>Getting back to my Unfinished Posts, today I give you the Origins of The Critters’ nicknames.
~~~~~
Back when I was pregnant with Bear, I felt very alone. Tony and I were in our first year of living abroad in Germany, for all intents and purposes still newlyweds. I was 22 going on 23; among the first of my high school and college friends to be married and most certainly the first to have a child. I had a few acquaintances locally who had recently had babies of their own, but no one of whom I truly felt comfortable asking advice or parenting tips.
So I did what many mothers-to-be these days do: I turned to The Internets. To Babycenter, specifically. During downtime at work (of which there was much) and on evenings that Tony was working late (of which there were many) I spent more time than I care to admit reading the questions and stories of women in the same stage of pregnancy that I myself was in. I learned how to research baby equipment; that I had right to make choices about my birth experience; about how some women freak out about every twitch and twinge during the nine+ months of pregnancy, not realizing that twitches and twinges are (in most cases) completely normal.
The one comment that has carried with me for the past more-than-six-years was by one woman who, after learning the sex of her yet-to-be-born baby was that of a girl, immediately gave her a name and nickname: Emma Bear. I loved the idea, but more than that I loved the nickname. So much more than Heather Feather or Tony Baloney, which we were doomed to live with as we grew up. Almost immediately I presented that particular moniker to Tony, and from that point on our Bear has borne that nickname.
(Personally, when she was a squishy newborn I thought she looked more like Jabba The Hut than a bear. But people tell me that’s mean?)
~~~~~
~~~~~
As a strange twist to our otherwise impatient personalities, Tony and I decided that with our second pregnancy we’d do the near-unthinkable for ourselves: we’d wait to find out whether we were having a boy or another girl until he or she was born. By this time I’d weaned myself from the need to have an online community, as I was heavily involved with our playgroup and had made friends in person of whom I could ask questions and share experiences.
Because Tony and I made the commitment to wait, we assigned a nickname that we hoped would work for either a boy or a girl, one that would easily transfer from fetus to infant. It was nearly a no-brainer: Bug was perfect. From the earliest days that we first knew about his existence, Bug was known as Baby Bug. It made the not knowing whether we were expecting a son or a daughter that much easier for us to handle, because although we didn’t have a firm name for our unborn baby, we did have a nickname that we knew would transfer easily.
(As a complete non sequitur, when looking at this picture Bug said, “Oh, so cute! I love doughnuts.”)
~~~~~
As for The Critters… well, I don’t remember exactly when I began referring to them as such, though I stole the idea my inspiration came from Mercer Meyer’s books with that titled character. Back when I brought this blog public, I made the commitment to Tony and to them that I wouldn’t use our last name on this blog; shortly after the New Year I stopped using our children’s first names at all, to give them a small modicum of anonymity in an ever-increasingly public world. I’ve slipped here and there on both fronts, and at times it’s been extremely difficult to refrain from using their real names. There are posts that are sitting in my brain, which at this point I cannot write or publish, because it would compromise that commitment I’ve made to them.
Will I ever reveal my children’s names? Maybe, maybe not. Pseudonyms can be confusing at times, I know, but those who know us understand that ours were not assigned at random; they are actually a part of my children’s identities in real life, as well as online. It makes me laugh when local friends who regularly read this blog tell me that they’ve forgotten Bear and Bug’s actual names because they’re now more accustomed to thinking of them by their nicknames. And that’s okay with me, because that’s who they are.
The Critters: Bear and Bug
Please click through to Critter Chronicles for pictures and more content.
Become a Fan of Critter Chronicles on Facebook
All content © HMGBlogs 2007-2011
Advertisement
>That is an interesting story. Both my wife and I were message board freaks during her first pregnancy too (iVillage), before we discovered the parent blogging community.As for names, Munchkin decided one day that she was "Daddy's Munchkin" (which was complicated, seeing as how I called her Princess and my wife called her Munchkin). When my son was born, the first thing I said to him when he looked up at me in the OR was "Hey Buddy."
Posted by SciFi Dad | November 30, 2009, 06:20