Tag no 3- Sonny boy's nicks

Have been tagged for this first by Swati, and then by Choxbox, so its definitely not going to let me go!


When he was a baby, Sonny boy used to be called
bawa(maybe an indianised version of baby?),
mone (little one- an endearment in mallu),
ponnu mone (golden little one) etc by the grandies.


When Mom used to oil him before his bath, she used to lovingly call him mone, ponne, ponnum katte ( a block of gold) and all that stuff. But when an oiled Sonny boy used to get all squirmy and be in danger of falling off her knees, all that love and gold would go right out of the window and she would exasperatedly call- eda chekka!! (brat) and bring him back in place, where he would look up and gurgle at her gummily.


When he'd pooped lots in his nappy, then too all the gold would go flying and he would be called Potty chekka ( pottied brat)

But yeah, on the whole, katta (block) held sway.
Ponnum (gold) katte,
chakkara (sugar) katte,
punnara (sweet nothings) katte,
thanga (umm.., this one is gold too, purer than ponnu, I think)katte, and so on, the kattas went. These still hold sway in our hugging and kissing sessions, sometimes.


As he grew, the names varied. And there was this one which I fondly remember still, tho' I don't use it now.
We have a labrador back home, Trinity, who as a puppy was (she's grown now, but she's still the same as regards eating habits) very fond of her food. And she used to just gulp it down without even bothering to chew, until the entire dish was empty, and her stomach resembled a full drum, narrowing down into head at one end, and rump at the other. And we used to laugh at that drum belly and call her maddalam (one of the percussion instruments in the panchavadyam http://www.prd.kerala.gov.in/music.htm.
We'd tell Trinity, "Maddalam, here's your food, come chomp it all up!"

Sonny boy used to love his food too when he was a baby. Spoon after spoon after spoon of solids went in without any trouble, and juice and water too, until the bowl was empty and his stomach kind of resembled Trinity's stomach....
So, Maddalam turned out to have two respondents. Trinity and Sonny boy. (Ah.. if only I knew that not too long after, I would long for him to wolf down his food, I probably would have laughed less.) As it was, my Mom would also laugh at his stomach, and then scold me for calling him that. And the dear maddalam would grin guilelessly back at us laughing ladies.


Then, the Katta started growing and being naughty. After too many instances of naughtinesses, an exasperated Amma would call him- ........ inte mone! Translates into ........'s son!
No No...! before you rush to horrified conclusions, the ........ is just his father's name. Called in a half- irritated-half affectionate tone.
The first time his father heard me say that, he asked me, "now why do you call him that, in THAT way? "
And I tartly replied, "because he is your son, of course."


There was Sweetie pie, and shweetie pie and chweetie pie, which finally has become Cheetoo now.
If his Acha calls him any of these, Sonny boy says, "Why you calling me that? I Amma's cheetoo ille?" So cheetoo is exclusively reserved for me.
And Acha's nickname for him is Baby or Beyboo. I am not to call him that either. Pat will come- "I'm Acha's beyboo ille?"


As he grew older, the nicks became varying versions of his name. And now, we really only call him by his name and the ubiquitous cheetoo/beyboo.

And then came along Sonny boy when I started this blog.

Since I'm still running way behind on tags, think there's nobody left to be tagged on this one either. Anyone who's interested, please, go right ahead and get ready to have your offspring call YOU names later.