• A 21-second clip on TikTok has gone viral after 3-year-old Naomi mistook her grandfather for one of her triplet brothers.
• “I didn’t expect it at all,” her aunt Leah Lai Hing tells PEOPLE.
• Naomi’s mother says she hopes her daughter will continue to bond with her “dad” as she gets older

Leah Lai Hing had no idea that tiktok highlighting his 3-year-old niece’s adorable confusion would provoke such a reaction, but it did.

“I didn’t expect it at all. You are welcome. I don’t think any of us were,” Lai Hing, 33, tells People.

With more than 16 million views and 2 million likes, the viral clip showed young Naomi sweetly trying to guess which relative her grandfather was after he stood next to one of her identical triplet brothers.

The family had gathered at a cousin’s funeral in Georgia in late August when Naomi’s mother, Javon Gordon, says she initially asked why there were “two” grandparents.

“I thought, ‘Oh, this is the perfect time to record her and try to see if she can tell who is her grandfather and who is her uncle,'” he says. “So we recorded and just asked her, ‘Who’s in front of you?’ you and who is at your side?’ And she just said, ‘(Another) dad.'”

Leah explains that she has her TikTok notifications turned off and when she reopened the app the next morning, the reaction to the 21-second video had gotten “out of control.”

But the playful dynamic between the family was not new, according to Gordon. It’s something Grandpa Leslie and his brothers “have always done with the grandchildren,” adds the 39-year-old mother. “This is just the first time we’ve actually detected a reaction.”

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Leslie, now in his early 80s, says “a lot of people” used to confuse him and his siblings because “they are identical.” The three “were like peas in a pod” while growing up together in their native Trinidad, he says.

And although the siblings now live in different parts of the U.S., Leslie tells PEOPLE that they still stay in close contact.

Leah, who shuttles back and forth between New York and North Carolina, where Javon and his daughter live, says the family tries to make the most of the time they can spend together. Even if that means at a funeral.

“Sometimes it’s not something we want to get together about, but we had to,” Leah says.

For now, Javon shares that he just wants Naomi’s connection with her “dad” to continue.

She says, “I just hope they continue to grow together and she remembers these moments she has with him.”