Over at Katie’s NaBloPoMo project, I am the star today. I think that’s enough for my posting today.
So maybe everyone’s seen the Social Security Popular Baby Names. You can see how baby names rank throughout the years. My name was 270th the year I was born. It was way more poplar in the early 1900s, ranking 19th both in 1910 and 1907. Fine by me.
iVillage has got a great visualization tool for this database called NameVoyager.
I have only ever named cats and that’s hard enough. A baby will eventually be able to give feedback, so that eliminates a lot of choices that would normally be available. Muffin. Spike. Boo Boo. That sort of thing.
Names can morph, too. The unfortunate rhyme of my name, Annie Fannie, eventually evolved into Fonk and then Fonklure Manure.
As an aunt, I suppose I will be able to come up with my own pet name for the little fella. At least until he has something to say about it.
Good old NPR
Hunting around for aunt lessons, I happened upon this little story:
An Expert’s Lessons on Being an Aunt
Though I can’t promise to remain single and devote my entire life to the “profession of auntship” I think I can take away one solid piece of advice. Letter writing is important. Why, I wrote one just the other day. In fact, every time I feel I’ve been wronged, out goes a letter. While auntship letter writing isn’t designed to elicit an apology and possible coupon or gift card, I think the skills will transfer.
Wool socks
The clocks fell back and the temperature has changed outside.
I like fall in general. I have continued to scoot to work, but it might not last much longer. The mornings are getting colder and my gloves aren’t keeping my hands warm.
Tomorrow I will talk again of aunthood.
Storms and soccer
Wind and rain and a soccer game are in the cards for me today. The New England Revolution are in the playoffs and I’ll be cheering them on this evening. It might be a muddy match, but I’m no fair weather fan. Also I have clubhouse seats, so I’ll be toasty warm and dry while the gents are sliding around the wet field.
Go Revs!
The stacks are dangerous
Okay, so I’ll start here where I started myself. At the library, of course. I went into the library catalog and, feeling smug about my librarian skills, went straight for the subject headings. I punch in ‘aunts’ and nothing looks too promising. In fact, one heading stops me in my tracks:
Aunts — Crimes Against
At that point, I decide against subject headings and scour the catalog using keywords. There wasn’t much to be had. I tried Amazon as well and there were no how-to or dummies books for aunthood. The only title I might try to track down is The Uncle Book: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Kid’s Favorite Relative. It really seems to address my mission as an aunt and mentions Nintendo. Hopefully it isn’t too man-centric.
November really snuck up on me, but I remember something about promising (threatening?) to post every day of this month.
So count this as a sort of introduction post. I plan on writing about whatever aunthood issues come up, as well as babbling on about other things. It’s about quantity. Though I’ll do the best I can for quality. Or at least try a little.
For anyone unawares, the Aussies have a new show out about librarians. The first episode aired last nite and can now be seen on the internets. It’s here:
The Librarians, episodes online
I learned as much as I could about Halloween and children, in preparation for being an aunt. From what I gathered, kids are slightly ill-behaved in costume and if you have really small ones, there’s a lot of extra candy.
Wiitastic fun was had by all for the ghoul and ghost gaming party. Though you’ll have to turn your computer screen on end for this clip, I think it’s well worth it.
Yeah, I’m watching
I’ll tune my television to the game. At least a few innings. It was easier on the west coast when things got rolling at 5 instead of 8. I suppose I was also younger then.
The people behind NaNoWriMo have been sending me tempting invitations to participate in the crazy novel writing month again. I am fairly certain I’ll decline this year, but my plan is to go for NaBloPoMo this time around. The theme will be my impending aunthood. I figure a topic will help string me along.
So stay tuned.
Also, any thoughts, advice or encouragement about your own aunthood or aunts would make for great conversation next month. Please send it my way.
I ordered the latest Harry Potter pretty much right when it was published. Seeing a number of copies up for grabs at the library the other day reminded me that I still haven’t finished the last installment of the Potter saga and shamed me into giving it another go. Believe you me, I have tried. I sit down and try to read that sucker, but it just isn’t happening.
Is it me? Is it Harry? I don’t know. I have an entire rainy day ahead of me to try and slog through some pages.