The Importance of Being Wormy

In my family, everyone has a nickname. Everyone. My great-aunt Tootie has lived in the same town for seventy years, and most people still don't know her name is Barbara Ann. I have an Aunt Dick in that town whose real name is Nannie Ruth. No one calls her that. My Uncle Chub is actually a Jeff. My brother is called Henry by these people. They've always called him that. Nevermind that's not his name. Nicknames are just a part of us. It's what we do. I grew up with several. Some nice, some not so nice. All in love. I'm still Turtle to my mom, and I love that. I'm Terd Bird to my Daddypa, and in a weird kinda way, I love that, too.

Nicknames are interesting things. Not like birth names at all. With a given name, the parents rack their brains for months on end trying to decide on the perfect name. There are books and websites and lists and discussions and occasionally arguments and hurt feelings. All because you want your child to have the name that suits them perfectly. Nevermind you don't actually know the first thing about your child. Birth names are born of hopes, expectations, traditions. Nicknames are born of reality. Birth names are planned, nicknames just happen. At least in my family. So follows the evolution of Wormy.

When Chloe came home from the hospital she was jaundiced, so she had to sleep on a biliblanket. The "blanket" was actually a hard plastic paddle with an incredibly bright UV light (think tanning bed) with cords coming off of it. You placed the paddle under her, wrapped a blanket tightly around, and plugged it in. Stick a little hat on her head, and voila, she looked just like a GloWorm. Hence her very first nickname, "Chlo-Worm". That lasted for a bit, but as southerners do, we shortened it. So began "Worm" and sometimes "The Worm". Not long after, she started to move. And as in all things, Chloe crawled in her own special way. Never with her belly off of the ground. She just slithered around the house like an inchworm. Thus, "The Worm" gave way to "Wormy." And it stuck.

To us, the name Wormy is beautiful. It's wrapped up in memories, in experience, and in love. I doubt she will go through life saying "My name is Wormy, nice to meet you." But, if she did, that would be okay, too.