New on Mothers with Attitude

Julie Donner Andersen's latest installment in her Therapeutic Laughing column, "A Mom by Any Other Name", is up and ready to amuse you. She covers the names kids give their maternal parent at different ages and stages, from "Mama" to "Moooooooooooom." When we adopted our kids at ages 4.5 years and 21 months respectively, we started them on "Mama" and "Papa," good Russian-sounding names, and those have stuck for most of these 8 years and more. Lately we've been having some drift into more all-American "Mom" and "Dad," which is fine too, and the more attitude-packed "Terri" and "Rick, which is not. My daughter becomes a teenager in April, and we'll see what she comes up with then. She better know I don't answer to "Hey, you!"