Hey, I’m on spring break! I’m thinking about loading up the cooler later and heading to a local tanning salon, popping open a few cold ones, and yelling at women to flash me. Yes, I’m almost 35, married, and about to become the father of a second daughter. But a guy can have some fun, right?
Actually, we’re taking a little trip next weekend to visit some friends who moved to Michigan last summer. We’re hoping that the temperature is somewhere above freezing. Saginaw isn’t known for its balmy winters.
I forgot to share some big news last week: we’ve scheduled S.’s c-section. If she can hold out until then, Little Girlfriend will be delivered on May 17. That will be 39 weeks, and M. was born at 38, so those last seven days could be interesting. The clock is now officially ticking, 10 weeks to go. All was well with S. on her most recent check-up. Fetal heartbeat still excellent. Momma as comfortable as she can be at this point.
Which all leads us to the fun process of naming the next kid. To review, we had a list of five names for M. roughly five months before she was born. Narrowed that down to two names in June, and picked M. about 4-5 hours after she was born (she surprised us, we weren’t quite ready).
This time around, we’ve had some struggles. We had a list of names before Christmas that we were going to let sit for awhile. After the holidays, we agreed we weren’t terribly fond of any of the names, so we scrapped them and started over. Last week, we got that list down to four names we’re pretty happy with. So we may be done, finally, with that initial part of the process.
How do we pick from this list? Ask our toddler, of course. For a couple weeks I’ve been asking M. what we should name the baby. She just looks at me and says, “Baby? Baby?” Not terribly helpful. This morning, however, when we were telling her names on the list, she repeated two of them. While I was at school, she came close to saying the other two names (they’re slightly more difficult names to say). While that is fun, again it’s not super helpful when she repeats every name rather than just one that she likes most.
I did think of a way to ease the process, though. I could always sell the naming rights. The Colts got $112 million last week for the rights to their stadium for only 20 years. What kind of paper could I bring in if I offered the name of my daughter for her entire natural life? Toyota has a nice ring to it. Maggie Brought To You By Old Navy. Apple Presents Brenda. If some British guy can make $1 million by selling pixels on his website, surely this can work, right? Perhaps I should secure the funds before I share this idea with the Mrs. It might help me make my argument if I can show all our kids’ educations as well as our retirement will be taken care of.