Around here, the use of nicknames provides an interesting insight into etymology (the history of words, for anyone who's not familiar with that term). For instance, as a child I was affectionately known as "Rosalrocerous." I happened to mention this once to my friend Karin, who promptly told her then fiance, and they both took great delight in calling me as many variations on that name as they could: Rosalrumperocerous, Rumpasaurus, and other bone-chilling variations. (I think, in case anyone was wondering, that the "rump" originated during a particularly humiliating session of bowling . . .). Dan has a much more varied and storied past, in terms of various appellations: Skidmore, Horsey Trot, Skeeterumpus, Raheee, Beaver Pelt, Dan-o, Boone (as in Daniel).

More recently, however, we've been fascinated by the evolution of Andrew's nicknames. Initially, he was known as the "Bug." After a brief flirtation with "bugger" (rejected quickly for obvious reasons), this became "booger," a similarly distasteful (if less offensive) moniker. Or "buggy." Other variations (for some reason we seem to have a fascination with bodily excretions): poop stain, poopie, etc. Lately, the various nicknames seemed to have merged into his most recent--the daring, stimulating, original: boo boo. Or boo-boo boy. Take your pick. (As I write this, I'm particularly impressed with both our creativity and our eloquence in choosing these names. Clearly Andrew is destined for greatness of some kind--I just hope he doesn't choose to manifest it in his next diaper.) Other options, for the curious (we know that not everyone who reads this post hangs on ever factoid about Andrew, so if you belong to this category, feel free to skip to the next paragraph. Although that too, come to think of it, is probably about Andrew. What can we say? We don't have much of a life!) include: pu-ju, squidget (you know, a squidgy midget), squatty boy, and Sasquatch.

As this is the season of ghouls and ghosts and other frightful things, we thought we'd take a brief moment to celebrate all the things we're afraid of.

Andrew: vacuum cleaners (apparently we don't use it often enough!); grass (on a recent, memorable outing to the park, Andrew was positively distressed every time his bare toes or hands encountered the stuff); and electronic crib soothers (see earlier post).

Daniel: Billy (his mom's doll, aka first boyfriend--anyone who has seen Billy in his current state of disrepair will know he's freaky beyond belief. Chucky eat your heart out!); vienna sausages (Dan says: "I'm all for tubular meat, but these are midgy tubular meats"); and PDA.

Rosalyn: Daylight Saving Time (terrified--there's no other word for it. In one week, Andrew will go from waking up at 5:30 am to 4:30. Psychologically, I don't think I'm prepared to deal with this); vampires behind the shower curtain (don't ask); interminable conversations with ESL students about the appropriate usage of "which" and "that" (I don't know, okay?).

As you can perhaps tell from the above post, we've had a positively scintillating week. Dan went to lab every day, I went to the writing center every day, Andrew pooped multiple times every day (and crawled around naked), etc., etc., etc. (I did, however, find some fabulous deals at Gymboree . . . One more thing Dan's afraid of--that the shopping will never end!)

Here, doing a bit of fall cleaning. (Don't worry--this was a brand new garbage can, purchased a scant thirty minutes earlier).