When I was a little girl, my mother gave me a nickname. She was the only one who ever called me by that name and she used it through all the years it was cute, then embarrassing, until it was endearing to hear it. After she passed, my dad, who had never called me that name before, called me that once, and the moment it came out, we all knew it could never be said again. Last year, when my sister was building her house, she called me on my birthday and said, “you’ll never believe what came up on our porch today and made itself at home.” I knew right off it had to be a cat, and the poor thing had picked the house of the most cat-hating people in the world. I immediately felt so sorry for it, as I always did for all the kitties I’ve ever met. For the few days that the kitty stayed on their porch, my sister called it by my nickname. It WAS my birthday that it had shown up on, after all, she said. (By the way, the nickname is the name of this blog)
Somehow, giving people nicknames has been something I’ve always done. At least to the people that really matter. My brother is called by either his full name or “G.J” to most of my family, but to me, he’s usually “Bud” or “Buddy” and sometimes, “G”. I like to find my own special name for people, somehow demonstrating the uniqueness of the relationship. My brother in law has always been “Bear” to me. Little Man even calls him “Uncle Bear”.
I am the proud Aunt of one niece and one nephew, Emily and Robby. Emily will be 9 in December and Robby will be 5 on Tuesday. I live 12 hours from my sister and her family but I still strive to be the “cool aunt”. It’s actually not very difficult considering their other two aunts, but I still take it upon myself to lead them to great mischief, to sleep in the kids’ room and eat at the kids’ table when we’re all together and to give the best (read that “most annoying to parents”) gifts of all time. Emily and Robby have 3 aunts. To make the competition fiercer, we are all named, “Amy”. Three Aunt Amys.
Emily was the girl name I had picked out when Jacob was born. My sister seemed to think it was fair game since I had a boy, never considering that I might still want that name for future children. (Let’s not dwell on the fact that I’ve had no children since.) I wasn’t all too happy about this decision, but I must say I handled it with Grace. Oh no, wait, that’s her Emily’s middle name. Emily Grace. Right. I did handle it well, though. I just handled it silently. So, when Emily was born 7 months after my Little Man, I felt the need to call her anything BUT Emily. Quite honestly, her nickname came so easily I couldn’t avoid it. I have a picture of her somewhere as a very very newborn baby with this head of dark hair, and she’s lying on the table screaming her head off. She looked to me very much like a little bird waiting to be fed. Honestly. You’d have to see the picture, but you’d totally agree. So, from that point forward, Emily has been “Little Bird”.
I’ve called my son a number of things over the years, but for the longest time he was “Bocaj.” He only recently graduated to “Little Man”. Bocaj arrived when he started preschool and he would write his name at the top of all his papers in beautiful lettering, only it was totally backwards, so I would say to my Jacob, ‘Wow!! This Bocaj really did a great job on this paper!” And it stuck. As all good nicknames do. I still call him Bocaj, and I write it on his brown bag lunches when they have field trips and such and it’s still part of why he thinks I need medication. I even do his last name backwards. It’s very clever. His schoolmates think he’s got a psycho mom. Maybe that came from me writing “Monkey Brains” on the lunches. Hmm…
When Robby was born five years ago, no nickname jumped right out at me. He was all boy right from the start, but I knew it would take awhile for a great name to form.
A couple years ago, we all gathered at my dad’s house in Tennessee for Christmas. It had been many months since I had seen the kids, so when I saw Robby I was teasing him that I couldn’t remember his name. “Who are you?” I kept asking him. So I started making up names. “Are you Bill?” “Nooooooo!” “Are you Benjamin?” “Noooooooo!” and on and on it went. For hours. I’d ask, he’d answer, “no!” and then run off giggling. So pretty soon I just declared that his name MUST be George. It MUST be, I said. I was certain of it. And since he wouldn’t tell me his real name, I just proceeded to call him George. And of course, to sing the “George of the Jungle” song at every turn. Being the cool-Aunt-that-teases, that’s what I’m supposed to do. So George decides he doesn’t like this. He runs off to tell his mom that I’m calling him “George”. His mom tells him to call me something silly back.
And that is how I became “Aunt Fred”.
To this day, on all correspondence, when I talk to them on the phone, at all times, they are Little Bird and George. And the kids just eat it up. They love their special names. I get an earful of giggles and fighting over who gets to talk to Aunt Fred. It’s absolute joy to have made my name as their favorite Aunt, even if it is as “Fred.”
My mom would be so proud.
P.S. Happy Birthday George!
