Early Conversations

I wrote the following for this week's Trifecta Challenge. It's 315 words, some of which are not even real words. 

Early Conversations

“Momomomom. Bob. Brog.”

She smiled. “Tell me more.” She knew he did not yet grasp that sounds he made could mean specific things, but she enjoyed hearing his repertoire as she mulled over the task in front of her.

On the floor, he banged the side of a steel mixing bowl with a hard plastic ring, wincing at the noise. His babble quickly turned into a whine, the sound of winding up that would become full-blown wailing without intervention.

“I get cranky sometimes too, but I can’t nap whenever I want to. Why won’t you nap? You have my permission. As your mother, I give you permission to nap when you are sleepy.” His complaint intensified. She sucked in as much air as she could hold, leaned down from her chair and blew a loud, wet raspberry into his face.

He grinned and emitted the noise of a balloon rapidly deflating during a fire alarm, continuing to bang on the bowl as she turned back to the table and picked up her pen. The only thing worse than writing Christmas cards was writing them on December 19th. Luckily, the photo of the three of them took up most of the room and there was only space for a few lines. Biting the end of the pen, she considered pressing the baby’s hand into a green ink pad and making handprints in the blank space instead of figuring out what to write on each of the cards. It seemed very Pinterest-y. But she knew cooperation was unlikely and scrubbing green ink off everything was even less appealing to her than writing Christmas messages.

“Bromom. Blom. Omm.”

“Yes, Mom’s writing Christmas cards,” she murmured.

“Mom.”

She glanced down at him. He looked up at her intently and repeated, “Mom.”

“Do you mean it this time?”

“Mom!” he yelled, his tooth flashing briefly as he whacked her leg with his toy.