Social Distancing Diaries: Day 65

Dear Diary

Favorite Child Award today goes to…Hayley! She spent a good part of the day making my website look SO much better. Why is it so easy for her to just click here there and everywhere and figure out how to do things that I didn’t even know you could do?! I think I’ll give her my login credentials and make her my official VA (Virtual Assistant)! I also need a VA to run my Instagram. Lily was eager to sign up for the job but when I told her the posts need to be in my voice she back-tracked. I don’t want my business Instagram to be taken over by animated pickles. If you’re a mom of babies or preschoolers, hang in there! Eventually kids come in handy.

Our dinner table conversation centered around nicknames and names. Do you or did you have a nickname? Despite my longish name I never went by a nickname. In 2nd grade I tried to convert to Terri, but it never stuck. I did have it on my birthday cake that year, but I believe it actually said “Tough Terri” because of my confidence to take on the shady looking guy that walked into the deli right behind my dad. In 5th grade I was part of a group of 6 girls and we gave ourselves nicknames. I was Terrance. In retrospect I’m glad none of those nicknames stuck. There’s no shame in a 3 syllable name. Hayley was a little appalled to learn that my inspiration for her and Eden’s name came from a soap opera I watched periodically. I was a little chagrined to admit that Eden’s name was inspired by a soap opera character and not the more obvious biblical reference. I’m not terribly sentimental when it comes to naming my kids, although after losing Elise I wanted our next child to have the name “Hope”, thus the inspiration for Ellen’s middle name. I wanted to spell Ellen Ellyn, but Tom vetoed that one. Ellen is grateful. Having a husband who is the “IV” posed some debate in the name department. But I felt that naming our son the “V” would be more of a dynasty and I wasn’t comfortable with that. Thankfully, having only daughters, that discussion was purely theoretical. If we ever had a boy his name would have been Aiden Thomas; that was as close to a dynasty as I would go. Eden’s middle name is Linnae. We kind of made that up, so we went to the library and found it in a baby book. Then we felt it was legit enough to name our kid. Not only that, but we learned it’s a name often used to honor the 18th century botanist Carl Linnaeus. How perfect for 2 Bio majors! Some parents put a lot of thought and research into the names of their children. And then there’s us. What are your favorite name-related stories?

Lily is baking the chocolate chip cookies for the dance-off winners from last week. She’s lobbying for the GINORMOUS cookies. I’m advocating for the reasonable sized cookies. I should just step away and let her handle it by herself!