Dad

For the record, I have formally been demoted.  Ian calls me "Dad."  And because Madeleine is Ian's greatest devotee, she usually does too, although sometimes she has spontaneous moments where she says, "Can I call you 'Papa'?" and I eagerly encourage her to do just that.  (I think this is in conscious emulation of Belle from Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," who calls her much-loved father "Papa," no doubt because they're French...

Daniel also calls me Dad sometimes, but he often forgets himself (I think that's the explanation) and calls me Daddy, as does Madeleine, and even Ian.  Ian usually calls me Dad when we're out of the house, or when he's bellowing a request for food or some other item halfway across the house, which is rather frequent.

I blame Alec, the boy from across the street, because it was during Alec's visit one evening at the beginning of the summer, when we were toasting marshmallows in the back yard, that Ian greeted me for the first time (I think) with a cheerful, "Hi Dad!"  Alec is only seven, but he's a guy-ish seven, from a guy-ish family (three boys).

But I take comfort in the shared plight:  Amy has similarly been demoted to "Mom," although probably not with the same degree of relative consistency across children and occasions...

(Summer, 2012)