Today we were finally able to finalize Hunter’s adoption. What a wonderful experience. We don’t have very many pictures, but there are a few. I feel relieved to be finished with the uncertainty, joyful to be privileged enough to have Hunter join our family and thankful to Heavenly father for blessing our family and paving the way for our wonderful boy to find his way to our home.
Sometimes all I have is photos or videos. I hope no one hates me for not writing as much lately. I have a few stories in the cue, but not time to type them up. Today we went to a park and took some photos too. Here are a couple of them.
There are a specific set of milestones each new parent watches for as their infant transitions into toddler-hood. There is crawling, pointing, chewing, walking, and even speaking. By the age of twelve months a burgeoning toddler is expected to have approximately 3 words in her repertoire. For awhile it seemed like our little Skye was exploding with new words like “daddy,” “mommy,” “uh-oh,” “kitty,” and “no!” But then it became apparent that some of these words may have been mostly wishful thinking on our part. Don’t get me wrong, we really heard them, but some of them turned out to be one hit wonders and they fizzled into oblivion; vanishing completely.
When Skye started saying “uh-oh” every time she unintentionally, or, et-hem intentionally dropped something it was a revelation to me that I say “uh-oh” much too often. When Skye started pointing at things, it was always to show us the “kitties.” It didn’t stop there though; she pointed at the clock and called it “kitty,” she pointed at the plant and called it “kitty,” and she pointed at the picture of one of the cats that I have hanging on the closet door in my office and said “kitty.”
Naturally, I was very excited to see that she recognized a photo of Dora the cat. It was based on this observation that I decided to try a little game. If she recognized the picture of the cat maybe she’d recognize the photos of herself, Hunter and Daddy as well. So I began asking her “where’s the kitty?” and she would point to Dora’s picture and proudly say “kitty.”
“Where is Skye?” sure enough she pointed to her own picture. Then I asked “where is daddy?” She hesitated for a few seconds then tried to rip the photo of daddy off the door. That’s close enough, right? She even seemed to know which picture was Hunter’s. Yay!
Now here’s the thing, although most of us won’t admit it there’s an unspoken competition between us moms and dads to be the first to hear that golden word; either “mommy” or “daddy,” respectively. So I’ve been vigilantly repeating “mommy” and “mama” over and over again in the hopes that I would be victorious and claim the implicit honor (of these most important bragging rights). This is why I was totally thwarted when Skye called out “daddy! daddy! daddy!” before uttering the word “mommy.” This is also why I was heartened when she said “mama” only a few days later. And this is why I was eventually disillusioned when “mama” disappeared altogether. Dang.
Then one morning Skye and I were going about our ordinary routine as we do every morning. Yet this morning was different, because as I commenced the changing of the diaper ceremony she looked up at me with big brown eyes, smiled, and said… drumroll… “daddy.”
I laughed, then told her “Wait a minute here. I’m not your daddy. I get that I lost the race, but I’m your mommy, M-O-M-M-Y” I made sure to open my mouth really wide and pronounce the word very clearly. “got that?”
“Daddy,” she replied.
It was useless arguing with a thirteen month old. She’s got the names of three things down very firmly and she’s not going to budge on them. What’s in a name? I’ll tell you the answer, Everything! I hope she starts calling me the right name soon. This whole name mix up could get embarrassing in a few years.
