The Name Game

Kate has always loved TV.  When she was very little she  would cruise the house in the walker.  Remember those things that little ones would sit in that had wheels and they could Fred Flintstone themselves around?  I’m not sure you can buy them, I guess now days that is considered dangerous and they are on stationary disks.

Anyway, Kate would fly through our house in that thing, bouncing off the walls and nicking the wood work.  Her favorite show when she was almost two was Wheel of Fortune.  I remember her age because if Sarah (17 months younger) was on the floor near the TV, Kate would stand on her to get closer to the screen.  We actually took pictures – there is no way I would specifically remember the incident.  Sarah says she does ... right.  But if Kate was in the walker and the music for Wheel started, she would fly through the house to get to the TV to watch Wheel of Fortune.  Some things never change.  To this day, we have to choose our colors before the show start and then we play all the way through the final round.  It doesn’t matter if I call out the answer before Art does... if his color wins – so does he.

She also took to calling us by names of characters in the shows.  All of the sudden she stopped answering me when I would call her Kate.  She would only answer to Jan. She started calling me Carol, Art was Mike or Michael and I had to call her Jan.  Of course Sarah was Marcia and Patty was Cindy.  Brother was Greg if I remember right.  When she called Grandma Alice, she got that cute smile on her face and twinkle in her eye.  But to make matters worse, she would change channels on us.  She would be calling Sarah/Dodie,  Patty/Macie and she was Ginger, characters from the As Told By Ginger show.  Or, Donnie (our dogs new name) Kate/Eliza, Patty/Darwin, Sarah/Debbie , me/Marianne and Art was Nigel from Wild Thornberrys. Some days I had to wait for her to call me by the shows character name so I would know who she was that day just to have a conversation with her!

I think our favorites were from a show called Rocket Power.  She was Sam, Patty was Twister, Brother was Otto, I was Violet and Art was Mundo.  Sarah was Reggie, the Rocket Girl and it sticks to this day.  Two years ago Sarah helped build a solar car and competed in a race that went through 8 states in 8 days.  When we caught up to the leg of the race in Bloomington, IL, we had a banner made that read Go Rocket Girl Go!  (I will fill you in on the solar car in my next blog).

To this day she often calls us by our character names.  She rides a public transportation bus that provides  her door to door service.  Art went out to get her off the bus and a couple of the other riders yell out, Hi Michael!