I used to like to refer to Sarah as “Mom’s Girl,” as in “How’s Mom’s Girl feeling this morning?” or “Does Mom’s Girl want to watch some YouTube?” Sarah seemed to like being called Mom’s Girl but Max sometimes objected that she was Dad’s Girl too and should be acknowledged as such. Of course, Sarah had about a million nicknames. She was Madame Tootsie Bagel, she was Penelope Picklebottom (don’t ask), she was Funny Bunny when she was first born and we were in the hospital together, then became Cueball later on in babyhood, and she was Mooshkie and Bungielein and Lucinda May Haversham and Miss Tish. Max called her Kiddo.
The name Madame Tootsie Bagel as I’ve explained previously was invented by my mother, who had a great facility for generating these sorts of nicknames, as was the name Miss Tish, which I understand is from a 1930’s radio show about a character named Lizzie Tish/Tizzy Lish from whom we get our phrase “having a tizzy.” My mother used to call me Lizzie Tish.
My mom invented all sorts of terms that have been passed down in the family, to Sarah and to my niece and nephews. I remember once years ago visiting my brother and his family when his kids were small and my sister-in-law threatened to use The Gazongi Treatment on the kids if they didn’t behave better. That was one of my mother’s better fantasy inventions. We never did find out what it involved but it sounded insanely brutal and vaguely Gestapoesque and was enough to keep my brother and me in line when we were little.
Once I was visiting my brother and his family in NYC when his first-born son was still pretty young, about 2 or 3. It must have been Thanksgiving or Passover. My nephew was playing with the swinging door to the kitchen, pretending he was the doorman, and I asked him if I could come in and visit my Dad. “He’s not your Dad! He’s my Papa Vic!” he replied, growing angry and upset. He was even crying. My sister-in-law came and scooped him up and they had a chat, and eventually he came back and informed me that Papa Vic was both my father and his grandfather and he loved all of us. But he didn’t seem convinced by the party line, and cognitively and developmentally I don’t think he was ready to conceive of his grandfather as having more than one role in the family.
I think it’s fun to have different roles to play, to take leave of your ordinary role sometimes, or see yourself as more daring or fun, and nicknames sometimes do that. I hope Sarah enjoyed her nicknames. I think she liked being Mom’s Girl, and Madame Tootsie Bagel, and Kiddo too. Our Girly-Whirl.
The First Year Without Sarah 