Where's Rachel?

Yes, we still call her "Ting Ting."

We started off calling her that because it was her Chinese nickname, and we figured that would be easier for her. Because we kept her Chinese name as her middle name, it still was a shortened form of her name, anyway.

When she started daycare, they asked us what we wanted them to call her. We said, "Ting Ting." It's easy for the other little kids to say, so they like it. The whole staff (and most of the other families) calls her that, too.

Besides, it just seems to fit her.


I figure we'll eventually need to switch to the beautiful name we originally wanted to call her, though. I'm guessing she won't want to be called Ting Ting in middle school . . . of course, she might not like being called Rachel, either. We'll have to see.

In the meantime, I figured I should start calling her Rachel from time to time just to be sure she knows that's her. Sometimes I use "Rachel Shu-Ting" in conversations with her, but I don't want it to be something she's called just when she's in trouble.

So I had a great idea to incorporate it into play time. One of the games we play sometimes is that she'll point to her nose and say, "nose." I'll say, "that's Ting Ting's nose. Where's Mama's nose?" and she'll point to mine. If Daddy is there, we point out his nose as well. And, of course, Cyrus' nose is identified often. Then we'll move on to eyes, mouth, other things. One day I slyly asked where Rachel's nose was. She pointed to her own. Woo hoo!

We also play peek-a-boo. That usually consists of her slapping her hands over her eyes and me asking, alarmed, "where's Ting Ting? Where's Ting Ting?" until she reveals herself to much laughter.


So the other day we played a couple of rounds of this game and I decided to mix it up a bit. "Where's Rachel?" I asked. "Where's Rachel? Where's Rachel?"

She kept her hands firmly over her eyes, but apparently she felt sorry for her inept mama.

"Teen Teen," she corrected.