Dress-ups and Nicknames

This morning Rachel found some scarves and decided to play dress-ups with them. Since she’s the older sister, she enlisted Miriam into her game as well.

She put the scarf over Miriam’s head and announced that Miriam was a woman. Or, as she says, a “yiman.”

“Look, Miriam’s a yiman because she’s in a hijab! But she’s only a baby yiman. No! She’s a princess and I’m going to be the prince!”

That arrangement only lasted for a few moments before Rachel realized that she made a better princess candidate (obviously) and that Miriam should be the prince (naturally). So she demanded that I make Miriam a turban out of one scarf and a hijab for her out of the other one.

Miriam doesn’t know about gender roles yet (or about gender at all) so she doesn’t care if she plays the prince or the princess. I told Rachel to enjoy that while it lasts, which should be another two years or so…at which time I believe Rachel won’t get off so easy for stripping Miriam of being princess.

I think both girls make beautiful princesses.

Yesterday Rachel was talking to Andrew and she called him “Da,” which is a clear truncation of what she usually calls him (either Dada or Daddy or Dad).

“Okay, Ray!” he said.

She whirled around and said, “-ch! It’s Rach, Dad, okay? Not Ray.”

Apparently she has developed a strong opinion about her nicknames. Andrew teased her about calling her Ray until she was nearly in tears, insisting that it wasn’t her name.  It was rather funny.

I’m fine with the nickname Rach, but how do you spell it, really? R-A-C-H just doesn’t do the pronunciation justice since when I see that I usually want to rhyme it with “match.” Rache doesn’t yield the correct pronunciation, either. Hmmmm….