Would it -- Could it -- be as sweet?

We call him all sorts of things... Dix. Deedles. Fred. Dee Dee. Dixer. One very sweet man at church even calls him, "Dick."

When he was four, I started calling him, "Fred," because he refused to let me call him by any endearment. I tried them all, from "honey" to "sweetie" to "baby cakes" to so many others. He flatly refused each one, so, when I jokingly suggested, "Fred," I never thought he would be okay with it. But he was. So I still call him, "Fred." He still seems to like it. Or at least he answers.

As for the rest of the names, I don't know for sure where they came from, except that, when he was very small, he couldn't say his given name, so he said, "Dee Dee," instead. We learned that one from him.

I also know that, when babies are tiny and when mommies stay home and have no other interaction but with these tiny babies, strange names and conversations can result. I'm sure that's how "Deedles" came about; I must have been making up names for him out of sheer silliness and a lack of intellectual stimulation. The rest is family history.

This is Dix at 7 months old. See those two bottom teeth? They are long gone now. The Tooth Fairy doesn't have them; Metro has them in a baggy in his junk drawer. Dee didn't want to part with his teeth -- didn't like the idea of someone in his room while he was sleeping -- so we're keeping 'em instead.

Now back to the names... The one name for him that makes me smile the most these days is when his brother calls him. The name is usually several syllables long and jam-packed with frustration: "Diiiiii-ix!" I never considered when we were shopping for baby names how each of those names might sound screeched, growled, or otherwise blasphemed from a sibling's mouth.

When baby booties and all things soft and cuddly are dancing in a parent's head, he or she never considers -- not totally anyway -- how that name will morph into the person that the child is. Now -- seven years later with all my baby-naming behind me -- it is so clear that the name never really owns the child, regardless of a parent's grand plans and hopes; it is the child who owns the name, tweaking and editing to make the monniker his own.

That's what our Dixer has done; he has grown the name we lovingly chose for him into something varied and diverse, something that is just as unique and amazing as he is. And something that doesn't sound half bad when his brother screams it.

Here's one more shot of Dix; this one is on the last day of 1st grade with a stuffed wolf a friend gave him.