A day in the life

Have you ever had something just get stuck in your mind?  Not anything that should be particularly troubling but just something that keeps bugging you - something that you should have let go a long time ago?  Maybe too specific... let's just say I've got a brain hickup that doesn't seem to want to go away and I thought maybe if I just let it out I might cure it.

It's all about The Girl and her name.

She has a perfectly nice name but it's rather common.  In case you haven't read my whole life history of parenting in this site, The Girl, well, all my kids, are adopted.  She came with the name she has and we only changed the spelling and her middle names.

That may seem like an odd thing to say - after all, she was 5 months old, of course she had a name... but she was young enough that we could change it without much confusion but The Dad and my mother liked the name she came with and I was somewhat over ruled when it came to the idea of changing it.

There seems to be an art of sorts to names.  When it comes time to name your baby, people get books, listen to the sound of the name ... first, middle, last... all together now.. does it sound good? (remember to do just the first and last name together - it's not likely that anyone is going to use the middle name in every day life!)

There's really no question when it comes to naming your biological child.  You can literally do what you want (despite what the rest of your family thinks).

If you're a celebrity, you have the distinct position of choosing ANY name or even a sound for your child and the masses of average folk shake their heads in dismay when some celebrity names their child after a country or a fruit.  I have to admit, some of the wilder ones have had me wondering if the celebrity status will save the child from a life of embarrasment over their moniker or if the "children are cruel" addage is true regardless of who your dad is.

But when your baby comes with a name already, it tends to be a bit of discussion on the ethics of changing his or her name.

We changed Dervish's name but kept his given first name as a middle name because it had meaning to his birth mother.  The Pie, well, his birth mother asked us what we wanted to name him and she named him our choice of names.

But I digress.  The fact is that I like unusual names.  Not ridiculous names but unusual names.  I like the name "Suri" (Tom Cruise's baby) and I also like the name Shiloh (Brad & Angelina)... I'm not crazy about Apple or Dweezle or Moon Unit.

Oh.. ya, back to the hickup.... The Girl's name is 'ordinary' and not a name that I was crazy about.  I wanted to name her Scotia or Scosha (sounds better than it looks in my opinion).  It's too late now - 3.5 years too late but it's been stuck in my brain.  It just keep popping up out of nowhere and driving me crazy wishing I had pushed for the name I loved instead of going with the flow.  Maybe telling the world about it will cure me.

There are words that you just can't say around children. The reasons for the censorship differ.

Of course there are the standard 'bad' words that no one wants their children to hear - the main reason for that is that we don't want our kids repeating those nasty words. Swearing in general doesn't sound nice but it's a kazillion times worse coming from a 3 year old.

Then some families also have a hot list of words that aren't 'bad' in the same sense. They are every day words that there is really nothing wrong with but that people prefer their kids don't use.

Our hot list has a lot of insult words on it. Things like stupid, idiot, moron. I explained to the kids that those words really have no use other than to say something mean to or about someone and therefore they have no place in our home.

This has caused a little confusion now and again. Like the day that my sister used the "S word" (Stupid) and Pie gasped in horror and hissed that Auntie had said a bad word! Auntie was not particularly amused since this initiated an interesting conversation between her and her children!

But that's life, not everyone does things the same way and sometimes we have to explain things to the kids that you wouldn't imagine explaining... but for me, having this hot list works.

When intense kids get angry, they get intensely angry... everything seems terribly out of proportion. Things that other kids wouldn't even notice can trigger an outrageous outburst in an intense child. To make matters that much more difficult, my intense kids will use any and every tool available to them to express their anger - that includes name calling and verbal assaults. Having this list of unacceptable words helps to curb the sting - they have to think a little harder and be a little more creatively to be nasty!

We also have a few other words that are off limits and spell only words. Rain, thunder and bath are among them.

The girl will go into a frenzied routine at the mere mention of rain or thunder but Bath? Well, maybe not what you imagine.

While some parents are in an neverending search for new kids bath products to entice their kids into the bathtub - I have to avoid the word unless I plan on producing a bath or the Girl will go crazy trying to have one NOW. She's very VERY persistant and it can be crazy making to listen to her go on and on and on and ON trying to get what she wants.

Of course, some of you may have bath as a spell only word for the traditional reasons so if you are in the market for some new and interesting bath products, check out these bath and beauty product reviews

One day, my creative little angle (The Girl) came and showed me her dirty feet in an effort to invoke bath time. I suggested she could have one before bed and that her feet were ok, not that dirty. She trotted off and I went back to what I was doing only to find her standing in front of me a minute later with large clumps of garden spread evenly on her toes. It was all I could do not to praise her creativity and sharp mind in coming up with the plan - she is only 3 - but instead I suggested she stay out of the garden and gave her a cloth to clean her feet.