Your Vocabulary as a Mother

When you become a mother, several things happen overnight. First of all, you lose the ability to put yourself first. Someone else is always your top priority from that moment on. Secondly, you learn what it means to truly worry. Not worry about whether you're on time or whether you can afford the bills this month or about whether you look stupid in your new haircut, but about whether your child is breathing or full or whether he or she has all his fingers and toes at any given moment.

Then something else happens. It's called the Mother Vocabulary. It starts with the introduction of phrases you never thought you'd hear yourself say, like "My nipples are really leaking today," and, "Never mind, it's only a little spew." Then it starts to include, "That is very naughty behaviour," and "I am very disappointed in you." Ouch - you seriously know you are a mother at that point!

But then there are the words. The little gems that your offspring pronounce wrong in such a cute way that you can't help but repeat them back, and end up ingrained in your subconscious as the real word for certain things. Before you know it, everyone in the household is pronouncing it the same way.

Orange had been A-onge for the last year. Guinea Pigs have been called A-gicks for almost as long, Lately Butterflies have become Tutterwhys, and have to be said along with a little flapping motion.

Every family should produce their own special dictionary, I think. No wonder language changes so much over time!