Nicknames

Gage and Lila have been playing "Alice" the past several days. We're reading Alice In Wonderland at bedtime, a chapter a night, and the kids *love* it. (We finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - for the second time in a row - about a week ago and they requested Alice next.)

Usually Lila is Alice, and Gage is The White Rabbit. Lila walks around carrying a cookie in one hand (the 'eat me' cake) and a little bottle in the other (the 'drink me' drink). She nibbles and sips, and frantically repeats "Which way? Which way?" and pretends to grow and shrink. Gage hops around saying "Oh, my whiskers. Where is my fan? Where are my gloves?" Then Lila cries a lot and swims through her tears. It was the cutest game ever (the first 100 times).

Which brings me to nicknames. Lila often likes us to call her 'Snow White' or 'Sleeping Beauty' (which she knows nothing about - other than they are 'princesses'). After we kiss Sleeping Beauty she smiles at us and says "Now I'm Awake Beauty!"

She loves, right now, to be called Alice. What she does NOT like to be called? Alice Walice Palice Talice. She SHRIEKS when Gage calls her this, she screams: "My. Name. Is. ALICE!"

But Gage got this from her - she sometimes calls him Gager Rager Pager Tager. And me Mommy Wommy Pommy Tommy.

She can dish it out, but she can't take it.


We call Lila: Ms. Lila, Monkey 2, and, often, Li. Gage sometimes calls her Sweetie Pie, which is adorable. Also: Little Girl.

We call Gage: Gager, Gagerdoo, Monkey 1. Lila calls him Gager Rager Honeydew and Gagie.

We call Josephine: Josie, Jos, Baby Jos, Monkey 3, Josephine Jellybean and Josephine the Dancing Queen.


I did have to tell Lila that I don't like the nickname 'Mommy Wommy Pommy Tommy' (partially because it took her an hour and a half to ask me a simple question). Her response? "Okay, Princess Mommy."