Inevitable

When we were first considering what to name our baby girl, one of the cons against the name Violet was that I didn't like the nickname "Vi." Once Jack finally got his way and we decided that we were indeed going to call her Violet, I promised myself that I would never shorten it to Vi. Never ever never!

Well, of course, it's inevitable. I held out for a really long time. I had friends who would call her "Vi" or "Vi-Vi," and I would grit my teeth and grin and bear it. I knew that they called her that out of affection, and I guess I didn't hate it that much (not like, say, "Jackie" for Jack or "Jan" for Janis). And then of course it happened. I started calling her Vi. Honestly, how can you not?

One of her first nicknames was Pielette (as in Violet Pielette - in my head, a "pielette" is a mini pie), which naturally got shortened to Pie. And then Jack started calling her Viley. Really, it's not a big leap from either of those to Vi.

Another thing that is inevitable is that deadlines will arrive. Wednesday was the last day for us to make changes to our school choice applications. Surprisingly, a Chinese immersion school is at the top of our list of schools to send Jack next year. I can't say that I'm not (very) nervous about the prospect of sending him to that school, but there are so many potentially great things about him going there. I'm sort of leaving it up to fate at this point and will wait to see where we land before I really start stressing out about where he is going next year.

One eventuality that I am eagerly awaiting is my elbow healing so I can stop wearing this cast. I've been told that it will be about a month. It's already starting to feel better, but I still can't use my right arm to hold Violet. I'm getting pretty good at picking her up with my left. If I can get her little tush to sit in the crook of my arm, I can hold her relatively comfortably for a few minutes. I've nearly perfected one-handedly getting her into the car seat by basically dumping her into it. I do an even less elegant job getting her out. Hopefully she can survive my convalescence without dislocating a shoulder.

Going off an earlier post, I think my natural hair color days are quickly coming to an end. Every day, I find more and more gray hairs on my head. Jack told me that I should probably start coloring it. I just can't hear that enough from my five-year-old son. It makes it worse that I happen to think he is right. He suggested that I stick with brown. Thanks, buddy. It's very convenient having my own personal color consultant. He told me that when he is a grown up, he will probably color his hair brown too. Or yellow.* Or green.

(* No offense to all my blond friends, but I am personally an advocate of the brunettification of the world. When I voiced some doubt about Jack's future yellow hair, he assured me that he didn't mean blond, he meant yellow. Like Big Bird. Tina Fey would be pleased.)

Death. Taxes. Hair dye. "Vi."