A Rose By Any Other Name....

I spent the better part of my childhood (and large portions of my adult life as well) correcting people when they first pronounce my name. It was the rare person that was able to properly pronounce my first name from the get-go. Not that I have one of those made-up names. Nope. Just an uncommon one. I didn't really appreciate my name until, oh, I think, sometime in college. I spent a lot of time wishing I was a Debbie or Jennifer or Michelle or one of the other more pronouncable names of my youth. Well, OK, maybe not those specific names, but you get the idea. At least a name where people didn't always expect to see a boy attached to it. I think my mom felt bad for me at times, and she said - more than once - that if she had to do it all over again....she'd still pick the same name. She loved it then. She loves it now. And now so do I.

So, fast-forward from my youth to my motherhood. Today, I'm dropping my daughter off for my "parent's day out". One of her care-takers asked me to again pronounce Keira's name for her. They don't think they've been saying it right, she says. I had noticed this from Day One and so at every pick-up and drop-off, I tried to say her name as much as possible, to save them from this very thing. Anyway, apparently my efforts will for naught. So today, per her request, I say clearly KEIRA. ("KEER-uh".) This isn't the first occasion where I've had to do this either.

Apparently, like my mother before me, I gave my daughter a name that seems tricky to the untrained eye. I really thought Keira was a name that people would know how to pronounce. Now I know that we could have picked the other, probably more well-known spellings (Kyra or Kira), but we opted for the Irish spelling. You know, so she'd have something in common with her brother other than wacky parents. And basically no Irish heritage. Nonetheless, I discovered yet another thing I have in common with my mom. Because if I had to do it all over again, I'd still pick the same name.

And speaking of Little Miss Keira-not-Kee-air-uh, here she is modeling her fabulous new t-shirt. Love it? Fits her to a T, literally and figuratively. I couldn't resist getting Mighty Miss K her own retro Wonder Woman tee. Check out Sandbox Threads for this and other great shirts for kids. I wanted her to model her new duds with a wonder-smile on her face. But as you can above, she was more interested in getting off the chair to come see herself on the camera. When I asked her to sit back down and cheeeeese again, she responded by striking the pose you see to the right. Yup, she's for real. When she's irritated with you, she'll put on her pouty face and cross her arms. With a hmmph. It would be maddening if it wasn't so darn cute. And even cuter in the WWt.

By the way, you really should check out this t-shirt place. Funky stuff for kids. You can pick your design and the type of tee you want it printed on. They send your order pretty quickly and in some pretty cool packaging. Watch this space for K modeling her PEACE t-shirt sometime soon. And if they'd have adult sizes, I'd be getting this shirt for myself. (Love you, mom!)

Before I sign off, because I'm an equal-opportunity mom, I gotta put a pic of Q in here, too. He has no new,

cool t-shirt (yet), and his name is almost always correctly pronounced, but he deserves a little print as well. After all, with a smile like that and a knack for saying things like "You are the best mom, ever!" what's not to love?!