Juleah is not gifted with remembering names, which is a problem when you love to play with dolls all day and you are old enough to realize that they need a name. She knows Kelly-the name of an aunt and my baby from when I was a kid, she remembers Paula (Grandma Leah’s sister that lives nearby and we stayed with for a while last summer), Kelsi a neighbor girl across the streets who goes to church with us on Wed., and Sonya-the lady that diligently cares for the girls on Wed nights when we are at church, and of course Hailey my daycare child. She does know a few other names, but when it comes to naming her dolls-that is about it. So she came up with a few of her own. One of which was “Hickey”-yes the same sound as the word that means to suck on someone’s skin until it leaves a mark. We discovered that she was pretty consistent in using this name (which is believed to be derived from Hailey and Kelly). So needless to say we had to inform her that this socially unacceptable name was no longer to be used in our home, and when she responded with understanding she said, “No more Hickey.” Which I then repeated to reinforce her newfound understanding. We would say this over and over some days, and I began to feel bad, like I was telling her to let one of her friends die. And it never clicked with me that saying “no more Hickey” sounded really bad to other people who do not know of our secret household issue-for example the parents of the children I care for. Wow! That was a morning of laughter as I filled them in on why their child was also parroting the new solution to our household issue, “No more Hickey.”
