Both E and M have an Anthony in their respective classes this year. And for some reason, the name appears to be hard for children to pronounce. I only realised this after some checking, because for the longest time the girls were telling me about a child in their class, and called them by funny sounding names, and I chalked it up to modern newfangled naming practices. For months, E would tell me about a nice boy in her class that she played with sometimes called Infanny (In-fe-ni). I thought that was a really weird name for a boy, but wondered if it was some sort of obscure Catholic saint. Then one day months later, it occured to me to ask her how Infanny's name was spelled, and she said A N T H... and I was all WTF. Her attempt at pronouncing his name just blew my mind. But I thought it was maybe an E thing.
Then one day I was walking M into her classroom of other 2 to 3 year olds, when she saw a classmate and got really excited. She kept saying Effie! Effie! In a very happy tone, Not really thinking much about it but also not quite believing M, I said to the boy, who was also with his Mom, Hi Effie, if that is even your name. And the Mom said Hi back on behalf of the boy, and clarified his name was Anthony. And I was left thinking, WTF, again???
Anyway next week is Spring Break, and we will be going to New Orleans for a holiday. It's the first time Jon has been back since he graduated, and it will be my first time visiting. New Orleans was always one of the places I wanted to visit when I first moved to the US, and somehow because of time and money, never got around to visiting. Of course it will be a very different experience visiting with kids versus before I had kids (not that I was a big drinker and partier before, but at least my bedtime wasn't 10pm), but it should be enjoyable nonetheless. And in a funny stroke of coincidence, we will also visit Jon's friend, Anthony, who moved back there to work after a spell doing his training in NYC. I wonder if the girls will attempt to pronounce Uncle Anthony's name, or just not call his name at all. Either way, it will be nice to see him and his husband, Jacob. The last time I saw them was right before I left NYC to go back to Singapore in preparation for E's birth in 2019, so it has been several years. Between COVID and kids, time has really passed quickly.
