Burping Abba, Father

If your kids are of a certain age, you will undoubtedly remember the book "Everybody Poops".  It explains that pooping is a normal part of life.  It's a must-read for parents with children of potty-training age.

Someone needs to write a book called "Everybody Burps".  Burping is also a normal part of life.  Granted, most times we try to stifle the burps.  Yet in some countries burping is considered a sign of appreciation to the cook, so I've heard.

My drink of choice is water.  Not just plain, flat tap water.  I like my water with those sparkly effervescent bubbles.  Seltzer.  Soda water.  Fizzy water.  Call it what you will, but it's easier for me to down my eight glasses of water a day if there's a little fizz.

Drinking carbonated drinks, even zero-calorie good-for-you fizzy water, causes bubbles in the tummy which come out as burps.  Unfortunately, my burps come out as vowel and consonant sounds.  Something along the line of ahh-BUH.

My kids were the first to mock the spoken burps.  I would burp ahh-BUH, they would repeat back "Abba".  It spread to Mr. Gaelic who takes a more literal translation to my burps.

Invoking a paternalistic view of family life where even the wife refers to the husband and head of the house as Father, now whenever I burp, rather than repeat "Abba" or console with a "Bless you", he answers with "Yes, dear?"