Delicious Sucky Device

It's always interesting to see the nicknames we come up with for things.  For instance, the babies go to be in "night night" clothes.  The bag we take with us when we go out with the children isn't called a diaper bag, it's a "go bag."

I like some nicknames for things, but I don't like others.  I know many people call pacifiers a "binky" or a "paci" but we've never used those names.  I don't know where "binki" came from, possibly a brand name of a type of pacifier, but it's never stuck here. 

For some reason, I started calling the pacifiers "delicious sucky devices" and that seems to be a common nickname.  Now what sense does that make?  It's not a shortening of the name, it's a longer way to say the same thing. 

I don't understand our need to create alternate names, nicknames, pet names, for things, but we do it a lot in this house with babies, animals, people and things.  Maybe it makes language seem more alive; maybe it adds fun and playfulness.

The Big Boy Update:  Video reviews.  Today we were reviewing some videos from the past several months.  My son hasn't gained much weight in the past several months, but boy, it's obvious how the weight has changed distribution around his body when looking back.  On Halloween he took his first steps.  He was much shorter, and much rounder.   He's really gotten a lot more trim looking and has clearly grown a lot in the last five months.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Fontanel Fright.  Babies have an open area in the top of their skull and one in the back of their skull when they're born, named "fontanels."  They are a little scary to touch because they mush right in to the brain.  But they grow over.  Today, in just the right light in her carseat, I saw my daughter's throbbing with her heartbeat.  No cerebral edema, all was normal.  But it's scary to be reminded just how close the brain is.  I took a video of it it was so interesting looking.

Right-size Countdown:  12.5 pounds to go