Bruiser 2.0

When my 10-pound son muscled his way into the world two weeks early, he was the biggest baby in the hospital’s newborn wing and had a scream to match his size. As I held him on his first day of life, I marveled at his barrel chest and robust kicking, recalling that just three years earlier, I had held my comparatively tiny eight-pound Punky at that same hospital and fretted endlessly over whether I could take care of such a small and vulnerable creature.

I had no such worries about my boy. In fact, I joked to people that I completely missed the newborn experience with him. Based on his size and his strength, I felt like I’d given birth to a three-month old.

For this blog’s purposes, I christened him “Bruiser.” And for a while, the name seemed completely appropriate. The kid was born with a swagger and a major ‘tude. He loves cars, trains and robots (or “ro-bops,” as he calls them). He constantly pesters his sister. He gets bumps and scrapes and hardly slows down to acknowledge them.

But last week, Bruiser was introduced to The Powerpuff Girls. And everything changed.

My son no longer wants to be known as Bruiser, or by his given name , or even by “Nit-Nots,” which I call him sometimes to tease him. Instead… well…. see for yourself.

Yes.

You heard him right.

He Buttercup.

“No, Bruiser! You can’t be Buttercup,” Punky said the first time he made this assertion. “Buttercup’s a girl and you’re a boy. I’m going to be Bubbles and Mommy’s Blossom, but you’ll have to be someone else.”

“I BUTTERCUP!” he thunderously asserted (see above video for reference).

“Okay, okay,” Punky relented. She came closer to me and whispered loudly, “Mommy, I think there are actually Powerpuff Boys, too, and he’s the boy Buttercup. But we’ll pretend we think he’s the girl Buttercup, to make him feel better.”

“Sure, Punky,” I said, stifling a laugh. “Sure.”

I’ll admit that I at first thought it was hilarious that my boisterous son was changing his name to Buttercup. Buttercup, of all things! I figured it was a passing fancy.

I was wrong.

A couple of days ago, I took the kids with me to the Y. “Hi Bruiser!” one of the employees said as we headed for the nursery.

“I Buttercup,” he said dismissively. Her mouth dropped open.

“He’s been watching the Powerpuff Girls,” I explained. She laughed weakly.

As we left, a muscular young guy at the front desk called out, “Bye Bruiser!” Bruiser stopped short, walked back over to him, and threw his hands up in supplication, shouting, “I Buttercup!” You could tell by his posture that he was so tired of having to explain this to dumb grown ups.

“Okay….” the guy said uncertainly, “Buttercup.” Satisfied, Bruiser nodded curtly and rejoined Punky and me at the door.

Frankly, this Buttercup thing is becoming problematic. And as you can imagine, my husband’s not happy about it. After all, we chose Bruiser’s name so carefully, passing over more creative monikers like Hadley and Remington and Alistair and going instead with something simple and manly at my husband’s request. And now, despite all our efforts…

We have ourselves a Buttercup.

Next thing you know, he’ll be wanting to learn to cook or something.

On my style blog today: The Hottest and Most Affordable Black and White Looks for Spring, A Great Deal on Jeans, and A Look You’d Better Never Wear in Public.