My kids both said Dada as their first word. I know it’s normal for kids to say Dada before Mama, but after 9 months of sickness, being uncomfortable, giving birth, etc. it certainly seems like us moms deserve a little more, right?
But lucky for me, my kids seem to be making up for their early linguistic decisions. I cannot even tell you how many times a day I hear “Mom!”, “Mommy?”, or “MMMMMOOOOOMMMMM!” each day. And I mean that literally; I cannot tell you. Because I had this idea for a blog post, tried to count on multiple occasions, and lost track each time.
So I went to Google and found a U.K. study that said moms get asked about 300 questions a day. I’m going to bet my kids are above average. And it looks like I need to buckle up because 4-year-old girls ask the most questions, at 390 per day. (My daughter is three.)
“MMMOOOMMMMMMYYY!” (I usually get this around 4 am from my toddler who still wakes during the night.)
“Mommy! I don’t want the BLUE spoon! (Just one of many breakfast demands.)
“Mommy, where are my shoes? (Ah, getting ready for school.)
“Mommy! WHERE ARE YOU?” (After I’ve left the room for 10 seconds.)
“Mom, how tall is the tallest person in the world?” (I don’t know, ask Google.)
“Mommy, can I have a snack?” (Multiply this question by 100.)
“Mommy! I don’t want to go to bed yet! (You should have been in bed an hour ago.)
No matter how much I love them, it’s a lot. So I’ve been thinking about what I can do about it and came up with a couple of things:
They need to do more.
I heard something a while back about how the busier we get, the more we do for our kids. It seemed odd at first, but it’s absolutely true. We’re trying to get everyone in the car, so we gather the shoes, coats, etc. for them. We’re running behind at bedtime, so we put the toothpaste on the toothbrush for them. We get them yet another snack because we’re either too tired to say no or we don’t want to take the chance of them spilling something and dealing with the cleanup. A lot of what they are asking for are things they could do themselves but they aren’t as self-sufficient as they could be. We are busier than ever these days, but I’m going to work on this and allow for some extra time or patience when I can.
I need to embrace it.
I do embrace it on most days. As annoying as it is to hear, they’re only little once. (Deep breaths.) As they get older, they’ll have fewer questions and need me less. Of course, this is easier said than done, but I find that when I’m intentional about how I feel about a situation, it does help. It’s worth a try.
Sorry, someone is calling me; gotta go…
