smiles

What's in a nickname? We all have them, they've come from many different places usually. Some of us may use a nickname for what we are called day to day whereas others have nicknames from specific people. My older brother Jonathan was and is known in our family as a nickname creator. We all have countless nicknames from him, most of which evolved over time. To give you an example, when we found out we were having a girl and we decided on the name Aubrey we told my older brother her name and that we like the name Bree for a nickname. He said "You're telling people what they can call her? What if we want to call her Aubs?" Fair enough. And what do you know, we tend to call her Aubs a lot. However, her other nickname which has become quite popular with us is Smiles. 

Her smile is huge. It's infectious. It makes me smile or laugh every time. Pure joy. And now she smiles without us even needing to smile first. Sometimes she will just randomly look at me and smile. What a gift from God! She smiles when watching our dog Chip, she smiles at daddy when he doesn't know she's looking, she smiles at her crib mobile, she smiles at the blank ceiling. :) One thing is for sure, 90% of the time you will see her tongue when she smiles, documented in the pictures below. That could actually be another nickname for her but we'll leave that one alone for now! 

I don't know that we will use this nickname a lot when she's 15, for fear we might push our daughter away forever! But we love the nickname that we feel suits her to a "T" and we'll keep using it as long as we can get away with it. ;)