preview of coming attractions

I haven't posted much lately, mostly because my creative juices are being used up in the creation process of the twins (Oh yeah, update for those of you not on Facebook, we are having one boy one girl, very exciting!)

Today I thought that one way to get myself into the bloggin mood would be to have a theme for a while, so here it is:

Things I know something about.

Notice I am not making any grand statements like "important things" or things I know "everything about".

Just some stuff I know, or at least that I think I know at the moment.

So here is one thing I think I know something about, picking names for babies can be hard.

First of all, you have to figure out which kind of namer you are, do you think that because you like a name your baby will grow into it? or do you believe that your baby already "has a name" and you just have to find out what it is? My husband and I each fall into somewhat different arenas. He likes to hunt for names and have a list and then eliminate undesirable names for reasons like "it sounds like a bodily function" or "No, I dated a girl with that name" etc. , the elimination process should yield the suitable name and the decision is done. I suspect He would prefer to have the names decided well in advance, indeed he felt like he knew Ella was Ella during a routine ultrasound. I like to have a long list of names and a short list of names, and finally after the baby is born I like to look into it's eyes and say "Who are you?", I will say the contending names aloud to my child and look for signs of recognition or affirmation, and generally see if I can picture that face and that name together. Nina's name wasn't on the short list, but had only recently been cut off the long list, if we had used the short list she would have been Annalise or Madelaine (which has been on every short list but will not be on this one.)

Also a word of caution, don't ask people what they think in advance if it is a name you are serious about, or at least make sure you preface it with "this is the name I really like" because other wise you will end up with that persons criticism in your head when ever you see them with your child - and in most cases they will not even remember they didn't like the name.

I was out with some girlfriends recently who have very distinct and unique names, and I wondered if their names had anything to do with the fabulous people they are. I always felt that my name while not bizarre was different enough to set me apart, for the good and bad of that. In Kindergarten I lamented all the extra letters in my name, but by High School I was glad not to be one of 3 Ashley, Kelly or Tiffany girls in my class differentiated only by bizarre spelling or last initial. Of course there was a long period of time in Middle school when I would have loved to have been a Jennifer and fit into a clique or group by that name genre. Which leads to another question, what effect does the name choice have on the child? If I had been named Kelly/Kellie etc. would I have been a cheerleader instead of a drama geek?

What's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet, but then again, Rose is easier to say and spell than oh, let's say Chrysanthemum and has no embarrassing mispronunciations waiting to happen, like Peony.

I actually "know" very little about naming babies, I didn't plan it but ended up naming all 3 of my girls with a name ending in "a". I don't know if the last girl will have a similar ending to her name or not, though I am sure our son's name will not end in "a". And I know I will not have a boy named Sue.