name that pig

I was reading some Richard Scarry to my youngest daughter, when I came across something that made both of us stop and giggle. I had just started reading about Sergeant Murphy and his daughter "Bridget" (Richard Scarry "dogs"), followed quickly by little Sophie Humperdink (Richard Scarry "Pigs"). How was it that I had named both of my children after two animal characters in the same story in a Richard Scarry book?

Of course, this just got me thinking, again, about names. I think about names a lot. When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I would sometimes have a physical heaviness, a weight, knowing that my husband and I would have to choose a name that our child would either pour themselves into, or not.

When we named our first daughter the whole thing felt organic and easy. We just knew, when we looked at her, moments after she was born, that she wasn't a Scarlet or a Esme but she was most definitely a Sophie. It felt good to be so sure. It still feels good. Sophie loves me to tell her about all the names we had picked out for her. She "yuks" or "yums" after each name that I list off but always looks contented and impish when we finally talk about how she is our Sophie and has been our Sophie from the moment she arrived.

When I was about 5 months pregnant with our second child we had a list of names that we were thinking about. We asked Sophie how she felt about all of the names (for both girls and boys since we didn't know what we were having) and, true to form, she "yuked" and "yumed" her way through the list and eventually paused and said, "I am calling the baby, Bridget" and that was that. The baby, whether it had been a boy or a girl would have been called Bridget. Things have a funny way of working out and Bridget couldn't be more Bridget if she tried.

Oh, and I am thrilled to know that my children, AKA Sophie Humperdink and Bridget Murphy, a pig and a dog, will live forever in the pages of the Richard Scarry, Please and Thank you Book.