"...And that man's name was... I forget. But the point is... I forget that, too."

Here is another observation I have about people’s interaction with Abbie, and when I say “observation,” I of course mean “complaint.” Between graduations, weddings, and random outdoor celebrations of the nice weather, we’re in the thick of party season. Parties lead to preparations, which lead to guest lists, which lead to fights about guest lists, which lead to accusations that you don’t want any of my friends to come, which lead to “why do you always have embarrass me?” which lead to “if you want to talk about embarrassments let’s talk about all the times your father came to one of our parties and ended up hitting on one of my sisters,” which lead to time apart to determine what we really want, which lead to extravagant parties to spend everything before it disappears in the divorce, which lead to invitations. Sometimes, not all the time, these invitations are made out to “Ellie, Matt, and Abby.”

I wish I could notify everyone through legal means that her name is spelled “Abbie.” We settled on the spelling of her name shortly after choosing her name. Ellie decided she wanted to distance the name from the abbey of nunnery fame, possibly fearing a future where Abbie, after being constantly reminded of the survival of these “abbeys” throughout her entire life, attempts to eliminate all existing abbeys through potentially violent means. On the other hand, I thought it was cool to continue the pattern found in her mother’s name of vowel, double-consonant, i, e. If we continue this pattern through any potential future children, their names will have to be Allie or Eddie, or possibly Kitt or Maxx. When we choose the spelling, I had no idea that we rebelling against the spelling norms that would subject our daughter to a lifetime of a misspelled name. It’s not like we dropped a silent “n” in the middle of her name. (Abbnie?)

I know this really shouldn’t bother me. People have no way of knowing how her name is spelled. I should just be happy that people remember her name. Abbie doesn’t exactly go walking around with her name printed on her chest.



Abbie doesn’t exactly go walking around all the time with her name printed on her chest.