Calm Down Cookie!

I've never had many nicknames in my life. Sometimes people call me Jess, not many though and I don't really like it. My dad sometimes calls me Babe. In college my nickname was Fydo--due to my phone number and that it went really well with Rex. My Uncle Wayne who is an expert at nicknames doesn't even have one for me, his excuse is my given name of Jessica Jane is just a perfect fit and it rhymes with Wayne, so there you go. The other day, I can't even remember what it was I was getting after Luke about--perhaps that was the whole point--but he stopped, put his hand up and said, "Calm down Cookie!" So I stopped, "what did you call me?" He smiled, his plan had worked. Sheepishly he said, "Cookie." Then I smiled back at him and he giggled. I guess I'd like to believe he likes me as much as he likes cookies or I'm as sweet and wonderful as a cookie, but probably he was just looking for a positive diversion from whatever we were talking about--and it worked.

Luke is king of nicknames. When Aaron and Owen first came to live with us we quickly decided that their legal names were just not going to work out. They were hard to spell, hard to say and just plain confusing. On the way to the doctor's the day after we got them, Luke was really not happy about how the day was going. So I asked him, "What should we name these babies?" He continued whining about whatever it was. So I asked again, "Luke what should we call these babies?" He looked at me like--are you serious? They don't even have names? Then he smiled and said pointing to Aaron, "I think we should call this one Paukie." He waited to see what I had to say about that. "OK, what should we call the other one?" He laughed, he couldn't believe I went for the first name. "This one will be Schnuppa." He laughed again. I said, "OK, Paukie and Schnuppa. Those are great names." And so to help Luke adjust, we called them Paukie and Schnuppa for many months, even after we decided on Aaron and Owen. Finally when Aaron started answering to Paukie and not Aaron we started calling them by their new real names. Now Luke will correct you if you call them Paukie or Schnuppa. I think thats a sign he has accepted them as his brothers, they have real names now.

My nickname for Luke is Blue. He loves it because he knows how much I love his sparkling blue eyes. After I married Mike I never thought I would have a blue eyed boy, but Luke was a nice surprise. I never thought I would have a son with an afro either, another delightful surprise. And I love that Aaron's fingernails are lighter than his skin, it makes me think of suntanned toes in the sand, even when it's the dead of winter. Life has great surprises.