What's in a name?

Raff is Lost is a story about a little gorgeous blonde curly-haired boy called Oliver who is getting ready for bed and can't find his favourite toy. I don't know what the bedtime routine in your house is like but that's a pretty regular occurrence in our house.

My daughter isn't too bad at keeping an eye on her rabbit. Rabbi the rabbit and Raff the Giraffe; inspired. Clearly. Then along came our third child and his toy of choice is a striped animal from Mothercare. I am sure a lot of you have this toy and if anyone can tell me what that animal is, I'd be grateful. The girls from his nursery have also had a stab at it: Cow, giraffe, deer?? We don't know so we opted for "stripey". Our son had other ideas. Of all the possible names he could have called his toy, he went for... Rabbi. For those of you who were paying careful attention earlier in the story you'll know that is the name of his sister's toy. The very utterance of that word out of his mouth invokes a mini-volcanic irruption. "It's not your Rabbi, I have a Rabbi, it's Stripey." Impressively he remains undeterred and we are finally resigned to having two Rabbis in our house. In truth he, unlike his older siblings, is not fussy about what toy he has, so long as it has a satin label. His dinosaur (Raaar - thanks Peppa Pig), his polar bear (Poo Bear - hmm he'll get there) or MINE - pretty much covers any other shiny object that attract his attention. His love of labels is such that he is quite happy to be without his toys, so long as he has a label on the inside of his top that he can reach with his right hand whilst sucking his left thumb. A world of cuteness, cuddly toys and thumb suckers. Bring on the orthodontist's bill. Plenty of years to save!!