Snoodie said his first word when he was eleven-months-old.
And to be fair, I guess the above statement is only true depending on how loosely you are willing to define the term FIRST WORD.
What Snoodie basically did was babble a series of one consonant-one vowel combinations such as "GA!" "BA!" and "QA!" that eventually lead to the utterance of his actual first word...
..."DA-DA".
And I mean sure, if I'm being honest I was kind of rooting for "MA-MA" as word number one, but I tried not to take it to heart. In fact, according to 13-seconds of exhaustive internet research most babies say "Da-Da" before "Ma-Ma". So no harm, no foul.
Until Snoodie began to speak with a vocabulary limited entirely to one single yet all encompassing word. And that word was - - - "DADDY!"
Which got a little, shall we say, ANNOYING.
I would spend day after day tending to Snoodie's every need only to be met by this same relentless cry.
I'd grab him from bed in the morning and he'd shout..."DADDY!"
I'd make his favorite breakfast and he'd shout...."DADDY!"
I'd schlep to the playground, wearing out my arms as I'd swing him for hours to his joyful cries of....."DADDY!"
You get the idea.
I got desperate. Longing for even a single name-check I started running drills (possibly backed up by the promise of cake for a correct answer).
"Say Mommy."
"DADDY!"
"No cake!"
"Say Mommy"
"DADDY!"
"OK, fine have some cake, we'll try again later."
*cut to later, Snoodie now fueled by a large piece of cake*
"OK, just say Mama."
"DADDY."
Hope had begun to fade as I clung to a final desperate theory. Perhaps Snoodie was not exhibiting a congenital preference for my husband with his uni-vocabulary. Maybe the problem was that he could not physically form the word "MaMa".
And so I devised a test.
"Say Obama."
"OBAMA!"
Yeah, he could say it. He was just choosing not to.
It was a full three months later before I managed to coax out my first "Mommy".
I was elated! I was validated! I was so proud!
I was unaware that I'd made a major miscalculation.
Because once I got my first mommy, let me tell you, IT WAS ON, and I hadn't quite anticipated how the law of diminishing returns might apply to the utterance of "MOMMY" by one's offspring.
Your first "MOMMY" is a wonder. Your 9 millionth "MOMMY", not so much.
As I write this there is a small-blond headed boy tugged on my pant leg and shrieking at the top of his lungs for the dozenth time this morning,
"MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!MOMMY!"
One of these days I'm going to learn to be careful what I wish for.
