The Name Game

I am positively bursting at the seams to tell you the names JBB and I have picked out for my womb resident. We have known from the very beginning what our boy name and girl name would be. And we haven't wavered on them since! Unfortunately, unlike me, my husband loves to keep a good secret and then share it at the most opportune moment! (Like when we first started dating and he didn't tell anyone about me until I just appeared with him at a gathering of his friends. He thought it would be fun to surprise them. I'm awkward enough around new people in the best of situations, so you can imagine how much I loved this plan. Good times. :))

I should clarify - I can keep a secret. If you tell me something in confidence, I'll never crack. However - I am terrible at keeping something exciting from my family and friends. I can't count the number of times I've called JBB or my mom or dad and told them all about the "mostamazingChristmasgiftintheworld" that I just could NOT wait to give them. It damned near killed me to wait until 11 weeks to share the news about Cookie; if I'm excited about something personally, or on behalf of someone else, I have to sew my mouth shut to not blab about it. I open birthday cards the instant I retrieve them from the mailbox, even if my birthday isn't for another week. JBB on the other hand, waits until after dinner on his birthday, saving them up to open all at once. So, basically, we are complete opposites when it comes to whether or not we should tell family and friends the names we have picked out for Cookie B. 

A little background on how we picked our names...when JBB and I first started dating, we went to IU to watch a basketball game. (This is back when IU couldn't beat the Rose Hulman Fighting Engineers, by the way.) We'd probably been together 3 months or so at the time. I can remember as plain as day sitting in one of the booths in the downstairs of Nick's, eating a stromboli (of course!) and somehow the subject of baby names came up. I don't know if one of our friends had just had a baby, or why we were talking about this quite so early on. Anyway, I jokingly said, "If we ever have a baby and it's girl, you get naming rights, and I will name the boy." Two years later, and JBB has really held me to that. And he has had a heck of a good time taunting me with the girls names he says he'll be choosing for Cookie. Thankfully, we both have veto power, so we won't end up with a Betty Bertrude Blythe, as he likes to threaten. (And let's be honest - I'm the one pushing this rascal out, so if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. I think we all know who the ultimate naming rights rest with.)

Let's play a little process of elimination...

According to the US Government, the Top 10 Baby Names for 2011 were:

Rank	Male name	Female name
1	Jacob	Sophia
2	Mason	Isabella
3	William	Emma
4	Jayden	Olivia
5	Noah	Ava
6	Michael	Emily
7	Ethan	Abigail
8	Alexander	Madison
9	Aiden	Mia
10	Daniel	Chloe

While all are very lovely names, none of them will be Cookie's. Looking at "Nameberry," which tracks trendy, up and coming popular baby names, the predictions for hot names of 2013 will be those that take after ancient gods and goddesses, mythological heroes, and names inspired by nature. Some examples: Persephone (is this a boy or girl name? I really don't know), Athena, Julius, Thor, Katniss, Maeve, Winter, and Smog. (Okay, I made that last one up.) While Julius Aprhodite Blythe has a certain something to it that I like, we will not be following this naming trend. I think I slept through all of ancient history and mythology in high school.

A few things I can tell you (this post has been JBB approved, so no spilling of family secrets here) - the girl name was taken from a movie that JBB has watched. That should narrow it right down for you, as he has seen approximately 30 movies in the last two months alone. Might it have a family name somewhere in there? It might. Or it might not. He does have an Aunt Dodo, we might like to honor...

As the head boy namer in the family, I was pretty sold on my name from the beginning. It might come from my love of history...Napolean Bonaparte Blythe, anyone? NBB is in the house! Or, it also might come from my love of trashy celebrity magazines...welcome to the family Kardashian Blythe! There is a chance we'll work a family name in there as well. I believe my mom had a cousin named Dovey Merle...

Those are probably all the "hints" I should share, before my fingers get away from me and I type in the real names. (Or did I already!??!) I suppose the only plus side to not telling the names in advance is that no one (hopefully!) will tell me all about the boy in their 3rd class who happens to share my son's name, and also happened to pick his nose, or how much they hate the name we've picked, etc. Once the baby is born, hopefully people will at least lie and tell us how wonderful they think our name selection was. :)

In other news, I passed my glucose test!!! Yahooooza!!! For some reason, I had it in my head I would fail it, and then have to take the very scary three hour test I've heard about. The appointment was Monday morning at 8:30 am; I had two chocolate chip cookies at 8:00 Saturday night while watching Miss America, and then no sugar until after the test Monday morning. (I  may or may not have helped myself to four bake n' break chocolate chip cookies when I got home that night.) We are almost 29 weeks and now to the stage where we meet with the doctor every two weeks....which I love because that means we get to hear the heartbeat every two weeks!

JBB snapped this post blood work, eating my cheese and peanut butter crackers and having the Capri Sun we smuggled in my purse. I don't do real well giving blood. :)

Last night I had my first baby shower, and it set the bar high! "My gal Val" (as my mom calls her) with whom I work, threw an office baby shower at Ceramic Dreams, a paint your own pottery studio in Broad Ripple. We had a great time painting, eating, (more cookies! Yum, sugar!) and of course opening gifts. Below are some pictures. Thank so much to everyone for making the drive on a Wednesday night after work. It meant so much, and JBB couldn't wait to see the gifts when I got home!

Welcome to Cookie's baby shower!
The whole Sesame Street gang was there to welcome us!

How cute are these homemade cookies? They tasted even better than they looked!

Val and I, party planner extraordinaire!

The whole crew...I work with great people!

Until next time, Hercules Rain Churchill Juno Blythe and I are signing off!

Oh What a Day...

This blog is brought to you by one tired, slightly delirious mama-to-be so if it seems a little crazy, it's because I'm feeling a bit loopy tonight. Pretty sure putting together paragraphs, themes, blah, blah, blah is beyond me. Consider yourself warned.

I've officially decided I'm out of the "fun" part of being pregnant, and getting into the nitty-gritty. Disclaimer: If you are one of the handful of males who reads this blog and you are not my husband, feel free to skip this paragraph. Lots of bodily functions up in here. I think I preferred the shiny hair and strong nails that come with the second trimester to...drumroll please....leaky bladder, leaky boobs, loads of gas, and yeast infections. These fun things are all apparently brought to me by the 3rd trimester, which officially begins this Saturday, not last. The math they use to figure out due dates and trimesters is waaaay beyond me. If it weren't for Gerber Baby emails telling me where I was in my pregnancy, I'd be lost. 

This morning found JBB and I at an impromptu doctor's visit after a few days of increased "leaking" - which I was fairly certain was just from having a bowling bowl sitting on my bladder, but as my degree is in English and History (woohoo liberal arts!) and not obstetrics, I wasn't comfortable with the final decision being up to me. At times like these, I really, really wish JBB could be pregnant too, so there was someone else experiencing what I was; another voice of reason to say, "Be worried about this," or, "No big deal. Proceed." It's like being at the eye doctor, and I'm in the hot seat, and the whole future of my vision rests on me, and me alone deciding, "Which line is bolder?", or "Which circle is floating?" I. Don't Know. What if I choose the wrong one, and doom myself to a year of headaches from a wonky prescription, until I can redeem myself in 12 months? Eye doctor appointments really stress me out. Anyway - last night we called the "after-hours" hotline and spoke to the doctor on call, who couldn't have been nicer. He had us come in this morning just to be extra-cautious, and make sure nothing more ominous than your garden-variety incontinence was happening. Which, thank goodness, it wasn't. (Hip hip hooray for bladder incontinence!)

Fast forward to this afternoon at CVS: purchasing pantyliners,  Monistat 7, and toilet paper was perhaps a personal low for me. Feeling like I was at Hook's in the 8th grade buying tampons for the first time, I decided to use the "self check-out," against my better judgement. (Personal rant: self check-out NEVER ends up quicker. Never. Something always mucks up the system, usually produce. So much for trying to eat healthy.) Anyway - of course, while trying to pay, the light above the machine starts flashing, and a robot starts chirping, "Help is on it's way".  As if I was going into labor in the drugstore. I half expected the Canadian Royal Mounties to come charging up on their horses to rescue me. Instead, a bored looking CVS cashier came over, lifted the Monistat 7 out of the bag, and then put it back in. Suddenly, I could pay. Apparently the machine thought I had bagged the goods without paying for it. They were on to me. So much for my stealthy check-out.

And that was just my 30 minute lunch break. Today, as luck would have it, also happened to be the day our work was migrating all computers and phones to a new server, and we "launched" our 2013 500 Festival volunteer website, a big day for me. (Volunteer for me people! It's fun.) Of course, my computer was the "problem child." Finally, 2:30 rolls around and my email was working, thanks to the patience of our IT support. In come dozens and dozens of emails from volunteers with questions over their registration.As I plow through their emails, I realize it's been nearly 30 minutes, so I of course have to go to the bathroom. I come back a mere 90 seconds later, and I am logged completely out of my computer. In a last-ditch effort, I log-in as my co-worker, hoping that will work. It does, for about 20 minutes; in perhaps the funniest part of this whole charade, I begin to print emails only to find out they will only print to the private printer of our CEO's personal assistant, and then only on letterhead, to boot! At this point, I hung it up for the day and headed home. As my favorite literary heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, says, "Tomorrow is another day!" (Speaking of which - I thought today was Tuesday all day, until I got home. I was legitimately thrilled when I found out it is Wednesday. Silver lining.)

So. That's it from the Blythe front. Cookie is great - she/he is kicking up a storm, and JBB and I love her more every day. Even when she busts mommy's bladder. Monday is our 28 week appointment...bring it on glucose test, RH shot, and whatever else you're poking and prodding! While that appointment promises to be a good time, we are especially looking forward to our "work baby shower" next Wednesday at Half Baked pottery! 

Sideways flowers from JBB make any day better!!! 

Cookie is sooo lucky to have so many people excited for her arrival. Looking forward to a great night!