Names

I don't know what makes me think that it would be an easy thing for a 2 and a 1/4 year old to name things.  For goodness sake, it took us a long time to come up with Susie's name. We looked at all of the baby name books and all of the baby name websites.  I even sat around with two guy friends with whom I went to school and laughed hysterically over all of the names that would sound horrible with my last name.

After months of deliberation, all we knew was that we didn't want a name that everyone else had.  I grew up in the seventies, and I remember all of the Jennifers, Michelles, Johns and Stephens.  The social security data showed that the name we loved the most (Isabella) was also the favorite name of everyone else having a baby girl.  I remember going into Baby's R Us and hearing "Izzy," "Bella," and "Isabella" so often that I couldn't dispute the data, even though I wanted to.

We ended up with Susie's name as a combination of family names and my bff from kindergarten, whose name I have apparently always loved.  Susan was her paternal grandmother, who passed away a few years before she was born.  Her middle name is my middle name, which is my maternal grandmother's name.  And, Susie, her nick name, has always just been my favorite name.  I've had a cat named Susie, a doll named Susie, and it is the fake name I'd given out through my 20's and early 30's to men I'd meet and not want to see again.  . . . Come ON, don't furrow your brow at me! . . . You know what I'm talking about.

So, why I expect to give Susie an object and have her be able to name it on the spot is beyond me.   Though, her name selections have proven to be quite hilarious.

We brought her home a bright red, plush lobster from Boston.  She was a bit taken aback by its appearance. When I decided that she had finally warmed up to it, I asked her what she wanted his name to be.  She looked at it (still skeptical that she wanted to take ownership of it) and said, "Couch."  . . . What?  . . . She nodded her head and said again with more conviction this time, "Couch."  That's been two weeks ago now and she still calls him Couch. 

I've been going through Susie's room, getting rid of all of the stuff that has accumulated over the past two years.  I pulled out some of her very first red high tops.  Nope, I'm not quite ready to part with them. So, we suggested to Susie that we put them on her Teddy.  They fit perfectly!  Then, Susie wanted him to have on a shirt.  I pulled out a 0-3 month old onsie, white with pink polka dots, and stuffed him in it.  Susie announced, "I have a baby!"  She walked around holding him like a proud mommy, made him a crib out of one of the boxes I'd just emptied,wrapped him in a blanket and fed him a (pretend) bottle.  When she came back over to me on the couch (no, not the lobster . . . the actaul sofa) she held him sweetly and said, "I love my baby!"  I asked her what his name would be, and she said, "Polka dot." I tried to lead her to a real name and asked, "Yeah, what's the name of your bear wearing a polka dot shirt?"  She looked at me as if I were not nearly as intelligent as the bear itself and demanded, "Polka dot is name!"

Today we learned that her naming prowess extends to herself as well.  Susie and her daddy were in the kitchen and as I was walking by, I heard her tell him her first and middle names.  I chimed in and tried to get her to say her last name too.  Instead, she told me, "My name not Susie, Mommy, it's Table."  . . . What? . . . She said, "I'm Table!" She said it in such a matter of fact voice that I didn't dare challenge her.  I guess she wasn't feeling Susie today.

Oh well.