Mustang and Button

I've been meaning to do this for a while - specifically, since we got home from Ethiopia in January - but the post I was going to attach this announcement to has yet to be completed, so I'm just going to go ahead with the announcement on its own.

No, I'm not adopting again! :-)

But I think a re-naming is in order for both Poppet and Giggles. "Poppet" was just a name concocted because I made a puppet-like stick/photo figure of Poppet when I first got his referral photo and took pictures of "him" in various places in our house to send to the real Poppet in Ethio0pia while we waited for him to come home. Now that he's home and we know a bit more about his personality, it's time for a blog-name that reflects a bit of who he is.

So.... introducing BUTTON!

Because he's totally into pressing buttons and turning dials, figuring out how things work and making them go. He's always asking, "Ma, can I button it?" - meaning press the button for whatever the latest gadget is. Yesterday, Giggles brought home a little toy she'd won at school for something. It's a little hand-held electronic game that you have to press buttons and try to catch dots or some such thing. She didn't know how to get it working and wondered if it needed new batteries. Well, while she was off playing, Button comes along, turns it over, flicks a switch, starts pressing buttons, and voila, it's working. He's very observant about how things work and wants to figure it out.

Obviously, that leaves Mustang as Giggles' new moniker. Why Mustang? Well, as those of you who know her are aware, she LOVES horses. Totally adores them. She's currently taking horsemanship lessons and will start riding in fall/winter, once she knows enough to tack up her own horse and groom it. So of all the horses, why a Mustang? Because the Mustang's characteristics are a good reflection of Giggles's nature: spirited, stubborn, determined, obstinate, active, on the wild side, energetic, a free spirit.

After visiting Alberta last summer, Mustang said she wanted to live in Alberta when she grows up and be a wild girl. (Yesterday she said she wanted to be a veterinarian and a mountaineer. When she scraped her knee badly while playing street hockey with her brother and little neighbour yesterday, she sat for a long while telling me she was trying hard not to cry because if she wanted to be a mountain-climber, she would have to get used to getting scrapes and bumps!!)