ATE?

I did a favor for Create and substituted for a teacher yesterday. (I'd eat fire for those people if they asked me to, but that day covering for a sick teacher was enough.) Sophie's Yaya Chari told me that while I was gone, Sophie stared at a black and white portrait her ninong Jace had taken of me a few years back. She sat and pondered over my picture in silence, probably with her funny serious face that makes her nose look as if it were a growing mushroom. A cute button mushroom at that. After a long, drawn-out moment she finally opened her mouth and said, "AAaaaaa-te."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I don't know what my sentiments will be twenty, thirty years down the line. I suppose one day it will be incredibly gratifying to be mistaken for your daughter's older sister. But right now, I don't want her - or anyone else in the world for that matter - thinking of me as anything other than her mother.

Hear that Soph? Say it. MA-MA.

:)