The Adventures of Sally and Bum-Bum

It goes without saying that I have the greatest sister of all time.  This has been apparent to me for many years, but as the final proof of the pudding, she volunteered to come live with us after Nora was born to help with the transition.  I mean, what???? How did I luck into that? My own personal live-in nanny during the newborn stage? YES PLEASE.

Having Merrill live with us for the first

few months of Nora's life gave me the chance

to do this, for which I am forever grateful

For those of you who know her, it goes without saying that she is amazing with kids (likely because she is basically just a big kid herself in many ways) and Everett has always adored her. But when she came to live with us, a special new relationship developed between them, and thus I get to the crux of my post ----->  The Adventures of Sally and Bum-Bum

This is Sally

And here's Bum-Bum

People often ask, "Where did the names come from?" to which I answer "The depths of my amazingly crazy, & weird child's mind."  The truth is that we were driving home from the zoo one day shortly after Nora was born and out of the blue EJ declared that her name was Sally and Merrill was Bum-Bum. I have no idea where that came from. I still don't know. All I do know is that from that day forward, EJ would ONLY respond to Sally and she insisted that everyone call Merrill Bum-Bum.  Her teachers even pulled me aside at carpool one day to express their concern about the fact that my 3 year old had officially changed her name. 

This was the blossoming of one of the most heartwarming, adorable, and endearing relationships I have seen my child make. There is very little that makes EJ more excited - outside of perhaps cake - than hearing that Bum-Bum is coming to visit.  Every morning we drive past Merrill's house on the way to school and every morning EJ gets excited about it, waves, and exclaims with glee "I saw Bum-Bum's car!"  She still insists on being called Sally about 75% of the time (although recently that has decreased as she has increasingly insisted that she is Princess Elsa) and god forbid we try to call Merrill anything other than Bum-Bum. 

The hugest thanks possible to my sister for making such amazing memories with my daughter; for loving her as if she were her own; for acting a fool with her; for showing her such amazing love, support, and compassion; for sharing in her joy and fears and wonder of the world.  Thank you, Bum-Bum, for being the wonderful crazy aunt that we all need in our lives. I love you and the love you have shown my children is perhaps the greatest gift you could have ever given me. 

Long live Sally and Bum-Bum!