Aren’t they cute? They are not in my house, they are over in Vermont.

Mouskets? What the heck? So, I have a kiddo who insisted from a very early age that her name was Mouse and forcefully denied her “government” name. I’m not gonna go in to all of the whys and whatfors. I embraced her choice. I don’t really like my “government” name either but I can deal with it as long as people spell it correctly. Anne with an “E”, if you please. And I have accepted the nickname “Annie” only from a very few people. John Denver is NOT one of them (and no I have never met him).

I understand that I misnamed my daughter. My parents misnamed me. We named our daughter after a beloved family member and an old friend of mine. In my case, there was an eccentric elderly relative with the non-E version of my name. I loved her but I did not want to emulate her life and although my parents didn’t name me after her, in the back of my mind I was always kinda wondering if I was gonna end up like her, living with relatives and believing in God/Jesus to an extent that I couldn’t even do at three years old.

The Comm eventually told me I was named after Anne (with an e) of Green Gables. I felt better about my name after that, not to mention that Anne of Green Gables didn’t like her name either. But she wanted to be called Cordelia, a name I also don’t like 😵‍💫

Okay, so my mouse child was not necessarily an early reader (but I don’t really know). I do know that she knew how to spell “mouse” by the time she was about two-and-a-half. I know this because when we were at the library, she would read the titles on the spines of the books and pick out all of the ones with “Mouse” in the title. And plus, she wrote it on the wall in the Landfill Chitchen. When we renovated our chitchen, Jerry the Genius (carpenter) somehow shaved it off the wall and it is framed now.

And then she changed the spelling of “mouse” to be “mousc”. Okay. That’s fine. I remember being about the same age and insisting that my name was spelled “Anno”. Yes, “o” at the end. I think I wrote it in chalk on the sidewalk.

Somehow the version of spelling “mouse” as “mousc” morphed into calling mice mouskets and the mouse beach urchin at least tolerated that version of her chosen name when her older sister and friends called her that.

Throughout her school years she alternated between her government name and her chosen name depending on the situation. As an adult she uses her chosen name exclusively.

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