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'Mom! Hey, you! Mom!'

Most of Willow's first year on the planet, she said one word more than any: "da-da."
She said it with an angelic innocence, like a tiny bell ringing on a Christmas tree. When I heard "da-da," my heart warmed a degree or two, and any anxiety I had melted away from the tension in my back. "Da-da" lifted me, and the world, it seemed, into a peaceful place.
Willow doesn't say "da-da" much anymore.
That angelic utterance has been replaced by a much more guttural one: "mom!"
That's right. Not "mommy" or "ma-ma." And there's no angel's tone or Christmas bells in there either.
When Willow bellows "Mom!" I detect the raspy saltiness of a Bostonian lobsterman (as in, "Mom, I left the behr in the cahr! Fetch it for me, willyah!"
And Willow's intentions aren't far from that lobsterman's.
An example: We have a foot stool in the bathroom now, so Willow can step up to the sink and watch herself brush her teeth. She loves stepping up to this stool and brushing her teeth (like a thousand times a day). While Willow can step up on the stool, she can't reach the toothbrush. Whether Willow's mommy is in the house or not, Willow will step up on the stool and start barking, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" She might pause for two seconds before starting again, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" On and on until Mommy or I gets the toothbrush for her.
Willow never has said "Mommy," and she uttered "ma-ma" only a few times, mostly when Cherish was harassing her with a face-cleaning or some other invasion into our toddler's life.
And Cherish and I have no idea where this terse "mom!" came from; we've always referred to Cherish as "Mommy." We also don't know why I get bell tones while Mommy gets the lobsterman voice. I know Cherish would give anything to hear a cherubic "ma-ma" slip from Willow's lips.
I know one thing, though. Willow is a smart one. Crafty. She knows her parents.
Maybe she knows the best way to get Daddy to do something is to ring the bell, and maybe she knows the best way to get Mommy to do something is to scrape out a salty tone.
If Willow only knew what Mommy would do for a Irishman's brogue or a Scotsman's tongue.

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