On Being A New Mom

Crunch, crunch, crunch, from the kitchen table: HB happily munching on Froot Loops cereal with mushrooms.

Yesterday we played at the Y so HB could "wun" as fast as she can and today we will go to the farmer’s market where Clemson tents sell peanuts. HB will skip along singing, “here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail, pippity poppity, Easter’s on its way!”

I know Easter was several months ago, but it's the song she knows best.

Her vocabulary is growing, partly hindered by those difficult sounds in the English language, mostly the double-consonant ones. But also partly hindered by the real silliness that she strains to make sense of: how can those men be ‘building’ a ‘building’?

I gently correct some of the slips, “I need the ‘nother one,” she’ll say and I respond, “the other one.” She repeats, “the other one."

Others, like the mushrooms in the Froot Loops, I just let go. She’ll get “marshmallows” eventually and the mushroom thing might be an association with our favoritepizza place.