I can’t remember if I’ve told the story of how Madeleine got her nickname, and if I can’t remember then I’ll assume you won’t remember if I’m telling it again. She’ll be six this summer and to this day, we just call her Moo. The week before she was born, my sister warned me that my niece was going to call her Maddy Moo Cow. They had a friend with a daughter named Madeleine who went by that nickname, and Sawyer was excited about calling her that. We sort of chuckled and said, “Yeah, sure” and didn’t think much of it.

And then Madeleine was born. When the nurse handed her to me in the recovery room, Madeleine screamed at the top of her lungs and the nurse’s response was, “She’s ferocious.” We had always planned on her nickname being Maddy, but for some reason in the fog of sleeplessness, we just started letting Maddy Moo Cow roll off of our tongues. And it stuck. First, we shortened it to Maddy Moo. Then just Moo. Now it’s become such a habit to use that nickname that we use it almost exclusively. “Hey, Moo, what are you doing?” or “Good morning, little Moo.”

So far, she doesn’t have a problem with it, but I figure at some point down the road, the cute little nickname won’t seem as cute to her anymore. Fortunately, I’ve got a note from her that I hope I’ll always keep with me. (I use it as a bookmark now.) It was a note that she left on my desk one day, and it says, “Love you, The Moo.”

Notice that it isn’t signed Moo, but The Moo. Ferocious and unapologetic for who she is, she is a lonely extrovert in a house of introverts. To me she’ll always be The Moo. The one and only, an original. When she tells me that she doesn’t want to be called Moo anymore, I’ll probably shed a silent tear and remember when she was my little Moo. And at least for now, she still is. I’m going to hold onto it for as long as I can.