The UV Mystery

When I was a kid I was one of eight Amy's in my class. I was "Amy H." from first to fifth grade. It was horrible. When I would play pretend, I always chose the name "Darcy" as my alias. I never knew a Darcy, but I always thought it would be THE best name in the world.

Did you have a favorite "I wish I had been named" name?

A few months ago, Boo expressed interest in learning to write her name. Boo's name is pretty short. It's simple and sweet and I haven't met another child with a double (hallelujah)! We worked on one letter at a time and had some brief sessions due to her frustration that the letter didn't look exactly like mine. Despite my efforts to teach her the proper form of each letter, she's ventured off and started writing the letters all in CAPS in the way that she thinks they should be formed. She'll sometimes even demand that I sit down and listen to her lesson on how to draw an "A". "A line, then another line, and then another line, then a stick for...like that." and it ends up looking like a block A.

The past few months I've noticed something a little odd. She consistently tacks on the letters "UV" to the end of her name. She types it that way, writes it with crayon, pencil, spells it that way with blocks and scrabble pieces and chalk on the sidewalk. Always the formed letters of her name and UV tacked on the back. When I asked her what the UV was for, she replies very matter-of-factly, "That's just what starts my name!" You mean ends your name? Okay.


Now I'm wondering if she just wanted more letters in her little name or if she just has a special affinity for that section of the alphabet! Does she really think the sound "uv" tops off her first name? It's a big mystery. The world may never know. In the meantime, here's to you, UV! It seems like we'll be seeing a lot of you.