Name Game

John and I were brainstorming baby names the other night, primarily middle names, as we have ideas for first names.

"Why don't we look at BabyCenter?" I suggested.  "They have a whole directory of hundreds of names."

"Middle names?" he asked.

After we cleared it up that middle names are just names that you happen to put in the middle of a full name, we started looking. BabyCenter made some good points about things to consider, like whether a potential nickname could end up making an awkward combination with your last name, or unfortunate initials.

We actually plan to keep our name ideas to ourselves, especially since we aren't even finding out what we're having- but based on our last name, I can tell you what we will not be naming our child.

We definitely couldn't name a girl:

Grace Ann Gogarty
or  
Priscilla Irene Gogarty. 


William Ian Gogarty wouldn't really be nice, nor would Brett Ishmael Gogarty

And we absolutely could not name a son Frank Andrew Gogarty.

Everything else is pretty much up for grabs.

Headshot

I don't know if it's weird or normal that I look at these fuzzy, grainy, blurry ultrasound pictures and come away relatively certain that I've seen that my baby has a cute face. At least in profile, which is half the battle.

Sweet Child of Mine

Recently, a friend who had given up almost all sugar during her first pregnancy asked if I was going off of sweets for my own adventure in gestation. After I stopped laughing I told her that, while I'm making protein, fruits and vegetables the priorities in my diet and eating desserts sparingly, I do not plan to give them up all together. I'm of course concerned with having a healthy baby, but even more so, I worry that if I gave up all sweets I would end up harboring deep and tenacious resentment toward my child. The cupcakes stay.

Maternal Instinct

I'm now almost 16 weeks pregnant and still can't quite believe there is an actual baby growing in my belly. Since I haven't had any symptoms it took a while for me to really believe it. At this point though, I've seen the baby in two ultrasounds and can see that my belly is definitely growing. I think I'm finally starting to actually look pregnant but for a while it just seemed like my every-day gut was sticking out and I couldn't suck it in any more. Basically I looked more like I just didn't care anymore than that I was housing a growing fetus. During that period I started to develop a habit that I think every pregnant woman has, but that I didn't realize might not mean what I always thought it meant. I started constantly putting a hand on my belly- rubbing it, and resting my palm upon it in what might seem like a protective or loving manner. In reality I was mostly just concerned with making it obvious that I was pregnant and not just sloppily fat. I'm sure that once the ol' bump becomes more pronounced I'll continue this habit, but hopefully with a more appropriate motivation behind it.

Im-mani-ture

I don't get my nails done that often. Usually because at least two of them will chip within about 14 hours of leaving the salon. But my toes were looking pretty gnarly, my fingernails were too long and I'd gotten a coupon in the mail to a new nail salon right across the street for a $30 mani/pedi so I headed over today after work. When I sat down to get my nails done there was the standard back and forth about shape, length etc. The clipping, filing and cuticle cutting ensued, then when the time came to massage lotion into my hands the manicurist stopped, looked at my hands and then looked up at me and said "aww, like baby hands." I'm getting a sense of deja vu as I write this because, not only has this happened several times in my (adult) life, but I'm pretty sure it's happened often enough that I've written about it before. Really. I'd estimate that since the age of 18 I've gotten manicures from approximately 23 different people and that of those 23, six have said, literally those exact same words, "like baby hands." If you're wondering, that's 26%.

This is a picture of a real baby's hand and, looking at it, I guess maybe I can kind of see what they're talking about, but you'll have to look in person to see if you agree. I tried to take a picture of my own hand so I could post it here and say "is it really that pudgy, dimpled and small, with an apparent lack of dexterity?" But try taking a photo of your own hand with your phone that doesn't make you look like a man-handed hobbit. I dare you.

The Stinky Kid

I'm starting to develop a complex. First of all, for whatever reason (family history of hot feet may have something to do with it) my shoes have been stinking up my closet. I've tried a few things like putting dryer sheets and Gold Bond powder in my shoes; they helped a little but didn't totally eliminate the situation. So on a recent shopping trip, John picked up a little battery powered device that is supposed to detect odor and spray a shot a flowery scent whenever it senses a wave of bad smells. The thing is, I've noticed that over the past two weeks, the thing has sprayed several times while I've been getting clothes in the closet. The problems with this are two-fold, one, it scares the crap out of me every time because it makes a noise before the spray shoots out. More disturbing is that either it's actually motion detecting rather than odor detecting, or I'm oozing stench and setting this thing off every time I come within two feet of it.

A Debate for the Ages

Some people argue about politics, some about religion. Some people spend hours discussing philosophy. I, however, have spent many an hour debating which is the correct spelling and pronunciation of the sorbet-like dessert that comes a flavor called "Rainbow."

 It must be a significant argument though, since a major retail chain can't even get a consensus between the version on the aisle sign and the version on their store brand container...