As most of you know, all my nieces call me “Tee Tee.” But it wasn’t always this way. Before the nieces came along, before Tee Tee was ever a name on anyone’s lips, I was called other things by my two nephews who struggled to say my real name. One of these, in particular, I might like to forget, but no one in the family seems to want to let me. Those wieners.
Still, I share these names with you now.
(Uhm, for informational purposes only. Not for personal use, ahem. At least not to my face. Or, well, my screen. You must resist the temptation. Resist, I say!)
When Elder Nephew was very little and the first one to struggle with “Aunt Tracey,” one day he quite simply gave up and started calling me …. Trashy. Yep. Trashy. He become totally obsessed with Trashy. How on earth this was somehow easier to say than Tracey is beyond me. I mean, you’ve got the “t-r” and the “s-h” consonant combos crashing together in one ego-squashing nickname. Despite my vigorous attempts at eradication, Trashy stuck around long enough to really mess with my psyche. Sometimes, I’d catch him muttering it repetitively under his breath, Trashy … Trashy … Trashy, as if his wee toddler brain simply could not contain the magnitude of my trashiness and needed to sit and offload it all from time to time. I became paranoid that this little ball of chub actually knew what “trashy” meant. Not that I was trashy. Oh, no. I am and always have been Snow White. Amish. A nun, even now. But hearing that all the time, I started to think this child, the apple of my eye, was some freaky soothsayer who sensed in me a hidden inner trashiness just waiting to bubble forth. Trashy … Trashy … Trashy. Of course, this name did not go unnoticed by the rest of the family, those piranhas, and so I was besieged on all sides by a firestorm of Trashy-ness that still flares up even today. Little pisher. I’d make him pay for it, but the lad is now a fearsome giant.
Younger Nephew struggled with “Aunt Tracey” too. When he finally threw up his chubby little hands in defeat, he started calling me Tayhee. Now Tayhee was certainly preferable to Trashy, especially since Younger Nephew would squeak it out in the little crinkly-crackly voice he had at that age. I’m telling you, that kid was smushable to a dangerous degree. Everything about him was basically crack to me and I was jonesing for him BAD. He could not pronounce the hard “g” sound to save his life and instead pronounced it as “d.” If I was leaving, he’d ask, Where are you doh-ing, Tayhee? If he wanted more of his favorite fruit, he’d ask, May I have some more drapes, Tayhee? And sometimes, he’d snuggle up to me, stroke my face, and say, I tink you’re a pretty dirl, Tayhee, and my heart would burst in a sudden coronary of love.
Then there was Piper. That girl struggled with pronouncing “Aunt Tracey” even longer and harder than her two brothers did. She couldn’t do it. Just could not get it. She would weep because she couldn’t do it. At that age, she just had major speech issues. I mean, the poor kid called her older brother Jawa and although I know I’ve never used their real names here, TRUST ME, it’s not even close. He was just Jawa. It would be like calling someone named — oh, let’s say Donald — Jawa instead. Yeah. Like that.
One night, I was up at my sister’s, babysitting overnight. The boys were 12 and 9; Piper was three. At one point, she was showing me how she could pronounce all the names of things in a certain picture book. She was so proud, proclaiming these words to the whole house, basically.
“Look! A didge!”
“Oh, yes, honey. A bridge,” I’d say.
“Look! A boon!”
“Yeah. A spoon,” I’d say.
“Look! A fag!”
“Oh, sweetie, yes, that’s a flag,” I’d say, choking back laughter. She was so intent, so SURE, you see, in what she was declaring.
Bless her, she did not get a single one of those words right — I mean, her speech issues had basically reached critical mass at this point — but it was all so endearing, so precious, that if I thought of the day she would learn to speak correctly, I could actually feel the cold stones of dread sinking in my gut. I was head over heels for her little impediments.
Her brothers, who had heard her loud pronouncements, suddenly plunked on the couch, surrounding her, and Elder Nephew said, “Piper ….. can you say Aunt Tracey?”
She shook her head, oh, so sadly.
“Nooo.”
“Come on. Try it,” said Younger Nephew.
“I can’t.”
“Come on, try!”
“I caaaan’t!” she wailed.
I shot them a sharp look and a warning voice.
“Guys.”
Younger Nephew tried a new approach, trying to be helpful.
“Pipey, maybe you could call her Tayhee, like I did. Can you say that?”
“Nooo.”
The despair.
There was a slight pause. Older Nephew chimed in, an evil gleam in his eyes.
“Hey, Pipey. I know what. Why don’t you call her Trashy like I did?”
“Oh, haha. All right, you two, that’s enough, or –”
I tried to think of some dread punishment, even though I was smiling at his wicked little grin, his newly sprouted devil horns.
“– you can just go to your room and dinner will be the water you suck up from the carpet after I pour it under the door!”
“Aunt Tracey!!” they said.
“Oh, I MEAN it.”
But I was laughing and so were they.
Piper, on the other hand, suddenly dissolved into a puddle of tears, her face hidden in her palms.
“I can’t! I can’t say anyfing! I can’t say da name wight!”
I jumped to the couch, shoved those wretched boys aside, and held her close.
“Oh, sweetie. It’s okay. You’ll get it.”
“I woen!!” She sobbed into my chest.
I stroked her head in silence for a minute, trying to think of something I knew she could say, no problem.
“Well …. how about ….hmm ….. what if you called me Tee Tee? Do you think you can say that?”
She sat up and looked at me, giant blue eyes, streaming red cheeks, and nodded.
“I fink so. I fink I can.”
“Okay, sweetie. Let’s do that then, okay?”
“Okay.”
The moment was over but she snuggled back down into me. She’s a very snuggly child. And that’s fine with me.
Late that night, when the house was still with sleep, I woke suddenly to the sound of her wailing outside the master bedroom door.
“Tee Tee! Tee Teeeeeee! I need you!! I hab a bad dweam!! TEE TEEEEEEEEE!”
She howled that name to the heavens as if she’d always been saying it. As if it had always been buried somewhere inside of her and just needed the right moment to come out. And this was it.
I flung open the door, scooped her up in my arms.
“Ohhh, baby. Shhhh. Come here. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Between hiccupy sobs, she spoke.
“Can I sweep wiff you, Tee Tee?”
Sweep.
“Sure, sweetie. You can sweep with me. Come on.”
I crawled into bed with her and lightly wiped her tears with my fingertips while I whispered and cooed to calm her. She just watched me, those big eyes never moving from my face. After several moments, the hiccups subsided and she reached a warm little hand to me.
“Tee Tee,” she whispered close to my face, “let’s hold hands, okay?”
“Okay. Let’s hold hands.”
So we fell asleep holding hands like hobbits, Piper …. and Tee Tee.
And that’s how it all began.
