I broke a promise to my pre-parent self.

Last night it happened. I did something that my pre-parent self, I swore I would never do. Here is what happened.

When I was a child I loved this book, I’m Not Sleepy. When my mom would read it to me as a small child, she would read the main characters name as Linzy, my name, instead of the actual name, Jill. I loved the book mostly because my name was in it. Because I was too little to read at the time, I had no idea she was doing this.

For show and tell in preschool it was my turn to bring the book for story time. Of course, I brought I’m Not Sleepy. But, the teacher did not say the little girl in the story’s name was Linzy. She read the story as Jill. My three-year-old self was devastated! My mom was called because I was so upset.

My mom has retold this story a time or two and I swore that I would not do this to my child so that way she would not be devastated in the same way I was.

At my baby shower, my sisters gifted me a diaper bag stuffed with all kinds of things including a 1980’s copy of I’m Not Sleepy. They had scoured the interned to come up with a copy.

Fast forward to last night, Baby Crawfish picked out her story before bedtime and grabbed I’m Not Sleepy off of the shelf. I opened up the book and began reading it to her. I read the story about a little girl name Annelise, not the girl named Jill, just as my mom did nearly 30 years ago.

My daughter was so excited that the little girl had the same name as her. It melted my heart. Now, I know just what my mom was doing. I broke that promise of never inserting my daughter’s name like my mom did.

However, I am not going to make the mistake of someone reading it to her will the main character’s name as Jill. At this moment I am printing labels with her name on it and I am going to put them on every mention of Jill in the entire book.

I know this sounds crazy, but in some weird way this makes me feel better.