fittingly and finally, Mommy

not much of a surprise conrad's first accidental word was DaDe, his first intended word, Da, and his first two syllable word, Daddy. literally, from the first seconds of conrad's existence outside of my womb there was a connection between him and his father. a "hi, conrad" followed by two just opened eyes looking intently in the direction of his fathers voice. everyone in the room knew he knew, it was no coincidence.

as his language skill has developed, slow but steady, there has been:

elm, elma (elmo)
nahnah (juice)
op...n (open)
a-ba (bath)
gee (keys)
buh (bug)
bee (for both bee's and the beach)
dub (thank-you)
dub-dub (here you go)
we (weeds, he is absolutely OBSESSED with pretending to weed eat the grass with the toy weed wacker i got him from a yard sale. i shit you not, some mornings he wakes up asking for "We")
me (conrad referring to himself)
wal (walk)
wah (water or waffles)
pah (grampa)
mah (either me or his gramma)
mil (milk)
nack! (snack)
arbe (arby's)
yum-me (yummy)
teh-e (his teddy bear)
swee (swing)
par (park)
help
up
down
hat
go
daddy
beetle
mow
bleh
bubba
ba-be
ball
more
NO
yah
hi
bye
hot
one
two
thwee (three)
fhour
ive (five)
ate (eight)
nihn (nine)

and almost every animal noise you can possibly think of plus a plethora of other various words that are hit and miss with consistency.

but if you noticed, I, the women who carried him for 9 long months, spent 16 hours in labor with, nursed him from sore, infected nipples, for 10 months woke up in the middle of the night to tend to; I, the women, who pureed his first foods by hand, spent countless hours every day stimulating him with various sounds and smells and sights and rhymes instead of putting him in a baby swing to exist, who has changed what seems like thousands of his God awful diapers (while making lovey dovey faces none the less), having had spit up in my hair, on my blouse, in my mouth; I, the women, who has bitten cherry after cherry in half for him so he wouldn't choke on the pit, scrubbed crap off his crib, on a daily basis has read the same book ten times in row for, been brainwashed by thomas for, let clip my toe nails with real clippers, spent hours outside searching for bugs with, and has dedicated the remainder of her life to his happiness and well being; I, that same women, up till this afternoon only been referred by an occasional bubba and the same word he calls his grammas.

then something happened i have been waiting for since the day i found out i was going to be a Mommy, this afternoon he finally said, "Mommy". a perfect, two syllable, "Mommy". me. his mommy.

there in the mall i stopped the stroller and in front of store front windows and doors, with people all around me, i dropped down in front of him and made a complete fool of myself as he repeated it over and over again for my amusement.

add it to the "I, the women", the mommy.