I’ve been debating for some time over retiring my son’s nickname, which for those of you that don’t know is “Devil.” I feel like I dubbed him that during a time when it really fit. These days I’m not so sure. He has grown so much over the last year and a half that he’s more eccentric than he is devilish. But boy did he have some moments when I thought an exorcism was in order! Not too long ago my oldest brother even suggested that I retire the name and I brushed it off as the rantings of a chronic over thinker. Nevertheless he got me thinking about it and I knew he was right.?

At midnight after the ball bounced into the New Year we asked our son (yes he was still awake, determined to bring in 2008 with mommy and daddy) what his wish was. We were fully expecting him to say something about getting a few new cars for the subway train that he’s adamant about expanding. Instead he whispered “I want everyone to be happy.” At that point he had officially stopped living up to his name.Then tonight over dinner my son made my still pending decision to put his no longer relevant nickname out of it’s misery even easier. I was tossing some hot sauce on my lucky black eye peas when Devin started analyzing the bottle. He was totally appalled by the yummy sauce. He said “that can’t be called Red Devil. Devil is a bad word, right? I don’t think I like that word.” There you have it. Of course I don’t agree with him 100%, but four year olds are very literal people so I see where he’s coming from.

It’s the end of an era on this blog – the Devil Era. I guess the reality is that if I must bring the name back I will, though for now I’m leaving it in the archives. I think I’m going to call him “the Dev” for short. That way it’s ambiguous – I can either be shortening his real name or his old nickname and no one will ever know! It’ll be all about context. Dev isn’t the only genius in the family

[insert evil laugh here].