A family controversy

Until you have been to the "family compound" it is a little hard to understand. I hate using the word "compound" as it makes me think of Waco... and the vacation site is nothing like Waco! But "everyone" calls it the "compound".

AB's great grandfather won this coastal plot of land back about 1928. He subsequently split it into five parcels and each of his children (four girls and one son) was given a plot of land on which they and their spouse could build a cabin. AB's grandfather built an A-frame cabin that is one bedroom (with THE most uncomfortable bed ever), a loft, a kitchen, bathroom, dining area and living room. The cabin is now shared by my father in law and his brother and sister. The primary users are AB's uncle, AB's two cousins and their families (kids just older than ours), and us since no one else lives within reasonable distance to access the cabin. Within each of the other four cabins are family structures not unlike ours. Our cabin is second from the left below - the green one.

Holidays are a big time at the compound. Holidays are the only days where no family is guaranteed to have the cabin to themselves because anyone who wants to come, should come and no one should be excluded. The only surviving and lucid matriarch of the family plans a potluck, everyone gathers around and sings a blessing. And we eat.

There is also something else you should know in embarking into this story... they are all Norwegian.

Very Norwegian.

And thus starts our story.

This was one of our first trips to the coast in a long time where there was a lot of family there. Cousins, aunts and uncles ranging in ages from 14 months (that would Skadi) up to nearly 100. And you can imagine how many people there were in those five cabins for a holiday weekend. The compound was alive with kids playing in the ocean, with people sitting on the decks eating and sipping wine, playing horseshoes, squirt gun fights, pickle ball and boating.

This is also one of the few places in the US where my kids' names are among the ordinary. Nobody balks at Skadi. It is different, but the namesake for Scandinavia and a Norse goddess? But of course it is a logical name for a little girl. And hearing it pronounced by the old Norwegians is beautiful. Indescribable actually. And something I hope to master before they all pass on.

Leif got to meet his cousins, second cousins and third cousins named Lars, Brigit, Ana, Marit, Signe... (keep listing Scandinavian names)... and Leif.

Yes Leif got to meet Leif.

Or what has apparently become a problem, a controversy in the family... "Leaf got to meet Layf".

I am used to people stumbling over my daughter's name. Not my son's. We have thoroughly violated the Norwegian code by going with the "Americanized" pronunciation of our son's name.

And it has irritated Aunt Muggy - the nearly 100 year old matriarch.

"Why you pronounce his name like that? Like something that falls on the ground?" she apparently asked her niece.

"Because that is the name his parents gave him," she told her.

"Well they are wrong and they need to stop that," Muggy retorted.

Muggy is a little forward.

Never before have I felt so self-conscious as I yelled my son's name across the compound grass.

I always said I would give him the option of the traditional Norwegian pronunciation. This weekend made me think that maybe it is time to start mentioning this to him? Though I do fear we have passed the point of no return.

Maybe I just need to teach him that when we are at the cabin, his name is "Layf".

Seems a whole lot easier right now.