Nickname MeMe

Ok, this is for you Debbie! I was on vacation when you tagged me and I wanted to include pictures with it, so here goes.

Alex - When I was pregnant with Alex, I used to go in the nursery and rock in the rocking chair and sing "You are my Sunshine". Don't know how I started it, or why that song, but I just did. When he was born I continued to sing that song to him everytime I rocked him to sleep. As he began to grow and his personality came out, we realized he was absolutely the sunniest child we had ever known. His smile was the sunshine that lit up our world and he was ALWAYS happy! Seriously, during those first two years, I was thinking this whole mothering gig was a piece of cake because my child was just so easy and happy. Boy, was I ever naive. :) Anyway, it just came naturally to call him "Sunshine" and it fit perfectly. Now that he is 13, that is totally not cool, so I try real hard not to call him "Sunshine". We call him "Pal", "Buddy" or just plain Alex. He is still so funny and goofy and brings smiles and sunshine to our life everyday. Just this past week, we ran into one of his teachers on vacation in Florida and she told me she would always remember him walking down the hall with a smile on his face.



Mandi - "Princess" Need I say more?!!! When Mandi was born, we thought our family was complete. I was so excited to have a daughter to do all the girly things with. Mandi was/is the sweetest, most enchanting child. She loves all things girly, but isn't too prissy. We also called her "Boodles" for a while when she was younger. Don't have any idea why or where, it just rolled off the tongue one day and stuck with her for a few years. Now that she is entering middle school, she is still okay with "Princess" but "Boodles" had to go!


Linzi - On the day we received our referral, I was so excited I got her name wrong. I thought they said Wu Pint Bin. As we were making calls, Eric started calling her Half Pint and Pinto Bean. We laughed and I told him you CANNOT call her that. The next day when we received her package, we realized her name was really Wu Ping Bin. It is common in China to double the third name and call the child that. In Linzi's case, it would have been BinBin. I think that is the cutest thing, but Linzi's name "Bin" meant guest. Her whole Chinese name means "Peaceful Guest", which is why we kept her surname of Wu and not her given name in Chinese. I was really disappointed because I had planned on keeping her name, but not with that meaning. So for Linzi, it just rolled off my tongue to call her "LuLu" or "Linzi Lu" or "My-Lu". We call her LuLu most of the time. For a while, I was afraid she would think her name was LuLu. I actually had a lady in a store tell me what a cute name LuLu is. I had to tell her it wasn't really her name.