Next Thing You Know He's Going to Want to Shave

Bubba is growing up. I mean, of course he is. But lately, there have been some definite signs that things are changing.

First there was the kissing. Or the lack thereof, to be precise. One day, out of the blue, Bubba declared that he would give only hugs, no kisses. Whenever we greeted or departed from family members, he'd move in for his hugs loudly declaring "Just hugs, no kisses!"

Even me, his mama, got this treatment, but I played my trump card and told him "I'm your mama. I'm ALWAYS going to kiss you. Deal with it."

And then there was the other kissing. With girls. Or actually, again, the lack thereof. All of a sudden he's coming home from school talking about kissing games that are being played. The girls are chasing the boys and if they catch you, you have to kiss them. Upon recounting the rules, Bubba looks absolutely horrified and disgusted. But you can kind of tell there's just the teensiest bit of interest underneath the indignation.

And just last week, the biggest sign of all. Bubba no longer wants to be called Bubba. It's too baby-ish. And I can't tell you how sad this makes me. Which is really ironic because if you had told me six years ago that I would ever be calling a child of mine Bubba (and we really do call him that), I would have told you you were out of your everlovin' mind.

I used to be supersensitve about southern stereotypes and unfortunately, the name Bubba has been appropriated by the media to represent all that's ignorant, backwards, and uneducated about the south. Which is truly unfortunate because the name Bubba is really just another pronunciation for the word brother. In the old days in the south, siblings often called each other "Brother" or "Sister." In fact, my OWN brother almost always calls me Sister.

And even though we were actually calling Bubba Bubba before Punkin was even a twinkle in her daddy's eye, I love it that Punkin has been calling him Bubba since she started talking.

But ever the little acolyte, Punkin is already bending to Bubba's decree. She'll call him Bubba and then catch herself and then call him by his real name. At first I felt like using my "Mama Privleges" to continue to call him Bubba, but then I realized that I need to try to honor his wishes.

But it's a hard habit to break.