My baby's name used to be Violet. Now it is not. Yeah, so I changed her name when she was 10 months old. Don't judge me. Cuz if you judge me, I'll tell everyone about how you listen to Linda Ronstadt in your stupid earbuds, then when people ask what you're listening to you say Sufjan Stevens.
I feel like changing names used to be no big deal. Like it was even kind of cool and respectable. Cat Stevens did it. Elton John did it. John Denver did it. David Bowie did it. Tracy Chapman probably should've done it because, be honest, when she sang that "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution" song you weren't sure if that was a boy or a girl.
But then stupid Prince made name changes laughable. Now, if you change your name or your kid's name, people think you're either a crack addict or a megalomaniacal multi-instrumentalist from Minneapolis. I am neither (I've never even been to Minnesota).
The truth is, people, I just never liked the name Violet. I should've stuck to my guns early on, but we had this stupid "democratic" thing going on in our family at the time, and the kids outright refused to back down from naming her Violet when I brought up that the name just wasn't doing it for me. I tried again for a new name a few weeks after we brought her home, and again the kids flashed their bayonets. I should've gone authoritarian then and there, but I had visions of all three of them smoking pot in their rooms as teenagers, listening to black metal and muttering about how they never felt loved after Dad changed the baby's name over their objections, so they started burning ants with magnifying glasses and it just sort of went from there.
Ten months down the line I still just really detested my baby's name. And then one day I realized that the time was ripe for a coup d'etat. We'd just moved to a new country -- no one new the baby's name. And so I struck, winning Shannon over to my opinion one night after softening her up with a Galaxy ice cream bar. Then we blitzed the kids with our decision the next morning at the breakfast table while they while they were still groggy from the Benadryl I'd slipped into their toothpaste the night before. Sure, they cried later, after they came to and realized that I'd just made an epic power play on them. But it was too late. You've got to get up early in the morning to outsmart Dad.
Oh, right, so now the baby's name is Tess. Do you like it? Nyeh. Don't care if you do or don't. I do, and I'm the dad. BTW -- this is what a blog post reads like when it's written in ten minutes flat.
 |
| The Artist Formerly Known as Violet |
But then stupid Prince made name changes laughable. Now, if you change your name or your kid's name, people think you're either a crack addict or a megalomaniacal multi-instrumentalist from Minneapolis. I am neither (I've never even been to Minnesota).
The truth is, people, I just never liked the name Violet. I should've stuck to my guns early on, but we had this stupid "democratic" thing going on in our family at the time, and the kids outright refused to back down from naming her Violet when I brought up that the name just wasn't doing it for me. I tried again for a new name a few weeks after we brought her home, and again the kids flashed their bayonets. I should've gone authoritarian then and there, but I had visions of all three of them smoking pot in their rooms as teenagers, listening to black metal and muttering about how they never felt loved after Dad changed the baby's name over their objections, so they started burning ants with magnifying glasses and it just sort of went from there.
Ten months down the line I still just really detested my baby's name. And then one day I realized that the time was ripe for a coup d'etat. We'd just moved to a new country -- no one new the baby's name. And so I struck, winning Shannon over to my opinion one night after softening her up with a Galaxy ice cream bar. Then we blitzed the kids with our decision the next morning at the breakfast table while they while they were still groggy from the Benadryl I'd slipped into their toothpaste the night before. Sure, they cried later, after they came to and realized that I'd just made an epic power play on them. But it was too late. You've got to get up early in the morning to outsmart Dad.
Oh, right, so now the baby's name is Tess. Do you like it? Nyeh. Don't care if you do or don't. I do, and I'm the dad. BTW -- this is what a blog post reads like when it's written in ten minutes flat.