Swiss Cheese and Puppy Dog Tails

So now that we got that important issue of gender settled, its been really fun to start going through the process of what to name this little human cub. However before I go into that, let me tell you that going into the ultrasound, I seriously thought that I was unbiased in regards to preferring whether the baby was a boy or a girl. But I must say, that sitting there in the OB room and watching that little thing swim around made me realize that wasn't entirely true. As I'm sitting there and the nurse starts looking around, I realized my stomach was up in my throat! I was SO nervous, and I realized that while I had told myself that I was going to remain neutral, I really did want us to have a boy.

So when the nurse said, "Do you want to know what you're having?" My heart stopped for the 2.3 seconds before she revealed the secret. And in that brief moment of unknowing, I saw forts and sword fights, muddy hands and smelly feet, throwing balls and catching colds, snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails, and all of the other beautiful wonders that come along with little boys, flash before my eyes. So you can imagine when she said, "It's a BOY!" we both laughed, cried and sighed in relief. Or jumped for joy, in K8's case.

So much for neutrality. I never liked the Swiss anyway, who puts holes in cheese?

Anyway, knowing that our little dude is in fact a dude, naturally led us to the question of what to call him. Now I understand that lots of people go into the naming process very differently, and there really is no right way to do it. For some people a name is a link to the past and to cherished family members (my favorite being when a child ends up with the name of a relative of the opposite sex because this is either very cute or very disturbing), other people focus heavily on how a name sounds or feels, and still others really focus on what the name itself means. But for most people I'm guessing its some sort of combination of the three, with different importance placed on each.

Growing up, my parents often talked about what our names meant and thought of them all as a sort of foretelling of the life that we were going to live in the long run, and what our impact on the family would be. For example, my name Jesse David means "the beloved gift that makes rich" Jesse: which means gift, or wealthy and David: which means beloved. Put them together, and you have ME. So, its funny how it works because is there another Jesse David out there? Probably. And is he somehow bound to be "the beloved gift who makes rich" also? I seriously doubt it. But I don't find it strange at all that one of my greatest strengths in life has been the rock solid knowledge that I am deeply loved and that I find incredible joy and purpose in bringing richness to my friends and families lives. In fact, when I do, I feel like I'm fulfilling my destiny. Funny how that works.

So I guess you can tell by now, that we probably fall into the third category that I was talking about;)

Of course, going that route all has lead us to the obvious dilemma of HOLY CRAP!! HOW IN THE HECK DO YOU JUST PICK SOMEONE'S DESTINY!!! Hahaha, so it's been a really fun process and if you tune back in in a couple days, I'll give you the story that has brought us to where we are with our dude's name, and how we got there.

Thanks for reading!

-Jesse