So, Elizabeth Jane is 8 months old, still doing the "commando crawl" (on her belly, pushing with her feet, pulling with her arms looking like a little Marine) and I'm incredibly tender when she nurses, falling asleep during her afternoon nap, dizzy, nauseated at the smell of the chicken I'm preparing for dinner and oh yeah...a week Late. (you know, "Honey. I'm Late" - with a capital L). But, Elizabeth was our infertility baby. It took us a surgery, a ton of Clomid, and two IUIs to get her - surely I'm not *pregnant* - there's no way! I couldn't be. We didn't go see Dr. Moutos! Well...I was most certainly! What a shocker!! But what a joy. And then...oh, no! We've used our "girl" name! And the other girl name I had loved was Sarah - funny thing was - Emily Anne had a little sister named (you guessed it) Sarah. Sarah was out. As Brad and I drove out to my parents' house to tell them our news, we started discussing baby names. He said, "What will we name the baby if it's a girl? We have a boy name already." I said, "My only requirements are that her first name be the name of a queen and a saint - just like Elizabeth. And her middle name must have personal significance to us." He said,"I like Katherine. It goes well with Elizabeth. Katherine Lyn since Lyn is your middle name." I told him that I loved Katherine - with a K so we could call her Kate, after my Daddy's Aunt Kate (a most precious woman). He agreed. I said, "And according to the Social Security Administration and IRS, my middle name is Martin since I took my maiden name as my middle when we got married. I would like to honor my daddy since this will likely be the last baby we have." (honestly, we thought she was a fluke!) "Not to mention, Lyn does nothing for me even if it was my middle name at birth." He said it aloud a few times and then declared, "Katherine Martin. I like it. That's it."
There it was - within five hours of finding out I was pregnant, Katherine's name was chosen. Katherine was born when Elizabeth was 16 months old - so in the beginning she was just "beh-beh" (baby). My dad and I worked on her, "Can you say Baby Kate?" because my intention was that Katherine would be called Kate. Elizabeth wouldn't say it. Brad would coach her to say "Katherine" - she wouldn't say it. Then one morning in October 2004, at the age of 20 months, Elizabeth walked into the nursery and said, "Hi, NinNin!" and there it was - Katherine's nickname. By the way, it's not Nin Nin - it's really more "Ni-nin" (short i sound) but for some reason I spelled it NinNin the first time I wrote it down and that stuck. Katherine is much more a "NinNin" than she is a "Kate". When she was three, she would actually introduce herself as NinNin. We shorten it to Nin quite often now and it fits her perfectly. Everyone who spends any time with her quickly learns to call her that because that's just who she is!
1 comment:
Gina, I have *loved* reading all these, as you can imagine :) I just had to share that our second got her nickname (a very similar one) in exactly the same way! Pippa was 17 months when she was born and was hardly saying any words at all at that point. Her original "name" for Romilly was to pat her tummy (her sign for "baby" alluding to my pregnant belly) or make a crying sound mimicking her sister's 'talking'.
Maybe about 6 weeks or so after she was born, Pippa and I were reading nursery rhymes together, and when I got to the page with Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Pippa beat me to it and said, "Row, row, row..."
I got all excited and said, "if you can say "row, row, row, that you can say Ro-ro-Romy!" (Romy was the nickname *we* had intended to call her... it never cuaght on) and from that day on, she was Ro-Ro. First called that by Pippa, then by us, then by every single person who knows her. It is how she introduces herself to strangers, so I'm always having to explain her name. Like you guys, we often shorten it to Ro which is a little easier for people to latch onto, but her own identity is all wrapped up in Ro-Ro.
The best laid plans, huh?
Great stories!
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