Identity Crisis

Mommy or Michele? Daddy or Mark?

I'm having a little bit of an identity crisis.  Will's going through a phase where he calls me by my first name instead of mommy.  It's funny, I guess.  I wonder what goes on in the mind of an almost four-year-old.  Who knows, right?  This phase doesn't really worry me, and I can find the humor in it.  One of my friends went through a phase where her little girl did the same thing, and she's "normal".  I think one reason he calls me Michele is that he's becoming more observant of families and what roles people play in families.  One of Will's favorite questions to ask us is, "How many kids do fill-in-the-blank have?"  He then likes to answer his own question.  For example, "Mark and Michele have two kids, Will and Ben."  This Q&A goes on for at least five minutes.  We go through all of the couples with children that we know and then we go through some couples we know without children. Q:"How many kids do Matt and Jenn have?" A: "They don't have any kids.  They have two dogs and a cat."   We humor him and play along.  Usually these conversations take place in the car when we are driving somewhere.

This is kind of a fun part of parenting.  It's neat to see Will grow up and figure things out even if I get called "Michele" for a little while.

Photo taken by Lauren Wensel Neyra November 2008.