Everyone has a name their parents give them, and an actual name. If you are lucky the two are one and the same. We got our first son’s name right. His given name is Owen and his actual name is Owen. It could be that Owen grew into his name, or it could be we picked right. Who knows? What we do know is that we didn’t do as well when we erroneously named our second son Errol. Don’t get me wrong; Errol is a great name, just not for him. It’s not that his name hasn’t grown on me or on him, but still, something is slightly misaligned. It could be that Errol is an adult name and our son is something of a perpetual child (with the good and bad that I imagine that will bring: cuddles at age twenty, and dirty diapers) I’ve been trying to figure our Errol’s real name and I’d love to hear what you think (try the fancy comments feature of this blog, or take the Errol poll just to the right of this post). Having hit a developmental spurt, the Little Man has been more mischievous than ever (pulling things off the table, grabbing hair, setting up ponzi schemes at school). It makes me think his name might actually be Max. You never know. But don’t worry; we don’t want to confuse our boy so we call him by his given name: Errol. He smiles back.
It’s not just names that are not always in harmony with reality. Everyone also has a chronological age and an actual age. For example, by the calendar I’m forty, while in reality I’m 19 (don’t tell the bartender). Errol, on the other hand, just turned three, but in reality he is 78 - an old soul. And it’s no wonder he’s a septuagenarian, Max has been through more at the tender age of 3 than most people go through in a lifetime, and it’s cultivated a beautiful patience and wisdom in “Errol”. One of my great hopes for Errol is that one-day he will live into his real age, and with the medical advances we make every day, it just might happen.
Well, I’m off to get a new tattoo and hit the tanning bed.
-Julia: age 19
1 comment:
Hi Jonathan, I mean Julia--you are just too funny! I love Errol's name! Poor Victor has been nicknamed "Vickie" by Francesca, and can you believe we all call him that! Paul's dad, the first Victor, wants us to call him Vicko, but it just sounds strange to me. You know, when explaining to our girls about Victor's developmental delays, we told them that Victor was like Peter Pan, who would never have to grow up. He would always get to live in Never never land. And we would get to live this experience with him.
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