Daddy was changing your morning diaper one day last week, a task that couldn’t take more than six or seven minutes, and in that span of time, you said “Momma” thirty-two times. 32 times! I’m tempted to tally the number of Momma pages that might accumulate in an entire day, but I don’t think I have the endurance. You have recently needed me around a lot more, wanting me to pick you up and hold you and have been more hesitant to let me out of your sight. I cannot even go to the bathroom or shower without regular hollering check-ins from you just outside the bathroom door. It is madness! Daddy has been trying to help me by saying that it is worship and how great it must be to be worshipped. It is more like abject need, and I don’t know how great that is. I can’t possibly be your source for everything, and it’s a little stressful. I am trying to be mindful that a time will come all too soon when you won’t want much to do with me, and I will miss hearing my name chanted regularly.
Lately, you are also a bit more insistent on some sort of acknowledgement from me. You say, “Momma,” and I have to say, “Yeah, sweet potato?” or something like that. Then you babble some short statement that is usually—but not always—incomprehensible to me. It’s really sweet; it’s as if you are specifically addressing me and then telling me something that’s on your mind. I think you’re steadily creeping up on becoming conversational, and I am certain you have some things to share.
Ya-Ya said,
May 24, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
My thought about this is that Oliver is in a particular developmental stage – it is most reasonable for him to want to be reassured that all is well by confirming (and reconfirming) the familiar both before and after a period of asserted independence. Momma is inevitably that touchstone. As I recall, the “terrible twos” are really a series of about 4-6 month periods alternating between seemingly fearless reaching out to new and scary experiences, and a seemingly pitiable reaching back to be certain that the old security regime hasn’t been lost. Parents of course, alternate between fear that the new will bring harm, and frustration that the retreat is a permanent developmental regression. Parents need to remember that both stages are essential to moving forward.