It was only after the emails started pouring in that I realized what a sad, sorry deal I was offering you: Reveal your real, actual baby names to me! And in exchange I will tell you nothing! NOTHING!
The one thing Paul has made me promise about this blogging thing is that I won’t use the children’s names. At all. Not in the blog, not in an email. He hasn’t even made me promise not to talk about our sex life or certain details of his anatomy (future post material!), but he did make me promise about the kids’ names. Paul is a computer guy for his job and for his hobby, and he’s worried that by having (a) five children and (b) twins, we are already (c) way too identifiable without me blabbing their real names.
But oh! You should have seen me sitting on my hands yesterday, trying to keep myself from telling every single person who emailed me! I even tried giving out freshly-minted pseudonyms that come closer to their real names than the English royalty names I’ve been using, but test subjects reported a 200% increase in tease. (Want the closer-to-real pseudonyms anyway? Owen, Riley, Clarissa, John, Aaron.)
Oh, shoot! I had like five other things I was going to mention, and now this names subject has put them right out of my head. Hm… I don’t think anything was crucially important, but I hate that feeling of forgetting something.
Oh! Here’s one! I’m not sure I mentioned that the SundryBuzz gig is a regular thing: I’ll be posting there 2-3 times per week. Yesterday I reviewed a cookbook that contains recipes for things such as “Bitch Bar Bacon Swimps,” “Fried Dill Pickles,” and “Connie’s Death-Corn Five.” Tomorrow I’m going to do a holiday-related tip.
Paul and I caught ourselves actually looking forward to the long weekend. Paul was like, “I have Thursday AND Friday off!,” and I was like, “Yay!,” and then we suddenly realized what we were talking about here: not a four-day weekend of sleeping in and reading books and watching movies and avoiding stores, but rather four days trapped in a ranch house with five children and one bathroom and no place to go because everything will be either (a) closed or (b) so stuffed with bodies, it may as well be closed for all the good it would do us to try to go there. We have had children in the house for nearly NINE YEARS. When are we going to learn that vacation days are no longer vacationy?
Fried Dill Pickles. YUM! The names thing is touchy for me, too. I’d love to reveal Little Diva’s real name (because it’s AWESOME), but it’s kind of a safety thing, ya know. OOOOO. Now I must e-mail you!
Man, I was really hoping you were going to do a Grand Reveal of the names. And I agree: the new pseudonyms only up the curiosity! Little Henry isn’t named something very similar to Henry???!! But in fact something closer to Aaron?! What!?
I’m with DH, I DID NOT READ that second set of fake names. Constance names her kids after English Royalty. The end.
My husband isn’t too pumped about using AD’s name either (hence the AD monniker). I couldn’t help myself here though. And it’s not like my readership is a minor subset of yours, or anything. Oh. Wait.
bummer. It doesn’t matter. You children will forever be what you fake named them. Even if you TOLD the real names, I’d be all, Nah – that’s Henry.
WHAT. The second set of names KILLS me. It hurts. It hurts so much! But what I’m thinking is that you could keep revealing names that are sort of like their names, but AREN’T. That way, by process of elimination, some very dedicated people with good baby naming books would be able to guess at least one or two of your kids’ names, I bet.
I guess we’re not too concerned about internet security here. I just keep my name out of my blog, so people (who I don’t want to see it) can’t just randomly find it. But I love my baby’s name and I must talk about it.
I love baby names so much I just spent two days in my blog posting about the naming of my ONE child. Now I see how you can go on and on and keep getting excited about it.
Yes, the new names (closer to the real one) just make me wonder even more. And I still think Henry should be a Henry.
We still love long weekends. By the last day of them (sometimes two) I’m ready to strangle my husband (and probably him to me too). But we’ll be traveling part of the time, so maybe that will help.
Fried dill pickles are TOO GOOD FOR WORDS!
People often ask me why I rarely take sick days when I don’t feel well. The answer – I’d rather be at work where I can sit in a desk in front of my computer and not move for hours on end than be at home chasing around a toddler who seems to NEVER GET TIRED. Weekends, vacation days, sick days, personal days – they were all given new meaning with the birth of the child.
Laughing over Tessie’s comment.
Maybe you can change your kids’ names every 6 months or so, just to keep us guessing… um, nevermind. I’m not smart enough to keep up. You’d have to have some kind of map key on your site at all times, and that might get to be a little too confusing.
That new set of names totally messed me up even MORE.
You’re such a tease. WHOEVER YOU ARE.
:-)
He allows pictures but not names?
Just asking :)
Vacation days get vacation-y again when the kids can have a sleepover at grandma’s!
Of course, our days off for having Caitlin taken by Grammy have just slightly lowered the pain quotient. We still have screaming and crying, but at least it’s wordless.
The foods you listed sounded…um…interesting? In a horrible sort of fashion.
Oh and regarding names? I’m so dead obvious it’s not even funny. Then again, it turned out that my sister created an account on one of those other social networking sites and totally outted me.
I know! I have finally admitted that I dislike weekends, because instead of the clear dilineation of duties in the stay at home mom and bring home the bacon hubby that we get during the week, there is the whole confusion of who gets to do chores vs. who takes care of kids vs. who needs a break more, etc.
Oh, and I thought we both had a Henry. I’m a little slow like that. And not clever enough to use pseudonyms in my blog. I would get confused.
You know, if I were a popular blogger I would probably be more concerned with names, but as it stands, I’m more concerned about people who KNOW me finding my blog. ;) Even though I’m typically pretty tame on my blog, letting people who see me into my head scares the crap out of me.
My husband’s a computer guy, too and he told me that people who want to can find out who we are, even if I used fake EVERYTHING. Also, I am too lazy to remember fake names. Hence, my site is 100% real, yo.
Fried pickles kick ass. Hardcore.
What Jess said. Please!
Also, what Mama Knows said. Good question.
And Erica, too; my husband said the same thing.
No original thoughts of my own today, apparently.
Mamma Knows- Yes, pictures are so far okay: not searchable the way names are, so you’d have to know us FIRST, and then recognize us from the photo. Less risk.
Erica- True, nobody’s safe from total psychopath stalkers. But it’s like locking the front door: I do it even though any motivated burglar could put an ax through it and walk right in. A locked door discourages people who don’t care if they burgle us in particular, they just want to burgle SOMEONE.
Also, having a techy husband means he can do certain things to mess up certain identifying info our computers send out. Stuff like that.
I “attempted” to be anonymous when I first merged onto the information superhighway, but my penchant for blabbing about my family soon screwed that up. I also use the same nom de plume (MrsGrumpy) wherever I am. My husband would search that and then, sometimes, have fits over what I wrote and I would delete it, or in the case of a message board I was on, beg and plead with the webmaster to delete it. In a way, I am sorry that I gave away so much. After recent events I have had people that I only know from the message board/blog search my husband’s name and then attempt to call me. It is very tough for me to even return an email, let alone speak to people that I really don’t know IRL. Does this make any sense? I don’t blame you a bit. Although Henry really does look like a Henry. I’m sure his real name fits him too.
yeh..I’m not so good at the identity hiding thing. But then again, I’m Icelandic and any icelander could track down my address, phonenumber and well pretty much everything in about 10 seconds flat. So not really much use for the whole secrecy thing in a community that is that small and that well web-connected.
Ugh – I went to one of those cyberbullying conferences the other day… and they put the fear of God into us about what you can track down, even from the teensiest bit of information. I was thinking of you, and how you are so smart not to use any… And I, on the handy other hand, will have prospective employers googling my name, only to find I’ve sold my kids to crack wh**s and swear quite a bit. Oh well. Employment is overrated anyway, right?
Swistle–
Or WHOEVER YOU ARE (I like that one).
I am still at it.
How badly do I need my own life or something ELSE to think about when my kid is taking a nini nap?
Oliver, Ryan, Casey, Josh and I think I’m sticking with Austin.
Can we do the Price is Right thing where you just give a number of correct but not which ones? lmao.
Nevermind. If you said 2/5 I just wouldn’t sleep tonight.
This is kind of fun in a torturous way. Like a hard crossword. Or Sudoku.
The New Girl- This is such a fun game, except it is a TOTAL TEASE since there will never be satisfaction. I WILL say that in your list are two names I like, two names I could go either way on, and one I dislike. How’s that? Agonizing? Oh, but are you guessing Casey for a GIRL? If so, that may or may not change what I said.
RIGHT, a tease it IS. For me a hard crossword is a tease also b/c I don’t have the attention span slash frustration tolerance to complete the puzzle and I also lack capable memory to remember to look up the key the next day or whatever…so there’s never satisfaction for me, Swistle.
First, I was thinking Cassie for a girl and then I was thinking Casey. See? I’m just scrambling now. I’d better quit before I’m reaching for things like Colean.
I wish I’d started this thing in pencil…
OK, I was thinking about names today. (Who am I kidding, I think about them everyday.)
I mean, names are weird things. Why do we like certain names, and not others? Why do we like certain forms?
Take for example: I love the name Kate. HATE the name Katie. Love the name Jenna, can’t stand Jen, Jennifer, or Jenny. Weird, I know!
But I was reading the website of another mom expecting quads (also named Casey, how’s that for coincidence) and she revealed the names of her kids. 2 boys – Robert Joseph and Brady Sean. I don’t really dislike or like either. But – the girls’ names. Cameron Shay and Reid Josie. OKAY, isn’t Reid a boy’s name? I was looking at those, and people will NEVER know they’re girls by their names. I kind of pity the kids. What do you think?
Anyway, moving on. I can’t believe that your kids’ names are fake! I’ve actually been a long time reader, and I’m wondering how in the heck I missed that! I’m looking at your pseudonyms and am drawing a blank on what the names could actually be.
And I just have to say – what would knowing your kids’ names be good for anyway? We know what they look like, for God’s sake! Names aren’t going to do anything! What does “Paul” think could happen? Anyway, I think you should beg, beg, beg to let him reveal the names! Because I am not getting ANY sleep knowing this! MUST. KNOW!
Please, please, please, tell us!
(Oh yeah, I’ll be sure to update you when we reveal OUR baby names!)
Casey
Ok, I have a guess for the pseudonyms!
Owen= Oliver
Riley= Ryan
Clarissa= Claudia/Chloe/Claire
John= Jacob
Aaron= Adam/Alex
(Although Henry will forever be Henry to me and all your readers!)
So, did I get any right? 2/5 – come on, give us something!
Casey- I know! I’m the same way with names: I LOVE one, and I’m “meh” about one that’s one letter different. Let’s see…you guessed one name I love, two names I like okay, one name I come close to disliking, and one name that is a TOTAL CHEAT with three guesses.
I know this is a super old post…like way old. But I was going through archives all stalker-like and I had to play!!
Owen= Patrick
Riley= Reid
Clarissa= Angelica/Gabriella (I couldn’t decide!!)
John= James
Aaron= Isaac