Friday, September 10, 2010

Nicknames

As I've mentioned before, my wife's sister-in-law is pregnant. The in-laws are about to become Grandparents, and they're very excited. One of MIL's (Mother-In-Law) extremely intelligent (*cough* *notreally* *cough*) friends is helping them to plan out all the minor details.

Super-Intelligent Buddy, about to lose 5 dollars
A few days ago, Super-Intelligent Buddy called MIL in more or less a panic. "What is the baby going to call you?", she demanded.

"I don't know," MIL said. "Grandma and Grandpa, I imagine."

Super-Intelligent Buddy pressed the issue. It was suddenly very important that MIL and FIL plan what the baby would call them. "Grandma" and "Grandpa" were not sufficient. Would they use "Grandma Firstname", "Grandma Lastname", or nicknames? What nicknames? C'mon, this is *important*!

After a few minutes of "It doesn't matter," and "This is critical!", my MIL decided to do what any sane person would do. She started giving out ridiculous answers.

Super-Intelligent Buddy misses a hint
"We'll go with Bones and Butt-hole."
"No, no, no... you're not thin enough to use 'Bones' as a nickname."

MIL's claws came out. Super-Intelligent Buddy didn't even realize what she'd said... typical of her.

"We'll use Big Boss and Big Gut, then."
"No, that's too silly."

"Sawtooth and Superfly?"
"Too dramatic."

"I think we'll go with Moo-moo and Poo-poo."
Super-Intelligent Buddy required reading
"Too gross."

Eventually MIL pretended the line had static and hung up. Super-Intelligent Buddy never realized how annoying she was being, and she never explained why the name question was so important.

On the off chance that it matters, my wife and I decided on some nicknames for ourselves so the new Niece / Nephew will know what to call us. My wife will be 'Auntie Princess' and I'll be 'Julie Andrews'.

I'm glad we got that sorted out in time.

1 Comments:

At 8:51 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is really important subject for the first time grandparents. We went throught that with my in-laws, my son is the first grandson. Didn't take long for FIL but MIL took a while. She was worried about name clashing with my mom which I'd assured her numerous times that it WILL NOT. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out grandma in Chinese isn't 'grandma'.

-SWOAN

 

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