The baby naming process

- family heritage ... check

- Spanish/English twist ... check

- unique and different ... check

- religiously rooted ... check

- personal meaning ... check

- both Mono and I like ... check

- needs to have a suitable nickname if we decide to use it ... check

Picking out four boys names, two first and two middle, proved to be somewhat difficult with all my categories needing to be checked off from above.

We're not really naming these kids after specific family members because it can get too complicated, but there is an area that needs to be included.

I didn't grow up rooted in a specific culture. I'm kind of an American mutt. My husband's family is so greatly rooted in their Cuban history and I love that. I really wanted to make sure that is passed down to our kids, both his side and mine.

As much as I like names like John or Peter, Chris or David.... I just wasn't satisfied. I have nothing against them, but it just wasn't what I was looking for. I couldn't explain myself or back my reason up with examples, so it proved to be hard for a while. I somewhat settled on kind of unique, yet mostly ordinary names, but I just wasn't happy. I finally had the guts to randomly throw out this one name that I liked, that had special meaning to me and, I thought, had a great Spanish twist. It tied a good bit of what I wanted checked off the list in it as well.

Perfect... Until...

I've heard stories of the spouses not agreeing on a name, and thankfully we were able to check that off successfully as well. While we may be in agreement of them, not everyone else is. 

I made a phone call to one particular person and well, let's just say their answer was, "You still have time to think of names..." Meaning, let's think of others, I don't think so... or, yuck! ha.

I had girls names picked out too and they didn't fly so well either... with a person or two... maybe even this specific person that doesn't like my boy choice either.

Guess I have a different taste.

As my aunt told me tonight, "Remember Mare, they are your kids so who cares what anyone else thinks." I have to remember that, even if one of the people that dislikes our choices (at least for one of the boys) is a close member of the family, who for their own sake, will remain nameless.

So I am going to sleep tonight with a name, first and middle, that fits the above check list, for each of our boys. I'll sleep on them and hopefully wake up in the morning feeling fresh and good about our picks. I know we don't have to make our final say until even the day they are born if necessary, but I'd like to have a good, solid idea of what they will be named. So, off to sleep to dream of _____ and _____.

172. long, 3-way chats with my two best friends

173. thinking of baby names and agreeing on them

174. getting our internet and phones back up after they've been down for a while due to local outage

175. time the past few days that I had no internet to read, read, read

176. noticeable relief to my morning sickness

177. family