Posted by Andy, under NOTEBOOK

It’s probably not a good idea. Eh. BUT I HAVE TO DO IT! I’ll tell you my crime if you promise to hear my shameless excuse. Deal? Deal!

Here it is. I am a bit of a cheesy, silly nickname-oholic. Especially with my kids. There! I said it.

“My dad calls it ‘treating me like an adult.’ Others might call it child labor.” Okay! How could I NOT call this guy Captain Lucas Maximus!?!

I know some people consider this bad for “child development,” whatever that means. But in a way I can agree with this, though. I try to talk to my boys as if they’re real people, adults who alternate between being either very charming or totally anti-social a##holes, but adults in any case. Just miniature. People could easily argue that my calling them really strange, syrupy nicknames puts a bit of damper on this approach.

To demonstrate how mentally unstable my nicknaming can get, let’s look at a before and after. When I was a kid, one of our family cats was named Coffee. She was Siamese, so in “kid logic” this name was considered a stroke of pure genius. But once my nickname generator powered up and went to work for a few years, I wound up calling her…

Warfsconesbalitscones. Said like: wharf-scones-bah-leet-scones with a rolling Scottish “r”. Uhhhh, I… I really have no explanation. I throw myself on the mercy of the jury. I plead insanity!

I call my wife “Darlin'” (never with a g) and she calls me Honesy (hon-ay-sie). This is when we aren’t calling each other super, crazy dorky names, sometimes with various foreign accents.

I’ll call all my boys “lad” or “man lad” by default. But let’s look at some of the crazinames I’ve given them individually. For Cody? Codeman, Code-ba-bope, Truman Capody and Codymandu (like Katmandu… sort of). For Max? Mad Max is obvious, but Fuzz-to-the-Bootnius-Man-Lad-One is not so obvious. Good for a password, maybe?

And now Lizzie has jumped in, full on, with Lucas. What started as Buddy, became Buggy, then Buggizna, and finally Bugginya. We’ll sing the 1935 Cole Porter song “Begin the Beguine” to him but altered to “When you begin, begin the Bugginya…” HEY! I warned you at the begginning! We are totally in-f##king-sane!

“WhuchootalkinaboutWillis! What did you just call me?” Shut! UP!!! It’s YOUR fault, you cutie patooties!

I’ll call them these names without a second thought, and they don’t bat an eyelash. When we’re out and about though, well that’s different. I’ll call out to one of them with one of my crazy, homemade quilts of a name and then the metaphorical hairs on my neck will stand up, like a movie hero sensing a sniper taking sight, I know someone’s taken notice. I turn my head, slow like a heavy statue being rotated by ropes, and then I smile awkwardly at the puzzled bystander staring blankly at me. Heh! What can I say… I’m insane? I come from another planet? I have the emotional maturity of a boy who was raised by puppies?

Plan B. I just shrug and chuckle. And then walk away quickly.

So, what’s my excuse to all of you for this? How do I take my desire to call my boys things you’d name a baby unicorn or a comic strip character and reconcile it with my desire to treat them like adults? Drum roll… I call regular adults redorkulous nicknames, TOO! So I AM treating them the way I treat adults! Ha ha! Loophole? Yeah, I’m good, I just jumped through it, thanks.

The best part is that now that Cody and Max are older and I don’t call them these names very often, for special moments, I can make the lights flicker and their hearts soar by calling them by one of their nicknames. If the moment is right, I think I will always be able to do this. Provided they don’t grow up to be pierced and tattooed emo parent haters, of course.

My second line of defense in all of this: I KNOW MOST OF YOU OTHER PARENTS DO THIS, TOO! To quote Darth Vader: “Search your feelings, you know it to be true!” Admit it! What craziness have YOU called your kid? Huh?

â€”

Blah blah blah You want some pictures now, right?

