Offspring

Yesterday I was driving the kids home after picking Asher up from school.  I’m not sure if they had been reading Bible stories that morning, but Asher began the conversation like so:

 

Asher: “When I grow up & have a baby boy, I’m going to name him ‘Judas’.”

 

Chancery: “And when I grow up to be a lady & have a girl, I’m going to name her ‘Judas’ too.”

 

Asher: “No, Chancery, you can’t name her ‘Judas’, because then there would be TWO Judases & that would be too confusing!”

 

Me: “When you grow up & have a baby, you can decide with your wife what to name your baby.”

 

At this point the conversation went quiet for awhile, then Asher spoke up again…

 

Asher: “Chancery said it was ok to name it ‘Judas’.”

 

Me: “Chancery is your sister, she can’t be your wife.”

 

Asher: “Well then who’s going to be my wife?”

A Good Name

This morning a fox wandered into our yard.  We watched it as it meandered along, eating snow, sniffing the ground, doing what foxes do.  As it left our yard, Chancery commented, “It’s going to visit Mr. Peter now.”

 

I agreed that it was going into his yard, & then she continued, “And it’s going to see Roxy (the dog)… and the other lady.”

 

I guess we see more of the man & his dog than we do of the lady next door.

 

My favourite part of the conversation was the part she tacked on the end, “Trixie is a good name for her.”

 

Thinking she meant the woman who lives next door, I asked, “Do you mean Miss Cynthia?”

 

“No,” Chancery responded, “the fox that went into Mr. Peter’s yard.  I gave her that name.”

Too Smart For His Own Good

In Walmart a few weeks ago, I was calling for Asher to come since he had wandered a bit further afield than I was comfortable with.  It takes a bit to get his attention sometimes, so I called, “Asher… ASHER… ASHER!!!”

 

An employee who was in the vicinity heard me calling him & asked, “What’s his name?”

 

About that time, Asher had joined me & answered for himself, “My name is Asher! A-S-H-E-R”

 

Then he began to sing for her…

♪♫ “There was a Daddy had a boy & Asher was his name-o!

A-S-H-E-R, A-S-H-E-R, A-S-H-E-R, and Asher was his name-O!” ♪♫

 

The woman said, “I like that name, I’ve never heard it before!”

 

At that moment I thought I of saying, “Really?  Because I feel like we’re here all the time!”

 

Then, since Asher’s song had garnered such attention for him, he started to act goofy to entertain the lady some more.

 

She then commented, “He should stay here tonight, we’d be entertained!”

 

Asher tried to jump on that bandwagon, but I told him that he was only allowed to stay if he got a job, to which he replied, “I’m not old enough to work here!”

Name Change

Asher woke me up this morning to tell me, “I want to change my name.”

 

“What would you like to change it to?” I asked.

 

“I want my new name to be ‘Daniel’,” he replied.

 

“Why do you want your name to be ‘Daniel’?” I inquired.

 

Asher explained, “Because it’s a cool name.”

 

So, I told him, “Well, when you get older, if you really want to change your name, I suppose you can, but Daddy & I really like the name ‘Asher’, so that’s why we gave you that name.”

 

Asher then informed me, “Well, when I am 100 and a half, I can do whatever I want, and I’m going to change my name to ‘Daniel’…

 

“…and I’m going to drink iced coffee!”

Nicknames

A few days ago, we had one of our “Miss Julie” friends come over to watch Chancery while I took Asher to swimming lessons.  We had a bit of confusion about which “Miss Julie” was coming over, since we know 3 women named Julie, who all interact with the kids on a semi-regular basis.

We usually refer to them in the order we met them as “Miss Julie”, “Different Miss Julie”, & “Different, Different Miss Julie” (we’re so creative, aren’t we?)  On this particular day, it was “Different, Different Miss Julie” who was coming over, but every time Asher tried to address her, he spend so much time saying “different” that he’d lose track of what he was going to tell her.

So, we decided that it was time to come up with another way of addressing “Different, Different Miss Julie”.  We ran through the regular gamut of names, such as “Miss Beatrice” & “Miss Ethel”, but between Asher & “Different, Different Miss Julie” they were all shot down.  And then, “DDMiss Julie” decided to throw “Miss Bertie” out as a suggestion & Asher latched onto it quite quickly & gave it a minor tweak, changing it to “Miss Birdie” instead & it stuck.

Quite soon after the name discussion, Asher & I left for the pool & we kind of figured that would be the end of the nickname, but once we got home, he continued to address her as such.  From now until he forgets about it, I believe her new moniker will be “Miss Birdy”.  Time to get used to answering to it!

There is a moral to this tale, be very careful around Asher about how you may refer to yourself, even if it’s purely in jest, he may just be the one who changes your name permanently!

Almost Famous?

Seems that naming Chancery after a Tube Station in London, was a rarity. We have since been mentioned in a Telegraph Article, on a Radio Programme on the BBC (start listening at 49 min), and we've been Twittered.

All for taking this name & bestowing it upon this sweet girl

What's In A Name?

Why the "Dominee Huisvrouw"?

My husband is a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church. This church was started by Dutch immigrants & there are still many Dutch people in the churches today.

"Dominee" in Dutch means clergyman, pastor, or minister.

"Huisvrouw" when translated from Dutch means: housewife, homemaker, married woman who manages her home full time.

I am, by definition, the Dominee's Huisvrouw!

Our Newest Member

A few weeks ago, we decided it would be nice to have a pet. Since I already clean up poop all day I decided a puppy was out. I'm not a huge fan of cold weather, so me walking a dog was out. At the moment I don't have an exorbitant amount of time to devote to training an animal (we're still working on training the kids), so basically a dog was out. Leaving a cat.

Choosing a cat was fine with me. I'm a cat person through & through. On cold winter days you can find me curled up w/ a latte, a cat, & a book. We bought the classified ads & started browsing for free cats, not too old & crochety, not too young & fragile (we do have a 2 year old after all). We finally found one in a town about 30 minutes away & took the drive to see him.

He was 4 months old, the people who had him had 2 daughters who drug him around, so he was used to some abuse, litter-trained & friendly. We decided to take him home since he seemed a good fit for our family. We contemplated names for awhile & PChad came up with "Thanet." When we first moved to London, England, we lived in a flat on Thanet street. I liked the name too, so it stuck. Plus, when a 2 year old says it, it doesn't sound innappropriate like some other names do.

Here's a clip of Asher playing w/ Thanet.

Pronunciation Guide

There has been some confusion over the last few weeks on how to pronounce our little girl's name, so I thought I'd give a short explanation. When we lived in London I worked downtown & took the Tube into the city. The stop I got off at everyday was Chancery Lane. We thought about names afterwards that would remind us of our time in London, & that stood out as a good one.

One thing we learned during our time there is that words are pronounced quite differently than how an American/Canadian might pronounce it. Chancery Lane was a prime example of that. Chancery was not pronouncedˈchan(t)-sə-rē, with a long "a" sound & 3 syllables, but ˈchon(t)s-rē, with a short "o" sound & only 2 syllables. We thought that might sound a bit too pretentious, so we chose a happy medium b/w the two. We pronouce it ˈchan(t)s-rē. I know there's always the risk that some may try to shorten her name to "Chance", but we're hoping that she likes her name enough to maintain it...... isn't that every parent's hope?