Katherine Heigl is just like any other mom on the planet. Sure, she has a little more cash in the bank and drives a car that’s probably worth more than most of our homes but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to the struggles of parenting.
The former Grey’s Anatomy star recently opened up to InStyle magazine about the disappointment she faced when her 20-month-old adopted daughter Nancy Leigh Mi-Eun (Naleigh) said “Dada” before “Mama.”
“The first thing she said was, ‘Dada,’ and then she’d call everybody else she loved ‘Dada,’” Heigl says in the October issue of InStyle magazine. “She actually attached to Josh [Katherine's husband, Josh Kelley] much faster.”
At that time, Katherine, much like millions of other moms, questioned whether he job had taken away from her role as a mom:
“I had a lot of complicated emotions about it because I chose to go back to work,” she says. “I love what I do and – this isn’t just making excuses – if I weren’t fulfilling this thing in me to perform, to live out my passion, I don’t know that I would be the mom I need to be.”
Eventuall, Naleigh came around and Katherine is ecstatic that her daughter is finally referring to her as “Mama.”
“Naleigh learned with me that the word ‘Mama’ was synonymous with kisses,” Heigl says. “So when she first started saying, ‘Mama,’ she would also make a little kiss sound … She started saying it maybe a month or two ago. I would come into the room and she’d go, ‘Mama!’ And it was like, Thank God.”
So cute!
