July 27, 2010: Debbie??

I have to add a funny story about the boys and their similar first words. When Carter was 14 months old we were in San Francisco for Christmas. He had just begun saying a few words, but was still predominately using sign language as his method of communication. During the trip, my mom, her parents, and her siblings were brainstorming ideas of what Carter should “call” her. She didn’t like Grandma because she felt she was too young to be a grandma (news flash mom, you became a grandma at the same age your mom became a grandma!), and “Nanna” was her grandma’s name. My aunts and uncles threw out things like “nonnie”, “nanny”, “Grammy” etc…but she wasn’t too interested. Finally it was decided that “Nama” was the perfect name. Not too old, not too young…it was just right. My grandma was pretty certain that Lynn would go by whatever Carter decided to call her, but for the time being she would humor my mom in her hopes of being called “Nama.” The next day we were trying to introduce Carter to my mom as “Nama”…and he repeated it a couple of times so we all thought it was set. However, later that day Carter started calling my mom “Debbie”...and continued to call her Debbie!! We have no clue where he got that from, but that was what he called her the entire trip. My grandma was thoroughly amused that she was correct…and thought Carter’s choice of “Debbie” was simply hysterical. My mom wasn’t too impressed, and instead of accepting it she would correct him each time with “my name is Nama. You can call me Nama.” We left San Francisco unclear that Carter would call my mom anything other than Debbie. Thankfully, by the time my mom flew to Spokane the weekend after Cohen was born, Carter began calling her Nama…and it is what he has called her ever since.

Now that Cohen has started saying words, we’ve been coaching him to repeat things that we say in an attempt to help him learn the names of various objects. Auntie Libby has done a great job of “helping” with this effort…though the only Cohen remembers is “Bibby”, and I’m beginning to think that was the only word that was offered during Auntie Libby’s lessons =) Once he had Bibby down, we moved on to “Nama.” At first it came out like “Maaama” and then “Momma”, but at least it was close. But then this past week the funniest thing happened: Cohen started calling her DEBBIE!! Seriously! I’m not even joking…and there was absolutely no “coaching” Cohen to say that. My mom is floored…and we are all trying to figure out why calling Nama “Debbie” is so appealing. This has been going on for the past week…so we’ll see if my mom can go 2 for 2 with “Nama” or if she’ll forever be called “Debbie” by Cohen =)