Munch and Punk

Almost from the day Isabella was born I’ve been calling her Munchkin. I have no idea where it came from. I just said it one day and it stuck.

We used to laugh about her cry face because it would get all scrunched up and red when she was upset. So I jokingly changed “Munchkin” to “Scrunchkin” and that stuck too.

In fact, I called her Munchkin (or Munch) so much that we worried she would think that were her real name! Then we started to wonder if she would get a complex thinking I was making fun of her size.

(Oh the silly little things we worry about as first time parents…)

Well here we are almost 4 years later and she has no confusions about her name.

And I still call her Munch/Scrunch all the time.

When I was pregnant with Cora, Isabella asked me if I was going to call the new baby Munchkin too. I assured her that no, Cora would get her own nickname. I had no idea what it would be but I was adamant it would be unique and different. Munchkin is Isabella’s and with all the changes that were going to soon rock her world, I wanted to make sure she didn’t feel like she was losing her special name.

But I didn’t want to overthink it either and force a name that didn’t fit. So I kept the thought in my subconscious knowing that a name would come out on it’s own.

Then the big day arrived and the first time I was alone with our brand new baby girl, I instinctively started to say “Munchkin”.

We didn’t have a name yet (took us almost 10 hours to come up with one) so I didn’t have anything else to go with. But not wanting to use THAT name, I quickly changed it to Pumpkin. It was close and sorta rhymed. It just come out! Later I switched and started saying Punkin.

Can you see where this is going?

Because I’m lazy and feel that it takes too much effort to say Punkin, I shortened it to Punk.

And it stuck.

Cora = Punk and I call her that more than her real name. Because, you know, it takes less energy to say a one syllable word than a 2 syllable one….

For some reason I felt silly about calling my sweet precious baby girl “Punk” but yet I couldn’t think of anything else and it was already cemented in my mind. So I would say it quietly, afraid that others would overhear and think I was strange. But after a while I got over that and just said it. Isabella asked me what it meant and now she says it sometimes too (although at first she thought I was saying “Pumk”).

I’m sure there will come a day when both girls will ask me to stop calling them those names, because it’s like so uncool. But I will always think of them as my Munch and Punk (which sounds like a good name for a children’s book or TV show. Don’t you dare steal it…copyright TTM, all rights reserved!).