Nicknames

There have been a few times recently when I wish we "hadn't gone down that road" where nicknames are concerned. I'll explain in a moment.

Here are some of the nick names for our family members. Nothing too crazy.

Me - Jenny, Jen, Mama, Mom, Moms
Lawrence - Daddy, Dad, Lawr, Lawrey, Dads
Lillian (5 year old) - Lily, Lils the Pils, Lils
Adeline (2.5 year old) - Addie, Ads the Pads, Ads
Bryson (4 month old) - Brys, Bryssee
Sabine (our Au Pair) - Bean Bean
Gigi (Lily's favorite doll since 8 mths old) - Jeeger, Jeegs

So as you can see there has been this "theme" to our nicknames that you shorten the word and ad an 's' to the end. (I wonder why Bean Bean hasn't gone to "Beans?" Hmmm...not sure. We should give that a try!)

When I was about to have Addie, and Lily was 2.5, I was trying to think of what we could "call" breastfeeding. I'd heard some nicknames that were less than desirable for me and my family, and I wanted be proactive about our 'name' for it. I certainly did not want a school-ager talking about my "boobie". Ig.

Well at that age, Lily was doubling everything she said. So somehow we started calling it, er, them, "boo boos". Sounds innocent enough, right? Addie was drinking out of mommy's boo boos. Does Daddy have boo boos? Nope. Daddy has Nip nips. I have nip nips like daddy. Okay, you get the idea.

It wasn't a big deal at the time, Lily would wonder why some babies don't drink out of their mama's boo boos, or why she didn't have boo boos, or why Katy had boo boos even though she didn't have a baby to feed. The name seemed normal and harmless. Feeew, glad to handle that crisis, right?

Along comes my next pregnancy and pending breastfeeding with Bryson. Well, now I have 2 talkative girls clammering on about boo boos and nip nips and feeding their babies with their nip nips pretending they are boo boos. Yes, it's a little more boo boo talk than I'd rather, but hey, I'm sleep deprived and they are getting along. So what's it to ya?

Until...she said this to me.

Her: "Mama, when I grow up, I want to have nip nips like daddy and not boo boos like you. I want to keep my nip nips".

Me: "Oh honey, you don't have to worry about that for a long time. You'll have boo boos when you are a mommy, but you'll keep your nip nips until then." Heh.

Her: "But I don't want boo boos like you. They are, like, LONG". Yes my friends, she said LONG!

Me: Nothing

Her: "See ya mom!"

So as I'm thinking about this conversation and the fact that there is enough boobage going on in our breast milk riddled home that my five year old thinks mine are, ahem, long, I laughed. I laughed at the fact that we say nicknames in our homes, and they don't seem weird to us until we look back a few years and think about how nonsense words because like regular language. Bear-bear and woobie and paci and blowout, these are terms we know. And we know some of the ones at our friends houses too, because we are all right there.

It reminds me of a story my mother in law told me about an old man friend of theirs telling a story to a group about having a blowout while he was in his car. Ewe right? She was mortified that he'd share such a thing. He was talking about a tire on the freeway! For those of you who don't know what she THOUGHT he was talking about, that's okay, but let's just say some of us think of something ELSE when you say blowout, that's all. And we can't imagine a day that Les Schwab could take care of a blowout. Our context is sort of warped and hilarious if you stop and think about it.

So to sum up my nickname story. Short and sweet storyteller than I am not.

Back to the nick names. Moms, Dads, Ads, Lils.

Well.

She started calling them "Boobs".

You know, short for Boo boo.

Great.