2nd Place Is The 1st Loser

Friday night Tyler did the thing that makes all the poopy diapers, all the late nights, all the screams and tears from teething, and any other hair-pulling mother-son moments I may have forgotten seem worthwhile; he said MaMa!!!! I swear my heart swelled at least 3 sizes. Actually I shrieked so loudly that Joe heard me at the neighbors... from our kitchen.

Now, I realize that the above statement sounds like Tyler is a bad kid. In fact, he's not. It's just that I've had the green eyes of envy equipped with the horns and fangs for the last several weeks. 62 days, to be exact. See, Tyler, like most kids, decided that "dada" was going to be his first word. He's been "dadadadadada"ing everything in sight since that fateful day in March. Da has now warped into "dat" when he points at something, wanting it's name, it's function, it's color, or any other bit of knowledge you want to impart. All this, before he graced me with my (well-deserving) "mama" recognition. Can you blame me for my jealousy?

Yesterday, Tyler attempted crawling up my leg while saying "mum mum ma". Awh. He wanted me. He needed me. He wanted me to pick him up. How could I deny that? I couldn't. I HAD to stop fixing his lunch and pick him up, just so I could bathe in that one glorious moment.

I'm not stupid. At some point I know I will long for the silence before Tyler's first mama, ala Stewie and Lois, but for now, I'm loving every single "mama" I get.

Victory

I'm going to take this opportunity to totally brag. Today I totally reaped the benefit of weeks of Joe's hard work, and it was glorious!

I have to be completely honest with you all right now, when Joe is gone at work during the day, I use the bathroom with the door open. I don't do this because I have a fear of enclosed spaces, or because I am an exhibitionist. I do this because Tyler gets upset when he can't see me or find me. Hello, I'd love to use the bathroom by myself, but that just isn't in the cards right now.

Onward with my bragging... erm... story. This morning Tyler and I were playing in the living room, I stood up and said, "Mommy needs to go make her peeps come." (yes, I ACTUALLY said that).

Tyler: -ignores me and continues to play with his Sesame Street toy-

Me: -exit stage right, towards the bathroom-

Tyler: -realizes he's alone after 90 seconds- "Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" (translation, "where are you Mommy?") and then starts crawling aimlessly in search of me.

Me: -peek my head through the door way of the bathroom- "Hi Tyler, here I am." -I wave and smile-

Tyler: -sits up, bursts into a cheek-splitting, melt-my-heart grin of recognition and relief, raises his right arm and WAVES AT ME!-

In order for you to realize how freaking cool this is, you must first know that 1) this was Tyler's very first wave ever, and 2) Joe has been working on waving with Tyler for weeks. In fact, Joe has even been correcting me ("wave to him when you say hi"). I realized that Joe was right (that's right, I said it), and have been incorporating the hand motion along with the words for the past couple days. I was super geeked when I got to witness Tyler's first wave. I felt so special... and just the teensiest little bit guilty. All of Joe's hard work, and I get the reward. Oh yeah, Mommy rules!