Sometimes you’ve got to have a quickie. And by quickie, I mean a short post. I need to master this skill outside of Facebook, because I love to write, but most of what I am writing these days looks and smells like research. It’s dry. It’s a bit dull. Sometimes I throw bad words and humor in just to entertain myself when I edit the first, second, third draft. It’s a little pathetic, like talking to myself. Or liking my own posts. Or tooting my own horn.
So, in quickie style, I just have to share a short story that makes me laugh. Life is too short not to laugh. Bet you never heard that one before.
I am a mom. I am going to assume you probably already know that. I have a kid (hence the ‘mom’ title) who was once a baby! Isn’t that weird?
That’d be perfect if my story ended right there.
But, there is an actual tale to tell. My husband managed to go on a few trips for work when she was just a wee infant with frequent constipation and an uncanny ability to bark. On one of these trips, when my daughter was … hmmm … maybe 10 months old. When do they start talking? It all seems to be a big, exhausting blur (of rainbows and ponies and happiness, in case you are trying to conceive).
Anyway, she was verbal, but not very. She was mobile, but not entirely. Cute as a button that child. It was my first week alone with her, we were getting along pretty well, other than the fact that I was a typical super sleep deprived mommy (who always ALWAYS ran into people who just HAD to share with me how well their babies slept, saying ridiculous things like “my baby slept through the night since her first week.” Oh shut up. That is not true. And if it is, I say, a plague on your teenage years!”).
My daughter and I were sharing a lovely moment, post bath time, pre bed time, snuggly, squishy baby time. She fondly looked into my eyes, I looked back into her’s, and she said, “Mommy die.”
“Uh, what honey bean?”
“MOMMY DIE! MOMMY DIE!”
And then she began to giggle. Maniacally. Actually, I don’t think it was maniacal, but it makes for a better story. I had an instant where I was sure I was living in a Chuckie movie or the little Exorcist girl had somehow gotten into my house.
“No, honey. Mommy’s right here.”
Sweet smile. Hiding my horror.
“DIE MOMMY DIE MOMMY DIE MOMMY!”
She laughed like she had just invented the whoopee cushion. I eventually distracted her with the same book I had already read 2000 times before and she went to sleep (for an hour or two) like a dream.
I did not.
I lay awake the rest of the night, wondering if it was a prophecy. Or a wish. Was she going to murder me while I slept? I mean, if she could get out of her crib.
Note to self, mommies of the world. Babies can say certain sounds first. They will likely say “DaDa” before they say “MaMa.” That’s bad enough, when you feel like you’ve been ripped apart and sewn back together as some Frankensteinian cow woman. But then, then…then they discover “Die.” It probably means nothing. It just sounded fun to her developing mouth.
(or so I keep telling myself)
But, one day when she’s 13 I will remember that evening. I will think to myself, “Oh my God, she DOES want me dead.”
Just wait.
Bubble Head 