Emily's Name Game

"Call me Ariel."

"No, Mommy.  My name is Alice."

"Don't call me Emily.  I'm Sleeping Beauty."

Is this a common toddler phase that I don't know about?  Emily has been changing her name almost every day.  She changes our names as well.  Yesterday I was Lavine (??) and today I'm Mommy Squirrel.  Some days the names are longer than others (Jason was dubbed Snowflake Boa Rosebush Allison the other day).  I'm not sure what Em has against boy names, but all of the males in this house have had very feminine names for the past month.  Jacob has been Rapunzel, Mary, and Sally this week alone.  It's not just a 5-minute game either.  She's adamant we all go by these names all... day... long.  She corrects us when we don't get it right.

For the past two days she's Elizabeth Alex Trebek (we may have suggested the last name).  Her preschool teacher made a comment today that we must watch a lot of Jeopardy. We don't...  We just like messing with our kid.  I even had her answering every question with "What is..." at dinner.  I think I'm hysterical.

Elizabeth Alex Trebek was doing everything except eating dinner (as usual).  We often do "family bites" just to get her to eat.  One of us says, "Family bite!" and we all have to take one at the same time.  Brilliant, right?  Em took it a step further tonight with "Family drink!" as she sipped on her chocolate milk.  Jason was drinking beer and I was drinking wine, so this was essentially our first family drinking game.  At one point she even said, "I'm still drinking" to imply that we should be drinking, too...  It's like doing waterfalls in college all over again!  We could really get creative and add the name thing if we wanted to (drink if you call someone by their REAL name).  Dangerous.

I had a hard time getting the names right at bedtime tonight.  Emily has a fantastic book Mimi made for her after Jacob was born.  She made it on Snapfish and it reads like a children's book.  There are pics of both kids as newborns with captions such as, "Mommy is at the hospital.  Who is she holding?"  The kids look so alike in pictures at that stage that it's actually difficult to tell them apart at times.  I read the text the way it was written and Emily melted down because I wasn't using the right names.  Seriously!?  So I read the entire book about my kids, Elizabeth Alex Trebek and Sally.  Even Mommy and Daddy were replaced (spur of the moment name changes).  I'm Susie. Jason is Goldilocks.  The last page had Jason and I laughing out loud...

"Together, Susie and Goldilocks and Elizabeth Alex Trebek and Sally are a family!"

No one will ever accuse this kid of lacking imagination!