Nicknames

My little family (Zippy, myself, Wili, and Baba) and my bigger family (parental units, sister, and soon to be brother-in-law) have never been much on using your real name. Real names are reserved for times when you are in trouble (I actually tested all the possible names for Baba by yelling them in an angry tone. Names that felt "good" yelling stayed on the list of names).

That being said, we have gotten very good at the giving and receiving on nicknames over the years. I have a friend whom we call "Porkchop" - the story behind that name? Well, out of the blue she said, "Quit picking on Porkchop." As far as we could tell no one had ever called her Porkchop before that day. Alas, it stuck. My sister will answer to: Sistra, Ditty, Little Ditty, and KaylaMcaShoebomb-Kackalackaticktock-Tickalickaboombomb-No-Nicknames. She created that name for herself while we were out shopping for track suits (you remember? Those ones made out of the windbreaker material. The tops and bottoms matched). It was the late 80s early 90s and we were so cool! Oops. I mean rad. We were so rad!

I have never called Zippy honey or dear or sweetheart or any other name that makes me gag. He has been Poonch, Hungie, Oreida Potato, Husband, the Yady, and Poonchie, among others. The cat, much to the dismay of my sister, goes by Mister Wili (she thinks its dumb that we named a female cat Wili and thinks its ever dumber that we call her Mister Wili. She is now an it, so there) or Silly-Wili-Ding-Dong or just plain "Ili!" (always Ili! with an exclamation point. We are always happy to see Wili because then we can point to her nose, eyes, ears, and mouth and try to stick our sticky little fingers in each part).

And let us not forget Baba. He started out as Zebulon (Zebbie), which evolved into Mister Babis, and then the boy (that makes total sense. We've got "Husband" "Wife" or "Mife" and the "Boy") and now we go by Trouble. In case you are curious, my nicknames include: Toey, Sarie, Hungie, Mife, the Yady, ZarahZou, and Sistra, among others.

We also have a tendency to make up names for things or make up words. There are, what a billion quadrillion megabillion and five words and that isn't enough for us to express ourselves.

But we've got a new word/nickname (stick with me, although all this information is interesting, I do have a point). The other night we were doing our nightly march to bedtime and Zippy was reading a Star Wars book to Baba and me. I was paying closer attention than Baba. Baba uses story time to wring 5 more minutes of havoc wrecking out of the day - basically he likes to rearrange his room before bedtime, creating an obsticle of painful toys for us to avoid during our pitch black trips to his bedside to locate a plug for him in the middle of the night.

Anyway, Zippy got to the part about Anakin's mother, Shmi and he pronounced "Shmi" incorrectly. Being the Star Wars fan (nerd) that I am, I corrected him. He then changed Shmi's name to "Shimmy-shimmy-sham-shung." Every time he came across Shmi he would insert Shimmy-shimmy-sham-shung. I was rolling on the ground laughing. A certain Baba couldn't figure out what I thought was so funny, but laughed anyway.

The moral of the story: Never mispronounce a Star Wars' character's name in front of a Star Wars fanatic and everything is funny when you haven't slept in a couple days.