Name Calling

Our girls have lovely, strong names. We named them Elizabeth, Katherine, and Sarah. However, we seldom call them by their names. Elizabeth becomes Bethie Bear, Bethie, and Beth. Katherine is known as Katie Cat, Katie, or Kate. Sarah has the worst luck. We call her Sarahburrah, Haboo, Newt, and Nu Nu. We throw in other names here and there just to keep everybody on their toes. Names like Grub-a-lub, Bella and Peanut Butter come out of my mouth. We've even numbered them...but not in birth order (I can't tell you how much this cracks me up!). They know their number, and that's all that counts.

When the twins were a bit younger, they thought their names were Bethie Bear and Katie Cat. For the longest time, Sarah would respond to Nu Nu but not to her own name. With Sarah, Dan and I had to make a conscious effort to refer to her as "Sarah". We've also spent a lot of time teaching the twins that their names are, in fact, Elizabeth and Katherine. When they finally learned their names, we asked them what name they prefer their kindergarten teacher to call them. Katie preferred to be call "Katie" and Bethie preferred to be called "Beth". That was fine with me.

The other day, Bethie came up to me and said that she preferred for her teacher to call her by her "nickname". I needed her to specify which nickname she preferred. She said, "Cute Bottom!". Then she added that since she doesn't start kindergarten until next year, I was to tell Emilie (at daycare) that she was to refer to Bethie as "Cute Bottom" effective immediately. She wasn't kidding, and it only made her angry when I bursted out laughing! So, hence forth, Bethie is to be known as Cute Bottom. I'm not kidding.