What's in a name, Shakespeare? A lot. A whole lot.

The evasive “Mama.” Just when I think I’m getting close to hearing this word, it sneaks down some back alley and all I get is some other inferior sounding thing.

When Finny was twelve months old he said something that resembled this word when he would sing the Patti Page “Mama Doll Song” with me and would echo “Mama” with “Baba.” It made me smile.

Well, “Baba” went away for a few months and for a long time I became “Dah-dah.” “Who am I, Finny?” David would ask. “Dah-dah!” he’d exclaim with gusto.

“Who am I, Finny?” I’d ask. “Dah-dah!” he’d exclaim with gusto. He might as well have said, “Chopped liver.”

Then, one day a couple months ago, I asked again, “Who am I, Finny?” And he answered, “Kiss!” I bear a slight, non-existent resemblance to Gene Simmons, but I think maybe it’s because I demand kisses so often that he started to think that was my name.

For a short while recently when I would ask, “Finny, what’s my name?” the answer, clear as day, was, “Bessy!” Not sure when or how I became a cow or how Bessy in any way resembles Mama, but at least I had a name distinct from “Dah-dah.”

And then, suddenly, last weekend, March 6, 2010 to be exact, it arrived like a package at the bottom of the stairs.

I was upstairs getting ready for our trip to Louisville and Finny was downstairs with David when he came looking for me. I was searching for more diapers when I heard it: “Ma-MA!” From the bottom of the stairs, “Ma-MA!” Like a seventeen month old Frenchman, “Ma-MA!” Again and again. He was calling to me. By name! “Ma-MA! Ma-MA! Ma-MA!”

I bolted to the top of the stairs like Juliet looking for her Romeo. “What did you say, Finny?”

“Ma-MA!” And I literally felt my heart melt all over my ribs and slide down my legs to my feet.

“Say it again! Say it again! Say it again!” I bolted down the stairs and scooped him up.

“Ma-MA!”

I ran into the kitchen. “David, did you hear it?!”

“Yeah, I heard it,” he laughed, “Finally, his hundredth word, after tree, Pop-pop, car, coat, girl, bawk-bawk, duck, dog, books, Jane...” David went on.

“Doesn’t matter. He said it. He called me by name.”

Sure, I remember where I was when I heard that Michael Jackson died. I remember very vividly the day the World Trade Center was attacked. I can tell you exactly how I watched the inauguration of our first black president. I can even strangely remember where I was when John Denver died. I remember these big, historical events pretty clearly along with a great many others who shared in these big national moments.

But the day I first heard my son speak my name, no one else will record this in the history books. There will be no newspaper clipping, no national headlines. This one is all up to me. So go ahead, ask me where I was the day I became the most important person on the planet. I’ll tell you: It was Saturday morning, March 6, 2010. I was at the top of the stairs. I was looking for diapers. My heart was in a puddle at me feet.