A Handy Guide to the Philosopher-Mom's Nine Kids

My adventures in Blogland have convinced me of the need for Clever Proper Names for my children, like so many of my kindred blogs have. Tags like "Number Seven" and "J" are simply weak prose which fail to do justice to my overactive creativity gland.

So on the seven-and-a-half hour drive to the Atlanta Airport from Orlando (which I will explain, hopefully tomorrow, at the Airport), I thought up some Clever Proper Names. Someday, doubtless when I should be doing four or five other things, I will go back and edit my previous posts for consistency. But in the meantime, I've included a cross-reference.

Number One (J) = "The Engineer." I considered "The Non-Graphing Engineer," but what kind of mom distinguishes her own child with a critical reference? (Answer: a Philosopher-Mom. But I've resolved in 2008 to try to work harder on the "Mom" part.) A freshman in Electrical and Computer (non-graphing varieties of -- whoops! I did it again!) Engineering at a mid-sized Jesuit University in Snow Country that has an illustrious basketball tradition about which The Engineer cares naught, though his father is something of an expert.

Number Two (T) = "Trooper-Racer." See my Tenth Top Thing about 2007. He's a junior, and a soccer player (goalie). He is very close in age to, and generally persistent in his animosity toward...

Number Three (B) = "Beastie." There are already several posts that explain this Clever Proper Name; just search the blog for "Beastie." Even more of a soccer player (but not a goalie -- no, no, never a goalie! Or she'll quit!). Beastie is sixteen...and has looked it for about four years already, which has been harrowing, especially for my husband.

Number Four (D) = "Cadet of the Year." I'll give the full story on this one when I get around to "When It Comes to Education, There's No Place like Home...Unless It's a Military Boarding School (Part IV)." But suffice it to say he really was Cadet of the Year last year, for the junior school at Lyman Ward Military Academy, which really is an awesome school. Not just for juvies anymore. (No; seriously, it's not for juvies at all, and never was. Pure, unalloyed stereotype there.)

Number Five (M) = "Anime Girl." She's a dead ringer for Misa, a character in an Asian cartoon soap-opera with the enchanting title of "Death Note." (Catch the pun?) She's in middle school...with every hormonal thing that implies.

Number Six (K) = "Pseudo-Tomboy." The one who broke her wrist rollerblading on the gravel driveway, then broke my large and heavy crystal potpourri bowl skateboarding in the hardwood foyer. And then broke the wrist again playing football with her brothers in the backyard. She counts this as evidence that she is a tomboy, though from where I stand, it's evidence that she is clumsy. She looks nothing like a tomboy, but rather like a slightly more pleasant (and innocent) version of a Bratz doll. To quote ZZ Top, she has Hair Down to Her Fanny. Though not in middle school until next year, she's got the hormonal thing going on already...so her pleasance and innocence are starting to crack. As is the tomboy act.

Number Seven (N) = "B-Twin." This doesn't do the creativity gland justice, either, but "Non-Dominant Twin Now, but after Puberty He Won't Be, so His Dominant Twin Sister Had Better Watch Herself" was too long, even for me. He and the twin (duh) are nine: the age at which peer female dominance is most implacable.

Number Eight (S) = "G-Twin." Dominant now...and despite what I just said about B-Twin, probably will be all her life. She's even more choleric than I am. Kyrie, eleison.

Number Nine (Baby L) = "Cuteness." At five, she really can't be "Baby" L anymore. (Do you hear that, Numbers One through Eight? Stop babying her!) This was actually my third choice for a Clever Proper Name. My first choice was discarded after I realized how snarky it sounded. Still, it can't be denied that she is pampered by an X-treme sibling pool (Cadet of the Year declines to participate, for some mysterious reason thinking she needs more discipline). I had to bring L with me to campus for one of my class sections this past semester, where she was amusing herself by standing beside me at the front of the classroom, writing her four-letter name on the board with chalk. All over the board, in various font sizes. At one point during my (attempted) lecture, I asked her to move over to the edge of the board -- and she, putting hands on her baby hips, fixed me with that expression universally understood to mean, "Have you lost your ever-lovin' mind?" I told the class that although she'd been writing this particular grouping of four letters all over the board, her name was really spelled "S-P-O-I-L-E-D." Which was my first choice for her Clever Proper Name, discarded for snarkiness. My second choice was "The Caboose," but then I remembered what happens to moms who give away all their baby things, and figured that officially blog-naming a child "The Caboose" was almost certain to have the same Murphy-like effect. So we'll leave her as "Cuteness."

My husband doesn't need a Clever Proper Name. There's only one of him.