| 'The Beanster'. And a friend. |
We had a good friend, Peter.
Whose parents, when he was small, called him Petey-Pie.
He thought that was his name.
Petey-Pie.
On his first day of school, there was some heated discussion about what name he should respond to.
The teacher won.
And Peter, he became.
I thought Petey-Pie was a cute name.
I used it.
Often.
To the point where he regretted telling my husby and me the story.
Moving ahead . . .
We had given our first daughter a very nice name when she was born.
Caitlin Diane.
Very nice.
It suited her.
Until she started getting around.
Unlike most toddlers, who . . . toddle . . .
. . . she hopped.
Everywhere she went.
My Husby began to call her ’Tigger-Pie’.
It suited her.
Thus, she became Caitlin ‘Tigger-Pie’ Tolley.
Until it was time to prepare her for her first day of school.
Remember Petey-Pie?
Those lessons would apply here.
We had been careful to make sure our little daughter knew her first name was ‘Caitlin’.
But we hadn’t realized that she now thought her middle name was ‘Tigger-Pie’.
Sigh.
For weeks, I tried to explain to her, “Caitlin Diane Tolley.”
To which she would respond.
Loudly.
“Not Diane! Tigger-Pie!”
Drat.
She finally figured it out.
Slowly.
Recently, I saw her little daughter, Erini (also know as ‘Rini-Bean’, or ‘Beanster’ for short) hopping across the room.
“Wow.” I said. “Beanster, you remind me of your mother!”
She laughed.
And then I realized what I had said.
Sigh.
Here we go again . . .