I guess that makes me Little Archie...

I come from a long line of Archies.  We don't follow the number system, and we have different middle names.  From Archibald Gardner to Archibald Egbert, there have been six of us passing the name on down.

At times it can get a little confusing when there are multiple Archies in the same location.  This is solved by a small tweak.  For a number of years my grandfather went by Arch, my father went by Archie, and I was called (and am still called) Archie Baby.  This was a good system.

If there was a call for "Archie" in our family home, we would simply ask "Big or Little?".  As I grew larger than my dad I was still the "Little" just to keep with the convention of age.  I didn't mind because I knew there would be a day when I would be the "Big Archie" and then I would be cool.

When I had my first son, it was important that I pass on the family name.  I did.  This equated to four Archies living within 1 mile of each other.  I didn't (and still don't) care what name he chooses to go by.  In fact, for the first year, I rarely called him by the same name more than twice in a row.  Eventually it just felt natural to call him Gabriel, and I added that to the rotation.

Now my little son has decided to start using Archie a bit more frequently.  I think that it is really cute.  People church or at the park will start talking to me about "Archie" and it takes me a few seconds to realize they are talking about my son.  I always ask them "did he tell you his name was Archie?" and they always reply in the affirmative.  The other day, Kim went to Gabe's school to get some information about his pre-k program.  When she told the office that she was Gabriel's step-mom, they just said "Oh, you mean Little Archie!".  I guess that the little one has decided that he likes "Archie" as a name.

I don't know how long he plans to use the name, and when I asked him about it the other night, he didn't have a solid response.  When I asked him if he wanted me to call him Little Archie, he said that he preferred to be called Big Archie.  He reminded me later that night in the middle of family prayer with a gentle tap on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear of "Big Archie" after I said how much we loved Gabriel.

This morning as he crawled in my bed for one last snuggle I told him how my family calls me Archie Baby, and he just laughed at the very thought of me as a baby.  He told me that I would be "Little Archie" and he would be "Big Archie."

The moral of the story: just call me Little Archie aka Archie Baby.