Saturday, September 27, 2008

names, names, names

Yesterday, Coco had a playdate here with an African-American friend. The African-American bit doesn't really matter except to highlight my, uh, ignorance in the following.

The kid has a baby brother and an older sister, so I asked him the name of his older sister.
The answer I got was "uh-TOE-yuh." He's five, after all.
So when they came to pick him up, I was showing Latoya the apartment and the cat, to make her feel more at ease and not upset for having to come pick up her brother (some older sisters mind having to pick up a little brother from a playdate - no names).
Then, when they got into the elevator to leave the Mom said to the girl that she'd never been called Latoya before.
Ooops.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Victoria," she said.
Then I asked the little brother to say his sisters name again.
"Uh-TOE-yuh."

Oh.

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