Chelsea Kaplan’s Musings About Life... After Birth

Big bro has been going through a period where he prefers that we call him by a name other than his own. The name changes weekly, and most are plucked from things he sees on television. There was a five week-long “Backyardigans” phase where he was “Pablo” for one week, “Austin” for two, “Tasha” for another and then “Pablonator” (from the “Cops and Robots” episode, naturally) for the final week. After that, he wanted to be addressed as “Mr. Diego”, which I am assuming is some sort of Dora/Diego reference, though I have no idea from where the “Mr.” originated (because really, shouldn’t it be Señor ?). Up until last weekend, his name choice was “Pony”, one of the monster trucks in “Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks”. Interestingly, Pony is the only girl truck on the show - and just happens to be purple. As much as I’d like to use this selection as ”Maybe my son IS gay!!!” evidence, I actually think he likes her because she’s purple, his favorite color (which, still, is not totally masculine, right?). Anyway...presently, he’s “Remy” from the movie “Ratatoullie”. He’s even gone so far as to dub Little Bro “Emile” (the big brother rat in the movie, but whatever....), my husband “Daddy Rat” and me “Mommy Rat”.

When he chooses a name, we MUST address him as such. Calling him by his actual name gets you a swift admonishing ("It’s Remy."). He gets into it by referring to his newly-monikered self in the third person ("Remy wants a cookie!”, “Remy does not want to take a rat bath!"). If you want to get him to do something, the only way to be successful is to call him by his new name. Apparently, this goes on at school too. After requesting that she call him “Pony”, his teacher, who also happens to be Grandmomtourage member Debbie, mother of Momtourage member Jen, assumed this was my pet name for him, and asked Jen to confirm her suspicion. “No, I thought it was Mr. Diego,” she replied. Of course, I had to explain that no, in fact, he’s actually so obsessed with a purple, female monster truck (which part of that is the most objectionable?) from television that he feels compelled to take on her identity. “Ohhhhh...” they replied.

What’s funny about this story is that apparently my husband went through a similar phase. In the first grade, the school called his mother to tell him that he had been writing “Pelé Kaplan” as his name on all of his assignments.

His teachers were not amused. Neither was my education professor mother-in-law when they called her in for a conference and tried to tell her to make him stop. “Why don’t you just worry about teaching, okay?” she told them. “He can sign his name however he wants.” Oh, snap! Of course, she knew he’d eventually grow out of it, which he has. For the most part.

Of course, just like my mother-in-law, I know this little role-playing thing is a harmless phase. I just hope that when he’s tempted to dye his hair blue or pierce his nose to “express himself” in high school, he just asks to be called “Pony” instead.