I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my kids are growing up. I know saying that sounds a little obvious like “No S$%t Sherlock” but seriously. They are growing so fast and lately I feel like they’ve maybe outgrown their little online aliases. I know it doesn’t really matter and that I could just keep calling them MM and BB forever – that a lot of you probably don’t even know what those letters stand for and maybe assumed they were initials or something.

But everytime I type those letters my mind thinks, “They’ve outgrown this.”

I dubbed MM back when I started my blog, the letters stand for My Monkey because at the time he was a gregarious toddler who was climbing on everything like toddlers often do. He loved Curious George and was always getting into something. It fit.

These days, well I can’t tell you the last time he has watched Curious George and although he’s still curious, he’s far more interested in building and writing and drawing than he is in climbing, though that does still happen, too. Point is, the name doesn’t feel quite accurate anymore and it borders on perhaps childish.

I gave BB her nickname before she was born. It stands for Baby Blueberry and originated from Bump Reports that I wrote each week during my pregnancy with updates on being pregnant and statistics pulled from babycenter.com. In week 7 of my pregnancy I read that BB was roughly the size of a blueberry (they really liked food analogies) and I got such a kick out of it, that I started calling her Baby Blueberry on the blog and it stuck.

When she was a baby, the name was very fitting. Back when she could barely lift her head off a blanket and she was so small and delicate and sweet. And a baby. Yeah… that baby is now a toddler and she’s moved from lifting her head to spinning around the room like a crazy person. She’s got these ridiculous long limbs and gorgeous flowing blonde hair and she can speak in sentences (her new thing is negotiating with me : “Mommy I want cookie.” “No.” “How About Goldfish?” Except instead of how about it comes out “uppaboutttttt….” and it’s adorable. And the opposite of something babies do. Because she isn’t one.

So sometimes I think I should change the nicknames. But I’ve been using them for so long now, I almost can’t imagine typing anything else. Do I try to find a way to use the same letters and just give them a different meaning? Do I choose a new phrase with different letters? Do I abandon the whole acronym thing and choose just a word instead – or even *gasp* their name?

I read a little thing on Facebook a few weeks ago asking if you had named your child off of your biggest craving during your pregnancy what would their name be? I had to laugh because BB would definitely be Lemon which is actually pretty sweet and pull off-able. But poor MM would be Ice Cream. Or Graham Crackers with Cheddar Cheese. Hmmm….

What do you think? Do you use nicknames for your kids on your blog? Have you ever considered changing them as the kids got older?