signs and enjoys communicating wants and needs effectively.  He's even using please and thank you consistently.

Cute and polite.  Be still my heart. Did I mention he's got the swagger of the Beibs and the cheeks of a Gerber baby?

But mama, he would not say.  I knew he could say it, as it's so close to omma, a word I heard plenty in our first weeks together, although not in relation to me.  I admit, this last week has grated on me, and I am not proud of the fact that instead of pushing more functional words, I pushed him to use this word; pushed, begged, bribed, and threatened (okay, not really that one).

But that whole stubborn streak...I could see his little lips tightening in a epic battle of wills as he refused to let the sounds pass his lips. Impressive, and pretty freaking scary for me to imagine what sort of show downs Little Bro will be able to whip up when he's 16.

But yesterday after his nap, "Mama, mama" slipped out as I held him in my arms, rushing around to get ready to leave the house.  Before nap = not gonna happen; after nap = sure, your name is mama.  He knew what he was doing, too, as he immediately started clapping for himself. Since then he's being using it A LOT, which I love, although it's mainly when he is whining for something that he busts it out. 

I'll take it though.  Hearing him call me Mama and point to Appa over webchat and exclaim "dada, dada" over and over is another little slice of normal that has fallen into place.  And tonight, as I listened to both of my little sons call my name in their little voices, my heart felt very full (and good thing, too, as they were both actually whining in an attempt to avoid bedtime).