You don't. You can omit it entirely, which is a more colloquial way of saying it. I naturally shorten it to "U minja mama i papa"

I got caught on this as well and am happy to be corrected here. It seems that generally 'и' should be used when grouping similar things (in this case used because mum and dad are both parents) whereas 'а' is used when making a comparison.

Source: http://www.rus-on-line.ru/Exercises/Grammar/13-grammar.html

И is used when the two elements are perceived as compatible, а when they tend to contradict one another.

"У" translates to "At", "By", or "With". "Меня" is the genitive form of "Я", and just means "me". "У меня" therefore roughly translates to "At me", and when added with "Есть" (which means "There is/are". So "У меня есть" then just means "There is at me", and is the typical way to write "I have" in Russian.

Some people claim it is optional in daily use, however, I learnt у меня есть as the standard way of saying "I have".

У is not a pronoun, but a preposition, meaning "at". So this sentence literally translates to "At me (or with me) there is a mother."

You have to download or activate a russian keyboard... Best wishes

Here is the one I use : http://russian.typeit.org/ There are others , e.g. , babelpad , which is a fine program .

Or use the Word Bank if you have no pride.