"Mommmmeeeeee!"

I just love it when this three-year-old child materializes a few feet from me, realizes that Mommmmmeeeeee didn't materialize there with him, and starts screaming like a homing beacon on an emergency broadcast frequency. I get really irritated realizing that the little euphemism hasn't yet figured out the difference between specific-mommmmmmeeeee and generic-mommmmmeeeeee, and that he's going to scream and scream and scream like a particularly inept magic student who is genetically incapable of realizing that if a spell didn't work the first time, it's not likely to work when repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated, and who doesn't realize that the mere repetition of a failed spell has irritated the prevailing gods to the point that they've transfigured him into a banshee.

"Mommmmmeeeeee!"

I get even more irritated when I realize that mommmmmeeeeeee has more important things to do than attend to her offspring--assuming that she's still part of the same universe. Maybe she really does have something important to do. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she's more tired of the little shitbird than I am. It doesn't matter. What I know is that she is much more skilled at ignoring his siren-call than I am.

"Mommmmeeeeee!"

Give the little tyke a mommmmeeeee. Any mommmmeeeee will do, as long as she satisfies his primal need to belong.

"Mommmmeeeeee!"

I love it even more when it's an eight-year-old that ought to have outgrown this years ago. I know that I am privileged to witness the creation of an unloved, depressed, emotionally-crippled delinquent who will be a problem to society all his life.

No, I never had children. Why do you ask?