What's in a name?

Mommyca....one of the most endearing terms I know.  Aubree, or Boo Boo, couldn't say my name for the longest time.  She called me Anca, Onca, or anything else that just kind of came out.  Then she started calling me Mommica.  It was so sweet.  To her, it was just a word, but to me, it was a recognition that she saw me as a mother figure.  Once she began calling her mother Mommy, Mommyca was soon to follow. 

She knows the difference in us.  She knows who her mom is and the place I have in her life.  But I am her Mommyca, and I will always be. It's hard when the girls are here, but it's even harder when they go home.  Not hearing them laugh, or play, or even fight makes things so quiet.  Not that I mind the occasional break, but I don't know a parent in the world that doesn't mind a break from their kids, but there comes a point....about five minutes after they are gone...that you think to yourself, "Well, what do I do now?"

Seventeen years ago, I became a mom, and I have been an "acting" mom to many kids that have come in and out of my life along the way.  From kids who's parents worked crazy hours, to kids that really didn't have a stable family life, and even to some of my friends, I have always played Mom.  It's what I was born to do, who I was born to be.  There is no better job in the world, so if I'm Mom, Momma, Mommy, Anca, Mommica, or Mommyca, I'm somebody to a child and to me, there are not too many things much better.