Strategic Censorship

With little ears around, you really have to watch what you say. True, Owen is just now mastering the art of eye contact and perfecting the purposeful smile; it might be a while before his vocabulary expands to include more than uhh and ooh and wahhhhhhh(hhhhhhhhh). But it's never too early to start censoring objectionable four-letter words. The one I'm particularly worried about?

Dada.

I (half) (jokingly) started omitting dada from my conversations with Owen, for fear that it would usurp mama's rightful place as baby's first word. C'mon, the only baby-pushing dads do is with the assistance of a stroller. Pretty sure that whole Occupy My Uterus thing ought to at least entitle us moms to the pleasure of hearing our new names first. So yes, Owen hears mama about 39,809 times a day and hears dada...hmm...less frequently.

But not to be outdone, Aaron one-upped me. Why just censor a word when you could reimagine it entirely? Aaron decided he should teach Owen that mommy's name is...mooftard. Yup, that's right. I'm Owen's mooftard. (I'm pretty sure the F-sound will keep Owen from articulating this anytime soon -- ha, bad choice, Husband.) A sort of linguistic arms escalation ensued and obviously Aaron needed to be renamed, too. You can now find him listed under Owen's kaka.

Mom, Dad, Mark and Cindy: we promise not to defile grandma and grandpa. So long as you continue agreeing to occasional babysitting gigs.

This week's pictures are from our first little vacation together. We rented a house in the Berkshires (hills in western Mass) and spent 5 days singing and cooing, eating and drinking, and loving our time together as a family.