“What Do the Kids Call You Guys?”

It’s a question we get often, as people get glimpses here and there of the kiddos calling us certain names in our YouTube videos or on Instagram stories. So, today I thought I would dive into the names they use for us and why.

For the last six months or so, the kids have called PJ and I…

Dad and daddy. PJ is dad and I am daddy. When they first came to live with us, they called us PJ and Thomas, though for the longest time little brother couldn’t pronounce “Thomas”, so he called both of us “Pee-Yay” 😂. It’s so funny to think about that now. But for almost all of last year, it was PJ and Thomas for the boys, and dada for little sis. It’s always been easier for her say “dada” than to pronounce our names, so we never tried to correct her :).

After it became more apparent the kids would be with us for the foreseeable future, we loosened up on what they called us. Older brother started asking why our last names were different than theirs and even said how he wanted to change his name to Jasper (AKA the J in PJ) one day, which I found so cute. I can’t remember which month it was in, but maybe towards the end of summer/beginning of fall, we told them they could call us dad and daddy if they wanted to, and so they did, and they’ve been calling us that ever since.

Deciding what our kids would call us once they were old enough to talk has been a topic of conversation for years. Would I be dad? Papa? Would PJ be father, daddy, or dad, too? Could we both be dad or is that too weird? We went back and forth and finally settled on PJ being “dad” and me being “daddy”. I thought it might be confusing for the kiddos to differentiate between the two, but they haven’t gotten it confused once!

Confession: sometimes I get it mixed up. Little brother will say “Dad, look!” and it’s my instinct is to say “What is it?” and he’ll quickly respond with, “No, no, I said dad!”. Oops. My bad.

So that’s what they call us! For the last maybe six months we’ve been answering to those two names and we couldn’t be more grateful; for them and for our little family. It’s become our new normal and it’s our favorite “normal” to date. We would be honored for them to call us dad and daddy forever, though that’s a different story for a different time.

What do your kiddos call you? Anything different and fun? xoxo