PAPA's the word

Sophie has uttered her first word. No it wasn’t MAMA, instead it was PAPA. I know, I can’t believe it either. How often does this happen? I could only guess that the probability of PAPA or DADA being the first word is highly unlikely. She hasn’t said MAMA yet. But every time she wants to go to her papa she would say PAPA, amazing... At first I thought that she was just mumbling baby words when she accidently uttered PAPA. But she has been consistently saying PAPA and we since realized that it is indeed her first word.

With exception to Little Pea, my other children’s first word was MAMA. And they called everyone else close to them, i.e. my husband, my sister and my maid, a different variation of the word MAMA, when they were babies. This little girl turns to be rather different than the rest. She loves her papa more even at this age. At 7 months, she has developed her preference for people. She refuses to be held by people other than my husband (being her favourite), my maid and I. Her favourite play mates are Ariana and Harris. But in all likelihood, she loves her papa the most. She is so attached to my husband that each time he passes by and doesn’t pick her up, she’ll cry or scream (and recently call out papa) to attract his attention.

My husband has always love children. Even before I married him, I knew that he would make a great father. And I was absolutely right. He has a rather distinctive aura that attracts babies. Babies seem to like him in a very weird way. When he hold a crying baby, they stop crying. I am not axegerating this. You have to see it to believe it. He tended to the baby when I was recuperating during confinement period (after he came home from work of course). He even bathed them when they were only days old, with exception of Daniel. I am lucky and blessed to have him as my husband and the father of my children.

Animals seem to like him too. My cat (a Persian we call Kitty) likes to follow him around the house (again, I am not axegerating), respond to his instruction and loves to lick his feet. Weird huh? An animal and baby charmer he is. Harris seems to inherit this magical trait from his papa. Kitty loves him too, and vice versa.

Let’s examine why Sophie likes her papa more (clearly, I am in denial). You see, my husband likes to spoil them babies by carrying them around. I on the other hand, prefer to let them play on their own because I want them to be independent and less clingy, which would consequently allow me to do other things. Because of him, my effort failed terribly every time. He likes to feed them stuff that I don’t quite approve of. I control what they eat, no sugar, no sodium and hell lots of other no. He likes to talk to babies. Me, I am not much of a baby whisperer. He has a bigger built - babies feel comfortable and secure in his arms. I have a petite frame - my arms undoubtedly don’t make a good ‘nest’ for babies. I could go on and on but we get the idea, don’t we? It’s only natural that Sophie likes him best.

Truthfully, all my kids like him more when they were babies/toddler but not when they were as young as Sophie, particularly when they were still breastfeeding. Mothers always win the babies heart when they are still breastfeeding, aren’t we? But, it doesn’t work that way in my case with Sophie. Like my husband said, Sophie is his ‘special one'. I rest my case...