Mommy, what should we name him?

Meet Mr. Kitty the cat




and Snowy the snow leopard



and Miss Lamby the... um... well, lamb.




Notice a pattern yet?

I just love the "inventive" names they give the critters around them. The frog they found in the creek? His name was Hopper. The butterfly we raised from a caterpillar? Her name was flutter.

The innocence that is reflected in these names gives my heart a little smile every time I encounter them.

I recently had the opportunity to name a cute little carolina wren who sings on the deck outside my bedroom window every morning.
I enjoy watching him and my kids asked me what his name was. I decided James was a good name in reference to the Carolina singer, James Taylor. My kidlets thought that name was completely uncreative and extremely lame. In their eyes it was yet another example of how weird and out of touch I am.

A few minutes later a tufted titmouse landed on the deck with James. (Yes, there is actually a bird with the unfortunate common name of titmouse.)

GooseyGirl saw the bird land and squealed, "Look Mommy, a titmouse! What should we name him?"

Her little brow furrowed as she summoned up all of her seven year old creativity for the task of naming our new bird friend.

"I know", she said, "Let's call him Titty!"

I'm REALLY hoping she forgets about it before we have company over and she decides to introduce them to Titty the Titmouse.


*** while searching for a jpeg of a tufted titmouse on google I came across this HILARIOUS picture- don't click if you are easily offended- you've been warned! Bwah ha ha ha ha!!
http://anekdota.dyndns.org/jotd24/att-0282/01-TitMouse.jpg