A Mum By Any Other Name

I was in the car with DD1 today, and she was telling me that while I was at work (I know! All mothers who are chefs should not work on Mother's Day feeding other people's mothers! So unfair!) she was making me some mother's day cards. DD1 is a particularly prolific writer and artist, so it's not unusual to get about a half dozen cards from her for any occasion, from Mother's Day to birthdays to Hooray It's Monday! to Sorry You're Broke. She is a child who is filled to the brim with enthusiasm and love, and her cards are always filled with heartfelt sayings and pictures of either her or me as a princess with long hair (of course, because there is no such thing as a short-haired princess) and loads and loads of love hearts (her most favourite thing.)

I got home and one of the cards she gave me is the one you can see above. Words can't really express how much I adore this card (really a piece of paper) from her...and all because she used our favourite nickname. When she was in prep (kindergarten for you Yankees) they had to memorise a Yiddish poem all about Mothers. They worked on it for weeks, but all she could ever remember was that one line of it had a part which referred to "mein mama-she." Ever since then, she's called me Mama-She and I've called her Lola-She (Lola being yet another of the five jillion nicknames I have for her.)

I'm not entirely sure why I just adore the nickname she's given me- maybe because it's exclusive to DD1, or because it reminds me of a time when she was younger and more innocent, or maybe because every time she says it, she smiles at the end. Either way, I just find it terribly endearing and every time she says it, I want to give her an extra big squeeze and tell her just how totally gorgeous she really is. So today, when I got my "Happy Mama-She Day!" card, I did exactly that.

To which she said, "Oooh! You're squeezing me too hard, Mama-She!" ... which of course only made me hug her that much tighter, smiling all the while.

...and here she is, hugging her Tiger-She!