You Are My Sunshine...

With Valentine's Day fast approaching I've been thinking lately a lot about how people are just dear to me. Of course I think of my husband. But I also think of my family, my friends, my church family (who I missed very much after missing one whole week's worth of services as a result of Icezilla). The Lord has blessed me by surrounding me with a lot of loving people.

As I've been mulling this over, I began to think through all of the different terms of endearment we use for one another. It's kind of funny when you consciously think about how seldom we actually call one another by our names. For instance, Mike almost always calls me 'babe'. I do the same with him. My sister & her husband call each other 'dear' (when we were in high school they called each other 'poodle' but you did NOT hear that from me). The G's call each other 'daddy' & 'momma'. I think that is left over from when they had kids at home...way long time ago left over. Mike's mom calls all of her children 'doll'. It's so sweet. It reminds me of my great Uncle Wayne who used to grab me in a big hug & say "Well, hello baby doll!" whenever he saw me. Sometimes she calls me 'doll' too & it makes me feel like I belong to her & her family. I love that. My Aunt Ruth refers to loved ones as 'dear heart' & my friend Becky calls her husband 'love'.

All this thinking got me to thinking about all of the different ways others have referred to me. My parents used to call me 'pumpkin baby' or 'Mary Annie'. My great Aunt Dottie always called me 'My Mary Ann'. In high school my sister finally succeeded in labeling me 'Mare'. *sigh* Who doesn't want to be referred to as a female horse? Then when my nephew started talking he began calling me 'MeeMee' & that is what all the nieces & nephews & most of the family call me now.

It's funny how we all do it - make up endearments for one another & yet we all do it differently. There are so many little names we can assign to one another. Let's not forget 'sweetie', 'sweetheart', 'honey', 'darling', & 'schnookums'. We are limited only by our imaginations, I suppose.

So what do you call your dear ones & what do they call you?

It's time to bust loose with all of your nick-naming secrets!