What's in a name?

Ever since Lara could talk, she's been amusing us greatly. She is soooo sensitive to any attention and she's very shy so we have to be careful to not hurt her feelings by laughing at things she may say while not intending to be funny. Case in point: Last night she was eating dinner and I asked her where her food goes after she puts it in her mouth. Most kids would answer, "My tummy!!" Not Lara. Her simple, matter of fact answer was, "In my butt." ::points to her bottom:: Bill and I laughed, Lara cried.

All that aside, Lara frequently makes up her own words. She used to name all of her dances... we had the shabba dooba dance, the pringa, the pop-tart dance, etc. Soon after she ran out of dances, she started to make up her own names for her toys. The trend may have started during my pregnancy with Hailey when we were trying to come up with baby names, I'm not sure, but whenever it started, she went full force at it.

Over the Christmas holiday, each of the girls got a little toy frog. It is a little plastic frog, opaque with two little metal contact points on the bottom. Whenever you hold the frog in your palm or put him in the water he has little LEDs that flash inside and he lights up. Lara immediately felt compelled to name ALL of the frogs. Let's see... we have Fronsen, Froggert and Fronnah. Fronnah is our only female froggie. I can sort of see where the names come from--they're all derived from the fro- prefix found in frog. This is a systematic approach that I could rationalize. It's the trend she follows frequently; her animals are often named by their color. She has her popples: Pinky, her puppy: Black'n'Brown, her ethnic Barbie: Brownie. You get the picture.

Things took a turn this week when we made a quick stop at McDonald's. She got a My Little Pony toy and was overjoyed. Her little pony comes with a vanity that you plaster with little accessory stickers that illustrate a mirror, brush, comb, compact and a few other vanity-esque items. She has a little pedestal that she locks onto to sit and primp herself in front of the mirror when she needs some extra attention. I'm cool with all of that. I will say though that I was mildly alarmed at the name she chose for her new pony: Fashion.

Last night Lara slept with Fashion. This morning Fashion watched Lara eat her cheerios. I'm only hoping that Lara sticks with her pony instead of label shopping for a few more years.
In the mean time I'm going to quit watching the Style network.