“Bye John!”
Those are the words yelled out a car window by a little boy as he waved at my son, his new friend. I don’t have a child named John you say? Well, that is mostly correct. I do have a silly little son who is so cute and hilarious and changes his name frequently. Reece has started introducing himself as John now. John is his middle name so this IS a step up from introducing himself as Diego or Batman. That is legally one of his names.
We debated whether to name him John Reece (I preferred that combo because it flows so nicely) or Reece John, knowing full well that I planned to only call him Reece. So many friends who go by their middle name said that it was a bit difficult to do that. They did admit it was really easy to tell who telemarketers were when they called asking for them by their first given name instead of their preferred middle name. They all agreed that that was the only bonus about going by their middle name rather than their real first name. I decided to just name him Reece John so he could go by his first given name and avoid the confusion of being J. Reece Murdock.
Now five years after that debate he has decided to do the opposite? Now I have R John Murdock.
For the better part of the last year he went by Diego. For a few weeks, he went by Batman. I could choose to be offended by his apparent dislike of my name choice for him, but instead it makes me giggle profusely. What a silly kid we have on our hands!
