To Be Read in a British Accent

To Be Read in a British Accent

**Please read the following in a British accent*

“Smile, sweetie!” My mother says to me. Just because I’m ten months old, doesn’t mean I have to peel my lips away from my teeth to make it appear to others that I’m happy, because I’m not. Unbeknownst to my mother, my diaper is soggy. It doesn’t matter that Big Bird and Elmo are dancing across my butt, because quite frankly, who the hell cares.

Here she comes again, launching at me with the camera, zoomed in to where I know it will be just my face. So unflattering. I’m waiting for the day in which this “baby fat” will shed from my body and I will be unveiled in all my adorable glory. But until then, I’m fat.

The other day, my mother and I were walking down the street--well, she was walking, but I haven’t quite gotten the grasp on the whole bipedal concept yet, so until then I am being chauffeured in my carriage. Anyway, we were moving when a stranger abruptly waltzed up to my mother and started petting me as if I were some imbecile. The simpleton. I have no idea where his hands have been, but according to the dirt under his fingernails I’m guessing nowhere good.

He started gooing and gahing about how precious I appear and how I look so innocent. I don’t know why this wasn’t alarming to my mother, but sometimes I believe she is a simpleton as well. I mean, a suspicious man wearing ten scarves strolls up to our practically newborn and starts gabbing on about how innocent they look... does he not sound like a pedo?

But that is beside the point. Today is going to be the best day of my life. Granted, I’ve only experienced 310 of them, so the bar is not set very high. However, I am tickled pink to be telling you, my reader, that today I will be saying my first word. I know what you are thinking. Ten months! So young to talk! I am rather impressive in all aspects of my life, so I figured I should add speech to the list.

I’ve been rehearsing during my dreams, picturing myself at a lectern in front of millions of parents and my peers. My baby fat shed, the lights shining on my face, my first word shall be “hello!” because I want to start out my life of vocation by introducing myself.

So here I sit, on the dreadful linoleum floor, attempting to get my mother’s attention by doing that obscure thing she loves when I smile but I’m actually just releasing pent-up gas from my bottom. She rushes toward the camera, then back at me, the lights are shining kid take your shot! I open my mouth, she presses down the shutter, and I speak my first word and it’s glorious it’s astounding it’s... “gah.” Oh no. Oh.... no. That’s not what I meant to say. I meant to say... I am capable of saying “hello” but drool is dripping out of my mouth and my mother continues to snap pictures--she keeps repeating the word “gah” like it’s some grand epiphany. How, Lord, to I take it back? Reverse the clock! Bring me back to an earlier, simpler time!

My face gets hot. And red. My heart starts beating faster and my mother notices the shift in my demeanor. I ball up my fists, point my head to the sky and wail! Oh God, how you have cursed me! I am forsaken!

My mother picks me up, and begins to swing me back and forth, patting my back. I must say, I do love it when she does that. Quite calming. I settle. How very childish of me to have an outburst such as that. And in my own home, too.

I find solace in my pain. As the months pass, the sting fades. I don’t speak, or attempt to speak, until I am sure I can. I become despondent. A mere fragment of the bouncing baby I once was. Until today. Today... today is the actual day. Not like the last time I said today was the day but today is the real day... the day when I will say my first word (we are not counting the last one, FYI).

I stop trying to perfect the setting. It will come when it wants to, and no amount of preparation can improve it. My fat tongue will fold and bend whichever way it wants, and I cannot dictate (haha, word pun) when or where it will do so. So I’m relaxed. And all of a sudden, I feel it bubbling inside me. Coming up like the great Mount Vesuvius, but this time hopefully not as many casualties. You know, they actually make bedtime stories about that stuff? Freaky. But anyway, now it’s in my throat. Now it’s building against my uvula, pulsing and flowing to my lips until I open and say... “Mama.”