Names and other news

Here's a short list of Sally's nicknames:
Princess (I know, I know. Don't judge me.  The name Sally means princess. And she is the princess of my heart. So there.)
Principessa (see above. I like to greet her every morning with "Buongiorno, principessa!")
Precious (as in, "my precious." Yup.  Also, "My precious princess.")
Bright eyes
Bug
Sally Bug
Little Girl
Sneaka (yeah, I don't know what that is. It just comes out of my mouth.)
Sweetheart
Googie (this one is Sean's. He says it while tickling her, and she smiles and smiles.)
And, most often, Baby Sally

The nickname "Bug", along with her Halloween ladybug costume, led Walter to ask this hilarious question: "Baby Sally is ... a bug?"

Walter's current nicknames:
Walty (he made this one up for himself.)
Waldo
Dadu
Buddy
Walter Paul

Walter has realized that his family members all have names, too.  He loves going through the list with us. "Mama's name is ..." "Annie!" Daddy's name is ..." "Sean!" etc.  My favorite is Baba's: "Baba's name is Paul," Walter says. "Like Walter Paul."

Tonight, he used the word sister for the first time. Sally was crying and Sean took her away from the dinner table to change her diaper. "My sister!" said Walter. "That's my sister!"

Sally just started laughing out loud yesterday. She's been smiley for a long time, and she makes a little sound in her throat like she's laughing like Ernie from Sesame Street. But yesterday and today I got a few real giggles.  I think the sudden loudness of her own laughing startles her.

Finally, Walter and I had a pretty hilarious exchange while we played together before dinner tonight:

Walter packed his toy bus full of various little people and drove it "to church."
Me: (pretending to be one of the people) "Here we are! What can we do at church?"
Walter: "Eat cookies!"
Me: "Hooray! What else can we do at church?"
Walter: "Eat more cookies!"
Me: "Mmmm. Those cookies were good. Now I'm full. What else can we do at church?"
Walter: "Another cookies!"
Me: "Can we sing songs?"
Walter: "Yes!"
Me: "What song should we sing?"
Walter: "Cookie song!"

Walter claims his name

Just a quick note to note that Walter started calling himself "Walter" this past Saturday.  I wish I'd written down the circumstances of the first time he did it.  He said it so clearly and precisely, and looked at me and Sean while he did to make sure he'd gotten it right.  Since then he's consistently and frequently referred to himself using his name, including his ongoing experiments with the possessive ("Walter shoe.")  My favorite so far: he likes to play with a puzzle piece of a bus and tell me who is on the bus.  This weekend when we got home from Umma and Baba's house he picked up the bus and said, "Mama!"
"Is Mama on the bus?" I said. "Who else is on the bus?"
"Dada."
"Who else?"
"Baba."
"Who else?"
"Umma?"
"Who else?"
"Walter."

That is one great bus.

He's not calling himself "Dadu," anymore, but we still use it sometimes as an endearment, and he doesn't seem to mind that.

Other weekend highlights: a visit with my Soul Sister, Heidi, her mom, her new baby ("Baby Anna!" says Walter.) and Bennett, Walter's Soul Brother.  Walter was so very alarmed when I was holding Anna and she started to cry.  Big eyes.  "Uppaday!" he said, trying to climb up on my lap to save the baby from me.  Later, Walter picked out a baby doll at the store and has since been practicing giving her bottles, giving her a pacifier, singing and reading to her and putting her in a shoe box to sleep.  He wants to call her "Sally," of course, but we're encouraging the name "baby" to avoid confusion down the road.  The doll came with a small stuffed animal, a dog, which Walter also wanted to name Sally.  This, too, we gently discouraged.

We had a nice video call on Monday evening with some of Sean's family members who were gathered at the shore for the holiday weekend.  Walt is quite taken with his cousin, Casey, who is five.  A couple of times since that call he's said, "Love you, Casey!" Pretty sweet.

It's thunderstorming tonight, but so far all dogs and small children in this house have slept through the rumbling and the worst of it seems to have passed.  Time for Mamas and Dadas to hit the hay, too.  Sally, on the other hand, just woke up.  Time for some womb snuggling, I think.

By any other name

Our baby started out with one nickname: Scooter.  He got that nickname very early on, in the very early morning when I woke up, compulsively took yet another home pregnancy test, got a positive result, and crept back into bed with Sean saying: "We're going to have a little Scooter!"  It's a good nickname indeed.  

Now that the Scooter has arrived, however, the nicknames are proliferating. We pretty much call him anything that comes into our heads in the moment. Here's a short list of the current favorites (feel free to add "little" before all of these for maximum cuteness):

Check out that monkey butt!

Pumpkin

Babydoll

Monkey Butt

Pooper

Bean

Snookie (Don't judge me.  It just comes out. I won't let reality TV ruin a perfectly good nickname!)

Sweetheart

Squeaker

Some of these are rather specific to infant Walter and I imagine will not continue to be used beyond a certain age.  We got a hearty chuckle, though, out of imagining Grandma Sue meeting Walt's prom date at the door saying, "Oh! Are you here for Monkey Butt?"

Another example of pre and post birth differences in our lives: you may recall that I wrote a beautiful lullaby for Walter.  This lullaby turns out to be completely useless, because I can't sing it without crying. Like, can't get through the first two words.  It sums up all my love for this little guy so perfectly and that's a little too much for me at 2 am.  So, what do we sing while rocking Walt to sleep? Lots of things. We tend to prefer bluegrass, although Walt really seems to dig the "Ta oomba oomba oomba whoa-oh-oh" part of Paul Simon's song "African Skies" (oh the Graceland album!  Baby likes good music!) The best, though, is a cowboy ballad Sean composed for Walt one of his first nights home from the hospital.  It goes like this:

Hey little Walter

Hey little Walter

Why do you fuss do you fuss up a storm?

Hey little Walter

Hey little Walter

You've fussed and you've fussed since the day you was born.

You fuss and you fight and you fight and you fuss

If you could speak well I think you would cuss

You fight and you fuss and you fuss and you fight

If you had teeth well I think you would bite

(Repeat chorus)

This lullaby is much more fun and appropriate for late night singing.  Speaking of sleeping Walter ... he's sleeping again!  The boy took my challenge to make me a liar and ran with it (well ... snoozed with it.)  He had a great nap yesterday afternoon and did pretty well last night, too.  Now he and Grandpa are asleep in the guest room and both snoring quite contentedly.  

A good day. =)