My friends do it.

My neighbors do it.

Grandparents do it.

There’s a good chance your parents did it.

My mom still does it.

I do it. All the time.

And, apparently, pet owners do it, too.

There’s even a Facebook page about it.

Heck, I kind of suspect The Bard himself (father of three) might have done it, too…

“What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet…”

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Mistaken Identity

When I called my daughter, “Daisy!”
she looked like I was crazy;
in my multitasking fog
I’d summoned not her, but the dog.

I know moms who’ve done the same –-
called a kid by his pet’s name —
or, to make it even worser,
done exactly the vice-versa:
yelled for daughter or for son
when she meant the furry one.

Have I so much on my plate
that I can’t keep their names straight?
Still, the worst (or worser-ish)
would be mistaking kid for fish.
Especially, it must be said,
if – like ours – said fish were dead.

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©2010 Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz