not mama

Lucy had several "mamas" in her life before me. Apparently, that's how the children at her orphanage refer to their nannies. I know this because of the recent progress reports we received from her orphanage. I quote, "...Yamin would then smile and would run toward her caretaker. Yamin would call out "mama". Her caretaker would ask her to kiss and hug on her."

Also, as I brought up in a previous post, the day we visited her orphanage, one of the staff mentioned that Lucy always called the ladies "mama," but that they noticed she did not call them mama that day. I'll admit, that made my heart soar! I really believe she knew I was "mama" from day one, although I doubt she understood exactly how this mama would be different from the other ones she had had (meaning I was her mama...not mama to a room full of kiddos).

Over the past couple of months, Lucy will constantly point to ladies in a magazine, in an ad at Target, on television, or at other ladies we see out and about (strangers or friends and family), shake her head and say, "Not mama." Then she'll point to me, nod her head and say, "mama." She probably does this at least 10 times a day. We think it's so cool. As if she's processing, figuring out, working out the fact that I am hers and hers alone. Not any other lady, as sweet and wonderful as they may be. Even Grandma Lynch and Nana, whom she adores, are "not mama." (although she has pointed to me a time or two and said "Not Grandma!" or "Not Nana!")

Even cooler still, is that in the last week or so, "baba" has factored more and more into this thought process for her. We doubt she had much interaction with men before we came along, and this idea of a baba was probably foreign to her. But she's mostly been fixated on who is and isn't mama. Until recently. There's been more and more "Not baba." going on :)

Just yesterday, Lucy and I were playing with some purple play-dough at the table. I cut out two play-dough hearts for her with a cookie mold. She pointed to the first one and said, "mama." Then the second and said, "baby." She'll do this to almost anything, so I wasn't surprised that there was now mama and baby play-dough in her mind. We're always talking about the mama cow and the baby cow. Or the mama cat and the baby cat. And she's been attaching that idea to other things. She just loves to talk about it. Well, I then asked her if she wanted another heart, thinking we would work on some counting to 3. She said, "Nother one. Baba." and smiled.

You think that melted my heart? I know of one other person whose heart it may have melted more! He got this photo text and a description of what had taken place.

We see more and more everyday that she's getting this family thing figured out. She knows who her mama and baba are. And that we are "Lucy's mama and Lucy's baba." One of our favorite things to do is a group hug, where she has one arm around Andy's neck, one around mine, and we all exclaim, "Family!"

I'm not sure which one of us is more excited about that word. Family.