Welcome Tiny Little Tenley

Tiny little Tenley (helping me peek at Rachel's
euchre hand)

It was one of those "Wha?!?" moments. One minute, my friend Kelly is adorably pregnant and minutes later, I'm receiving a text saying that adorable Tenley has arrived. That was the second "Wha?!?" moment. Tenley? Where did Tenley come from? No...I don't mean that...I've read the books and Brad has a felt-board story model that he breaks out when I get confused or two sequential full moons go by without a little action. "Do you mean 'Tetley'?" I texted, humming the catchy little lyrics from the tv commercial, "Tiny little tea leaves, in Tetley tea." The text came back and, if a cell phone could blush from embarrassment, mine would have been beet red. "It was a contestant on The Bachelor. Laugh it up, Mosiman." I sprang into action. I would not have my little Tenley burdened with a pre-labeled legacy. Turns out, the name Tenley has quite an auspicious background dating back to the 16th century. From the Olde English meaning "town," Tenley was a family of religious rabble-rousers. "We named her Tenley because the girl on The Bachelor was so nice," Kelly explained six days later when she showed up for our pool/euchre party. I stared at her before answering, "By that logic, you should have named the kid 'Amy'."

While I was busy trying to elevate Tenley's status from reality-star royalty to highfalutin historian, Geri was immersed in the important task of teaching Kelly's two-year-old toddler, Jack (short for  Jackson after the Johnny Cash song "Going to Jackson." I was voting to name Tenley "June" but obviously no one consulted me and NOW look what happened.) how to spit. "He was drinking half the water in the pool," Geri said, trying to defend her actions. Bad enough that Geri was encouraging Jack's offensive behaviors, she also recruited our friend Rachel's 2nd grade son in the process. "Adam," she ordered, "show Jack how to squirt water out of his mouth." Before we knew it, Adam had happily sunk to Geri's level and we now had three people happily spitting in the pool. Wow, a typo in that sentence could have really changed the tempo of this blog. Fortunately, Jack was wearing a diaper so we weren't in danger of that.