What's In A Name?

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1594.

Growing up, I had a: Gramma, Grampa, Granny, Uncle Jim and Aunt Lynne, Uncle Tony and Aunt Esther, Uncle Geoff, Uncle Mac, Cox, Caler, Nanny, and Papaw. This is what my family called each of these people around my siblings and I all of my life. I guess I should explain really quick who the last four are. Cox was my Granny's mom. She was my namesake, Rose Amanda Cox, and to everyone else, she was Grandmother Cox, but when my oldest cousin started to talk, she became just Cox. Caler, was my Gramma's dad. His name was Vance Caler and I don't know why we called him by his last name, but that's just what we did. Nanny is my Grampa's sister and Papaw was her husband and Linus's middle namesake. Oh, and I should mention that Gramma isn't Gramma anymore. Now that she is a GreatGramma, she prefers to be called GG.

In my family, it's a little different. My mom is Nana and my dad is Papa. I am either Meemanda or just Manda, TJ is either Uncle Day or just Day, Tyne is Sissa, and Bethany is Sissy. I just think it's weird that not one of us has a "traditional" name for ourselves. I am pretty sure that my mom is the only one that picked out her name though. I remember when Tyne got pregnant with Tytan, my mom said that she was too young to be "grandma" and so she wanted to be called "Nana". I am not sure how my dad became Papa, but that is him. He just doesn't seem like a Grandpa to me. As for my siblings, well, they all have their little stories as to how they came about.

I am "Meemanda". That is from my first nephew. If you think about it, Nana and Manda sound a lot alike coming from a child just learning how to talk. I guess he got pretty sick of it when he'd say one or the other and both of us would turn and say, "What?". So, he would say "Nana" for my mom and a very pronounced "Meeeemanda" for me. I thought it was dang cute. As he got older, it shortened to Mamanda and occasionally the original Meemanda. Sometimes the other kids will say it, but usually just Tytan and my mom. I like it. But I have never, ever been Aunt Amanda. It sounds weird. I have been called Auntie Amanda and that's pretty cute, but that's another story.

Tyne, or as she prefers, Melissa, is Sissa to everyone in the family now. Mikayla couldn't say Melissa, so she shortened it to Sissa. I think it's stinking cute and we all stick to it. She is more of a Sissa to me than a Melissa, but has always been a Tyne to me. I couldn't pronounce Melissa growing up either, so we called her Tyne.

TJ is Uncle Day or just plain Day. I am not sure who started this, but it's pretty cute. Kids come up with the funniest things to say when they can't pronounce words properly and it's funny what sticks. Bethany called TJ, Geegee with a hard G. I am surprised that it didn't stick, but I guess Tyne and I were able to pronounce TJ, so Bethany finally came around to the proper pronunciation. I like Geegee better, but Day is good too.

Bethany, oh my little sister Bethany has more names and nicknames than anyone I know. For the longest time she thought her name was Bethany Sissy Cookie Mignonne Edwards. Her actual given name is Bethany Mignonne Edwards, but my Gramma always called her Cookie and our other two siblings called her Sissy... I think that's how that all came about. My personal favorite is Ernie. My dad used to call her Bethernie and every Christmas would give her a bag of Ernies. They are the grocery store bulk equivalent of M&M's. It went from Bethernie to just Ernie and I like it the very best, but since she was Sissy to the rest of the siblings, she became Sissy to all of her nephews and will be to her niece, unless I can convince Bea to call her Ernie...bwahahaha. Bethany is going to kill me if that happens.

So, does that mean that we aren't typical? Well, knowing us, that's a silly question. No, we are not typical. We never have been and never will be... but a rose by any other name would smell as sweet... I hope that means that we are just as sweet as well. We may not go by the typical moniker but that doesn't make us any different in the eyes of each other and our family.

Happy Holidays

My innate nature is to not offend people if I can. I, for the most part, don't want to rock the boat. I am thinking though that being married to Matt, for those of you that know him know he doesn't really care what people think and never has, is rubbing off on me. So, this post is probably going to offend people and I am not going to apologize for it. It's not a long post, just a quick thought on these holidays.

Reading status updates on facebook has been making me giggle a little bit about how protective people are about their Christmas. Now, I am Christian, I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe in the bible. I celebrate Christmas. The holidays for me and my family is Christmas. But, I will tell people "Happy Holidays."

I was taught to be respectful of others beliefs, and Christmas isn't the only holiday being celebrated in December. I am not too keen on the silly "christmahanakwanzika" to merge all of them together. I will, however, not push my religious beliefs on others and not expect everyone I meet to be celebrating Christmas.

I think I am mostly writing this post is just that there have been a few people who, on facebook, have been very pushy about Christmas being the only holiday that is celebrated at this time. I just feel that those who are pushy, are pushing others away. I think that people can feel very strongly in their convictions and I think that is great. I love hearing that people believe what they do and believe it strongly. I hate it when they feel the need to push it on me or others. Even if it is the same thing I believe. Please, be open about what you believe, but I would hate it if the majority of people here made me conform to Hanukkah just because that was the majority religion.

So, in the spirit of loving others the way Jesus would, in an accepting manner, and teaching through practice... Happy Holidays. Be safe everyone and please, enjoy and appreciate your friends and family. If you read this, know you are most assuredly someone I care about and thank you for caring enough to read about my, sometimes mundane, life.


Here's hoping for a white one. tee-hee. Tyler is going to kill me for posting this picture. HAHAHA

She is the Great and Wonderful Oz!

Maybe it's the Great and Horrible Oz... Or maybe the Great and Terrible Oz...I can't remember.

I have decided that Bea has some type of weird mind reading/psychic skill.

She somehow seems to know when we are a couple of blocks from our destination in the car. She will, for the most part, just sit and sleep or coo to herself the whole car ride up until we are close to our end place and that is when she starts to get whiny, cries, and sometimes starts up with the full blown screams. It's almost as if she has that same weird sense of whatever it is that dogs have. My dogs always know when we are close to our final destination. Even if they have never been there before. Maybe I put off very catchable vibes. Who knows. All I know is, this little girl is NOTHING like Linus and there is definitely a reason God gave me him first. I certainly would have had to wait a little longer to have another baby if she'd been first. Although she might have been better as the first child since she won't nap right now unless I'm holding her. I've been wearing her in a sling all day just to keep her from crying and to get her to sleep. It was ok when she was 7-9 pounds. My chunky monkey has almost doubled in weight and it's killing my back to wear her that much.

I do want to clarify, she is a darling little girl. But when I say that sentence out loud, my head translates "little girl" into "dramatic chatterbox". She already is such a drama queen. It is killing me. Today, her cousin, Chase, bumped her lightly and she turned purple with the inability to breath and clenched her eyes shut as I watched on waiting for the scream.

Night time is tough. She wakes up after 4 to 5 hours and so I need to change her diaper and feed her. I try to change the diaper first so that there is less jostling when the bottle is done and she'll go back to sleep easier. But, oh, the time it takes to change that little butt, is awful. She screams like I am slowly gnawing her fingers off one knuckle at a time. Poor Matt last night was trying to sleep, he had a really long day ahead of him, so he was trying to get more than his usual fill of sleep, she starts in on the scream and he turned over and said, " I thought I told you to turn that baby off!" Poor guy. =) I guess he hasn't figured out they don't have "off" or "snooze" buttons yet.

I do have to say though, she has her boring, just looking around moments, but for the most part, when she's happy... she's REALLY REALLY happy. She smiles so much and laughs. When she's sad... she's REALLY REALLY sad. The frown she has just breaks my heart. And when she's mad...she's REALLY REALLY mad. There is just no soothing her until she's works it out of her system. I'm waiting for a little curl to grow on her forehead so she can really be "the little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid."

We have had 3 nights now of her sleeping on her own in her own bed. Before, she just wouldn't sleep unless she was next to me. She'd cry and cry until she laid down right next to me and would calm right down and go to sleep. It was ok the first couple of weeks, but by the month mark, I was done. I would lay down, get her to sleep, and try to roll out of bed. Keep in mind I have a king size memory foam mattress. It doesn't move. I can jump on the bed and she won't move. But this little mind reader... ugh! She'd be asleep, snoring, mouth wide open, and I'd roll out of bed and her cute little eyes would pop open. WHAT?! Ok, let's try this again. Laid down next to her, she fell asleep, yadda, yadda, yadda. It never failed. I could not get off the bed without her little eyes popping open. So, I finally got her figured out enough to know what she likes that I can put her down at night by herself and she'll sleep pretty good, 75% of the time. She still has the obvious strong desire to be cuddled and I give in. I have been told by a family member that I spoiled Linus by holding him all of the time. And my response to that is: So what. They are only babies once and I will cuddle them as much as they want. Especially when they are little, little. They don't know any better. All they know is that they need something and if I am not there, their need is not being met and they don't know why. When they get a little older and can work on their independence like Linus is right now, then I don't need to run to his every beck and call... but he also won't cuddle me anymore. I want to get it while I can.

Although, I sure would like to be able to put her down sometimes.