Y it matters

So, all of a sudden it seems Spring has sprung, and there's so much to share in the blog world. I have a lot of catching up to do, but first I must make a very important announcement.

When you're name is Haines and you're type A (and also happen to be a huge dork) you make these sorts of announcements. Aw, don't get too excited...the oven hasn't started cooking anything other than cakes just yet.

After much contemplation and deliberation, the Barksdale family (that is myself, Brian, Isabelle, and Crockett of course) has decided on the official spelling of Isabelle's nickname.

Izzy with a Y.

This will be no surprise to all of the people who have already been spelling her nickname that way (including one set of grandparents). I will have to change my ways in the blog world and in emails and texts, which are really the only places it matters. For those of you wondering, we still call our daughter Isabelle almost all of the time. But every name gets a nickname of some sort, and Izzy it is. You are welcome to call her Isabelle or Izzy or even Belle if you really want....whatever you wish as long as it's nice. We are calling her Isabelle but just in case she ever turns into Izzy, I've decided it should be spelled with a Y.

Why the switch? Partly because I just like to make things complicated. Another reason is because having grown up with the name Haines, I've become sensitive to names and their spellings. When deciding on the name of our first born I had a few important qualifications:
1) it must be a name that people can easily read and spell.
2) it must be obvious that your first name is your first name and your last name is your last name (not vice versa).
3) the name you go by must be your first name (and not any other form of that name).
4) it must not be the most common name and not the most bizarre name.
5) it must be different than the parent's name.

Yes, I do realize I might be breaking one of the rules...Izzy is not technically her first name, but for now my little girl will "go by" Isabelle (unless you choose to call her Izzy).

Not sure why I started with the Izzie spelling, maybe it's the "i" in my name that got me going. I do like my name (now) even after all those years of teasing ("Haines, like the underwear!!?"), gender confusion (recruitment by mail to football teams and lots of Mr. in front of my name), the mispronunciations ("Heinous?" ...geez, my parents are't that cruel), the question I get all the time when giving my name - "No, what's your first name?", and of course the misspellings.

But since I tend to obsess over trivial matters, I spent the last 20.5 months asking people how they would spell Izzy, and most have replied "with a y". So, in my efforts to make Isabelle's life just a bit easier, we are going with a Y.

And it just so happens that we were not alone in the name game...in the future she will most likely have a few friends with the same name (or one close to it since "Isabella" soared in popularity recently), just to make matters more complicated.

No biggie. Or should I say biggy?