What's in a Signature?

The kids have been practicing writing their names. For a year now, Bud has been "BUD" and Sis has been "SIS," with each having also designed a clever symbol interlacing their letters. Of course, you can't sign homework with a symbol and the kindergarten teachers want upper and lower case. So Bud is now "Bud" (often with backwards letters) and Sis is "Sis." Though, she prefers "sis" which she likes to make all curly, like magnets we have spelling out her name. It's odd to see them morph from ALL CAPS to a combo of Upper and Lower Case because I've been seeing them the way they were for so long.

Of course, my signature has morphed from carefully curly to completely illegible in 35 some-odd years. Though, always with either my middle initial or full middle name. Never just first and last. In fact, I saw my first and last in print recently and didn't think of it as me right away. Funny how caught up we get in our names. And our handwriting. Though, probably, each generation less so, I'm guessing. I mean, how much handwriting will Sis and Bud do after elementary school? I barely do any these days.

Which I became increasingly conscious of as I wrote out thank-you notes this morning. Writing up 4-5 little lines of text 14 times put a strain on my writing, which went from relatively neat to erratic. Funny, we used to write pages and pages at a time. A lost skill.

But I'm passing it along, watching the kids carefully sign their names to each note. Some BUD some SIS, some sis, some Dub. That last one not because he can't spell his name, but because he had trouble squeezing in next to "Sis," so it went up the edge of the card. Other signatures were above the note! We can work on epistolary form later.

Besides, they've already mastered email! And could type their names long before they could write them . . . .