Our Family.

The other day, thinking about nicknames from my childhood led me to think about if I was/was not bullied at school... I really don't think I was, although I have a very vivid memory of one incident.

I used to ride the school bus home when I attended intermediate, and one particular bus ride, a girl (who we shall just give initials - SLP) thought it would be fun to tell me I looked like Droopy Dog - the tired eyes I imagine. Do you know Droopy Dog?

Don't worry, I smacked her across the head (unfortunately her dad was a client of my dad - up til then).

Anyway, so I was thinking about how I looked like Droopy Dog as a kid, and I began to wonder which cartoon character Elijah looked like. And thought it might be helpful for those who have never seen a picture of Elijah due to our strict No-Pictures-On-Facebook rule. I finally settled on Theodore Seville...

He's the one on the right (it's the cheeks).

Tim was a super cute child, so it was hard for me to come up with a cartoon character which he may have resembled, but I think I found one:

But with browny hair.

In real life Tim and I are a bit more 'adult human' looking though, and Elijah is FAAAAR cuter than a chipmunk.

Next time: Hits of the 90s

Nicknames!

When I was born, I was lucky enough to be named Holly. I really do like my name, and if it wasn't mine, I might even consider naming one of my unborn children that. But run through the alphabet and you'll soon realise 'Holly' rhymes with EVERYTHING. Bolly, Colly, Dolly... Yes, even Eolly. Thanks to my terrible information recall, I don't really remember anyone mocking me about this when I was growing up, although I'm sure they did. I would have.

My brother, Ethan (whose name doesn't rhyme with anything, by the way) made up a special ditty for me about my name. It went a little something like this: "Holly Bolly, fat and jolly". He loves me really. Ethan, funnily enough, still gets called Baby, Babe and Bubba by us... He's 18 this year.

A family friend calls Stacey 'Racy Stace' every time he talks to her. She loves that one.

Over the years I've had quite a few special nicknames though - Hollywood (kids at school), HollWoll (Mum), Leesh (derived from my middle name, Alecia - from Stace), and once I even got called Polly, but I think the lady who called me that actually thought my name was Polly. I think the last time anybody was called Polly, it was this girl:

And even her creators had the decency to tag another name on the end.

But my very very favourite nickname was given to me by Dad. Just wait, there's a lead-up to this one. One sunny summery day (probably), Daddy and I were having a chat (I'm sure) and he issued a statement to the room. Maybe something like "Today, Holly and I saw a purple spotted iguana" (or something similar). The room looked at him sceptically. "A purple spotted iguana?" (they would have said). Here it comes... "Yeah", said Dad. "Eh, Holl?.... Heh, heh... heh, heh, heh... Eh, Holl... A-Holl... A-hole!!!". (Get it???) Yip, that's definitely my favourite.

What were yours?

Next time: Pictures of our wee family...

The Beginning...

Excuse me while I get on the blog-wagon. Everyone's doing it, so why not me? Weeell... maybe because I don't have anything particularly inspiring to say, or particularly funny. Ahem. Anyway, you don't have to read it.

Today's weather (thunder, lightning and general storminess) is quite serendipitous given the topic of today's blog - my earliest memories.

Let's begin at the beginning - my very first memory. Until I was four years old, we lived in a white two story house at the bottom of the world's steepest driveway. Anyway, that's not important to the story really, just setting the scene... One stormy day, my sister Stacey (of KendylsPlace fame) and I decided to take our stopwatches outside (everyone had a stopwatch when they were little didn't they?) and measure the time between thunder and lightning to see how far away the storm was. Or was it the time between lightning and thunder? Either way, there we were measuring with our stopwatches, when the first drops of rain began to fall. Mum quickly opened the ranch slider door and called us in - probably worried that if she left us out there we would be struck by lightning. Most likely.

Mum says this memory never happened.

Another memory from living at this house was the first and last dog we ever owned. Spike. He looked something like this:

But maybe a bit different. One day we went to go for a walk and when we got to the top of the steepest driveway, Dad untied Spike so that he could come with us. At the top of the driveway was a road. Spike was just so excited to be coming with us, he bounded all the way up the steepest driveway, but he didn't stop. He ran right on to that road, and was promptly run over by a taxi. Or not a taxi, maybe just a regular car. We buried him under a tree in the back yard.

Maybe I made some of this up (I don't have very good information recall after all) but we did have a dog called Spike. And he definitely got run over. And something about having blood on his nose. Ask Mum.

But here's one I know is definitely true. And I know it's true, because my sister remembers it too (unintentional rhyming). We - Stacey (eight years old) and I (four years old) - were in the garage with our neighbours, a boy and a girl, doing some dancing. The boy held me by the hands and spun me round and round and round and round. So there I was, having the greatest time... and he let me go. I was spectacularly airborne. Until I wasn't anymore. SMASH. I came into direct contact with a tin of paint, right on the bridge of my honker. Ouch. This is the part of this memory Mum says never happened - I sat on the bench in the kitchen, in my denim overall dress, probably wearing my Mary-Jane's, with my hair in pigtails, crying my poor four year old eyes out, blood caking under my fingernails. It's a very traumatic experience you know. Then I went to the hospital and got about 20 stitches (okay, I concede, maybe it was five). I've got a scar now - my only one. If you were to come right up to my face and have a real good look, you'd see it. It's the reason my nose looks funny... one of the reasons.

Next time: Heartwarming Nicknames from my childhood.