sigh no more, ladies

Since I've already admitted my deep affection for musicals and Jane Austen, you probably won't be too surprised that I also love Shakespeare. (Dang...I feel like I need to spit and swear right now so that I don't appear so square.) One of my favorite movie adaptations of a Shakespearean play is Much Ado About Nothing. There's a song in the play that goes like this:

"Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny, nonny."

(click here or here to see different versions of the song from the movie.)

I saw this movie in high school and for some reason fell in love with the word blithe. From then on I planned to name my first daughter Blythe. But I didn't count on marrying a Smith. Blythe Smith sounded a bit lispy, so I very sadly abandoned the name.

Then when I started reading personal blogs, I noticed a lot of mothers used nicknames to refer to their children. There was Bean, Pearl, and PickleBoy just to name a few. I knew I would never be able to write about the girls without using their names, but I thought it might work as a title. Blithe immediately came to mind. And blithe fits so perfectly with bonny. Without even thinking, I changed the words into girl names and started a blog.

I love that the original words describe a light-hearted disposition and come from a piece of literature that means so much to me. And I love that the alternate spellings represent my two girls.

They are blythe and bonnie. I am blythe and bonnie. Be you blythe and bonnie.

Whew....see why I've waited so long to explain this?!

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