Bras and Mamas

Kate came out of my room today wearing one of my nursing bras.

“You have a bra on!,” I said, stating what seemed to be the obvious.

“No, it’s a Moby Wrap,” she clarified. In other words, a baby carrier.

One of the bra cups was centered across her chest and she had a wooden toy orange juice bottle snapped into it. Or rather, a “baby,” as it were.

It was actually quite clever how she could snap in and remove the baby with the drop-down bra cup. Kate’s mothering skills and childcare innovation are on the rise every day. Nothing like being lapped at your job by your two-year-old.

In other news, Paige is talking. Well, only one word really–Mama.

Now, you might think that at three months she isn’t really saying Mama, and I’m just hearing what I want to hear. But Mark’s heard it too. A bunch of times! She only says it when she’s crying, and when she does say it, it sounds quite distinct.

Since I am willing to accept other explanations of what it is that she’s saying (if anything), I’ve considered the possibility that the word Mama was derived long ago from a sound that babies often make while crying. (Granted, I never heard Kate say it when she cried as a baby, nor have I heard this from any other babies I know. I prefer to believe Paige is a linguistic wunderkind.)

At any rate, if my theory is right–that the name Mama came from a common sound babies make–I guess us mothers should just be happy that what our children call us doesn’t approximate a fart.