The Empress

I think I might have actually driven my father crazy when my parents were visiting, what with all the names I kept throwing out as possible options. I'm a little crazy. I've been looking up meanings of names and origin of names and saying names to see if they sound good with Garrett and Matthew. I drove my own husband so nuts that he finally said, "Just pick one. I don't even care anymore." And he does care. He really does. He means, "Just pick one of the ones that we've been considering around and around in circles upon circles upon circles for the past month."

I didn't think we'd get this opportunity. We were looking to adopt a waiting child and waiting children come with names. Names like Arizona or Mercedes or Myshinee. And you're looking at those names thinking, "Well, that's her name. That's what she's been called for a year or five and so...there you go. No changing it now." I thought we were done with the baby naming business. I fully intend to be done with it after this because if there is anything I know about myself it's that I could probably keep doing this forever. You know how some people are pet people and they let their kid keep every bug, every lizard, every stray cat that walks into the neighborhood? I'm not those people. I'm the kind of person who would fly all over the world bringing home children that need a home. Thankfully, the Lord did not choose to make me wealthy in the financial sense because there'd come a time when those thirteen children would all be sobbing at the table over their spelling homework and I would straight up drop my basket.

Anyway.

I bounced a zillion combinations off my mom. She wants me to pick one already so that she can call her something. No one really thinks that Baby Girl has any sticking power. 

But it's weird to name a kid that's inside of someone else, that belongs to someone else. Our children are never really ours, regardless of whether or not we gave birth to them, but adoption is a weird mix of utmost blessing and heartbreaking tragedy and, for me, that fact is never really more evident than when another mother is nurturing and caring for the child she'll deliver into my arms. 

We had four weeks from the time we knew about Matthew until he was born. There wasn't a moment to waste. The kid needed a name. His mother asked me what it was going to be so that she could start calling him that. This time is different. We have an entire trimester to go. I think it is because we have longer that the decision feels heavier.

Yesterday, Matthew climbed in the car after school and suggested Mary Poppins. While I have nothing against Mary, I'm fairly, if not entirely, opposed to Poppins. He was pretty dead set and suggested it again at dinner. We let him down gently. It was still better than Tree Guy which is what a toddler Garrett wanted to name Matthew.

On Wednesday, I had this conversation with my mom...

And, I can't think of a situation where I'm torn up enough that that doesn't make me laugh. I can't even SAY it without breaking into a choking fit of giggles. Honest to goodness, if my husband dies young and leaves a widow and three small children, and we are all sitting in that front row wearing black and sobbing and someone takes the microphone and says, "Remember when Troy suggested Empress Narwhal and you texted it to your mom?" I might have to stop my grief for a New York minute and laugh the heck out of that one. 

Empress Narwhal could stick, no? My friend once told me about someone named Georgia Peach Pickers. Another friend told me of a sibling set of three named Crystal, Shanda and Lear.

In any case, I'm down to two. And I have a slight leaning. So all of that Empress Narwhal and Mary Poppins tomfoolery to say, maybe I'll make an announcement soon. So stay tuned.