Every once in awhile I have a realization of such proportion as to shake my view of reality forever. This one happened the other day (meaning, like, two months ago. yikes.)
I was still pregnant, and we were desperately trying to decide on a name for the new baby girl. I had narrowed my list down to a few favorites, but my husband didn't really seem excited about any of them. He just kept saying he wanted to go get some baby name books from the library. I found several baby name web sites and tried to refer him to those, but he was still pretty insistent on using the books. Then he got them. And he studied them. Devoutly. And he made his own list.
At the risk of offending people who may have these names, I have to say that I was surprised. Halcyona? Melisande? Shield? ???
The next day, sitting in church, I was reflecting on his name list (while, um, simultaneously reflecting on what was being said... and keeping my kids from exploding in the pew.) As I looked at my four other children, and thought about THEIR names, I suddenly realized that if the naming process had been entirely up to my husband, my boys would have names like Axe, Abner, and Aerk. (Not even exaggerating a little!)
And that's when the REAL realization came. For the past ten years I'd been thinking that WE, together, decided what to name our kids. And to some degree that was still correct, because we had together narrowed down our lists and decided on the final names. But in that moment, I realized that for the past ten years I'd been vetoing every name he suggested, and that nearly all of the names that actually made it to the list were MY suggestions. Admittedly, if I had to do it over again, I'd STILL probably veto them, but I started to wonder what that says about us. Is it an indicator of how wonderfully persuasive I am? Or how incredibly selfless he is? Or just that his names were destined to be dismissed... Should I be proud of the fact that I'd been "winning" the name debate? Or embarrassed that I hadn't given more serious thought to his suggestions?
Either way, I have to say that I like my kids' names. I think THEY like their names. But maybe if we have a 100 more, or if I break down and let my kids get a pet, then we can pull out the name Melisande.
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2 comments:
Carolyn, you are hilarious. I love reading your posts. Has the baby girl arrived yet? I can't tell since you said that this realization occured two months ago. In any case, I'm sure she will be a real cutie and we can't wait to hear what the final name verdict is.
Yes. She is here! She came almost two weeks early, on September 26th. So she's now a month old, and I'm a month behind at telling everyone about it :)
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