Gracie + Bub

If you know me in real life, you may be puzzled by the new monikers for my children. Allow me to explain:

When we moved to Texas, Bub decided to change his name without our knowledge or approval. He'd always been called by his middle name, but when we began attending VCC and picked up Bub from class that first Sunday, the teacher went on and on about a child named Chris. We thought, "What a bright child, that Chris, and what a strange teacher to tell us all about him and nothing about our son." The next week, an altogether different teacher went on about Chris, and when we asked how Bub did, she queried, "Who?"

Evidently, our little boy decided he liked the name Chris much better than his own and had convinced two adults that was his name, though his ID tag declared otherwise. When we realized what he'd done, we gave him the option of choosing between his two names. The middle name, as he had always been called, the first name, or any variation of the two. At age four, he just couldn't pick something out of the air, like Chris, but was instead limited to names at least listed on his birth certificate. He chose his full first name, and it stuck. After three years, we nearly have all our family calling him by the first name instead of the middle.

The name change, this moniker introduction, is not a repeat of that situation. One day it occurred to me how personal I'd been with names and locations. In fact, I'd very nearly given out our street address a time or two. I came to this realization as I was reading someone else's blog: someone who had just recognized her wild popularity, someone who had many hundreds of posts under her belt, and someone who was relegated to hours of rereading and editing for safety (changing names, removing very personal information, etc.).

Though it's highly improbable I will become even a little bit popular in the blogging world, I didn't want hours of bloggy cleanup should such an improbability occur. I need all the time I can get for prideful puffery and the like, so while my posts still hover around that 100 mark, I've gone through to change names and delete highly personal information.

This name, Bub, is not our son's chosen name, but rather the nickname given to him by his baby sister, Gracie. Gracie is a nickname given to a daughter by her father, and these are the names I've decided to use here on my blog. I said all of this to say that if you know me in real life, it's not necessary to call my kids Gracie and Bub. They still answer to "Hey You" and "Stop That," so please don't change on my account.