Elle, L, Linnea....

I am a lazy typer. I just write people's first initial instead of their whole name, not sure why but I do. Until Linnea was born the initial stayed just that an initial. However, the more I typed L the more we called her "L", the more other people called her "L" and by four months old "L" was obviously going to be her nickname. I was just happy she wasn't being called Nea for Nea not only rhymes with Maya, the name I am mostly called, but sounds remarkably the same.

About a year ago she informed us that she really prefers to be called "L", then as preschool was approaching last fall she kept telling me, "Mom, make sure you tell my teachers that I spell my name 'Linnea' but I want to be called 'L'".  And they did, and all her classmates did too.

Then a week ago she told us that she was dropping Linnea altogether. That she wanted to be known only as "L". I told her, thinking it would detour her decision a bit, that she would then need to start spelling her name "E-L-L-E". She said, "Ok, I can do that. I think Linnea can be a middle name, some people have two middle names you know."

I didn't think much about it till Thursday when I noticed that she wrote "Elle" on all of her school work, and then when yesterday her baffled Sunday school teachers handed me her "Elle" signed projects & asked why she was insisting that "Linnea" wasn't her name anymore.

Joe and I don't mind her being  officially known as "Elle", although it is REALLY weird for me to write it, and no I won't write "E". So to help myself embrace this change this blog will be honoring her decision and referring to her as "Elle" and not "L".

And no I do not think it is a phase. Elle is like Joe and is steadfast through and through-once a decision is made there is very little that will alter her.