Our warning came when the baby’s face turned beet red.

We stood Amelia up in her blue whale baby bath, the familiar rinsing position before wrapping her in a towel and beginning the bedtime ritual: new diaper, pajamas, two stories and lights out. The whale came with a fist-size, open-mouth plastic orange whale with holes in the bottom, the better to rinse you with, my dear, and a blue rubber floating hippopotamus . The hippo has a summer sky blue body and a winter pale blue face. Beady little black eyes and nostrils. Small hippo ears and feet and a curly bas-relief tail. A wide smile. A Made in China tattoo under its chin.

And that night, Amelia changed the hippo’s name forever.