Sweetpea

When our dear daughter was born in the fall of 2005, we got into the habit of calling her Sweetpea. Or The Sweetpea, actually. Rich would call home from work - how's The Sweetpea today? I'd ask him, How's The Sweetpea doing? And it stuck. When we hired our babysitter, Gee, in early 2006, she picked up on it and called Elizabeth Sweetpea all the time. So, we have a daughter who refers to herself as Sweetpea. All our neighbors call her Sweetpea. She knows her "other name," but there's a definite preference for Sweetpea.

Say there's a picture of three birds. She'll immediately identify one as the daddy bird, the next as the mommy bird, and the smallest one as the Sweetpea bird.

So, sweetpea it is. I used to tease Rich that she'd reach and age where he'd call her sweetpea in public and she'd respond, oh, dad in that exasperated tone only kids can have, and that would be the end of it. Now, I'm not so sure.

Susan