You Never Even Call Me by My Name- A Guest Blog

My sister needs some help from you, Innernets! A call to action. Well, not really, but a call for help from a pregnant lady. Will you help a girl out?! I know you've got opinions and you're not afraid to share 'em.

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Hello. I am Meg’s sister and you may be aware that I am expecting a little girl in a few months. I have something I need to get off my chest and Meg has kindly offered to let me utilize this forum.

You see, we are having a terrible time choosing a name for our new baby. Actually, that’s not quite true, we’ve had a very easy time narrowing our choices down to three contenders. The difficulty we’re having is selecting an appropriate NICKNAME for the baby. My husband and I, we’re big on nicknames. And on not using first names as names. He’s “William Travis” (yes, he’s from Texas), but has ALWAYS been called Travis because his parents were terrified people would call him “Willie.” I am “Courtney,” a name that was chosen specifically because it could not be shortened. That was until, as family legend has it, my grandfather strolled into the hospital to meet me and said “Hey, Court.” It obviously stuck.

Travis and I decided to brave the elements and name our son “William,” but we have been very clear that he is to be called “Will.” Not “Billy” or “Liam.” Not because we don’t like those names, we just really like “Will.” We like it so much that I tracked down the only birth announcements I could find that spelled out right away that “William Theodore” was to be called “Will.” See? Aren’t they cute? That’s obviously not Will, that’s Mack, but I ordered them 2 years ago from a different computer so I can’t show you the actual announcement, but you get the idea. They were from Tiny Prints.

So here we are with three adorable little girl first and middle names in front of us and all we can talk about is “But what will we call her?” It’s the first question out of our mouths every time a new name comes up. (NOTE: due to the fact that Travis and I insist on being over-the-top secretive about our potential names none of the following examples are even close to the ones we’re discussing).

“What do you think of ‘Anita’?” I’ll ask.

Travis will answer, “Hmmm. So would we call her “’Nita’?”

For real. I do it too. We do it EVERY TIME. And the kicker for us right now is, our (er, MY) very favorite name just happens to have NO WAY to shorten it. It doesn’t. I’ve googled “’Name’ nickname” and nothing comes up. And it’s driving us crazy. We love this name but we can’t get past the fact that there’s no nickname for it. We’ve even worked through the possible initial abbreviations (such as, “’Theresa Camille/ but we’ll call her ‘TC’”). If only my grandpa were still here to stroll into the hospital to say “Hey ‘New baby nickname’.”

So, are we crazy? Have any of you suffered through this? You’ll probably say “Suck it up, Quartney, and call her by her full name.” We might just do that, but it will take the next 3 to four months for us to come to terms with that. And if you’re a betting mom, I’d put my money on reading an announcement here in the near future that reads: “Baby ‘Blah Blah’ has arrived. They’re calling her “BB.’”

Dazed and Confused

Dylan & Cousin Will on Kissmas Morning

Court (Quart) and Me on my wedding day

Margaritas at lunch! Champagne at our hair appointment! More Champagne for pictures...

It's a miracle I made it down the aisle.

Grandmaother & Trav-Dog, T-Bone, Trav

That's me & my dad in the background

Twas Two Nights Before Christmas- A Guest Blog

Here it is...the Guest Blog from my Sister...without further ado:

Twas two nights before Christmas,
And all through the land
“Noddy” was playing
On Sprout on Demand

The children were sprawled
In front of Thomas the Train
While visions of Sodor
Filled up their brains

They played and they sang
And they squealed and ran races
They were all very happy
You could see it in their faces

The grown ups were standing
And watching this scene
While sipping martinis
With olives of green

When in the family room
We heard such a cry
We dropped our glasses
To see what had gone awry

And what greeted us there
Was a terrible sight
The kids were upset
And they were starting to fight

“Mine! Gordon.” “Mine! Thomas”
“Mine! James.” “Mine! Percy.”
“Mine! Salty.” “Mine! Edward.”
“Mine! Clarabel.” “Mine! Annie.”

The youngest was sobbing
He was shrieking and sad
And his cousin was hitting,
And just being bad

Then my sister-in-law looked at me
And she said
“You need to punish your son,
Or send him to bed.”

Something inside me snapped
And I heard myself shout
“Don’t you dare try to put
My kid in time out!”

My sister cried out
That we should calm the hell down
As our husbands decided
To go out on the town

Grandma and grandpa
Were sore and worn out
They were angry and distressed
After hearing us shout

Once we all settled down
We put the kids in their jammies
We read them a story
And they said good night to their grammies

We sat down on the couch
Figuring a stiff drink was our right
And we talked about doing it all again
On Christmas Eve night!