What’s in a Name

On Wednesday I congratulated Erin on the news of her baby’s first kick. On Saturday I spent an hour on the border of a baseball field with an 8 month old playing at my feet. And all during the week, the radio replayed a clip about parents who regret the names they chose for their children. That must be why I dreamed I was pregnant, laying with my back against a grassy hill, feeling the flutter of a baby down low, to the left.

Mikey was almost an Aidan. Can you imagine?! I can’t, and neither can Mikey. This weekend I told him about his almost-name, a name that belongs to someone gentle and calm, good with his hands and friends with golden retrievers. He scrunched up his nose and laughed, the idea unfathomable to the small boy whose personality engulfs a room.

It’s a name that is as unsuitable to me as it is now to him.  To know me is to know I am someone who names their son Michael, not Aidan. Michael, not Mikell or Mykall or Mi-Kal. I was bitter Carrie went back to Mr. Big. That is the only way I can explain this near-transgression.

Years later, Mikey played soccer with a boy named Aidan, and I became friends with his mom. Aidan looks and acts as an Aidan should. Our boys are named just right.

For Nicholas, we went back to the family tree and moved up a generation or two. Nicholas, after my great-grandfather who sailed from Italy to Argentina and settled there to build windmills. They called him Nico. Scott, after the Mister’s great-great uncle, a cowboy in Colorado history books. I think they just called him wild. Sometimes I’m not sure about the name Nicholas, but the feeling is fleeting. I can’t think of another name that suits him. His knees bare scars from scrapes and falls; his hair is almost always on end. He is the Don Quixote of the west, the adventure loving boy who has yet to find his indoor voice.

In my dream we were having a girl. Mikey starts with M and Nicholas starts with N, so in the logic of dreams I was adamant that her named start with an O.

M, N, O; alphabetical order.

No idea.

The only other time I dreamed of a third child was years ago, and it was of a boy named Ollie. I remembered that dream in my current dream and mentioned it to a blonde woman I don’t know in real life. In my dream she was my best friend. We went shopping, and I handed her pretty silk bras over a dressing room door as I shared my ideas on names.

In the end, I decided to name our daughter Olive.

I knew an Olive once. She had glossy black hair, warm brown eyes and a man who adored her so much he brought her to work everyday. She was my vet’s Labrador retriever. It’s a nice name. I imagine a woman named Olive is quiet and unassuming, someone you can tell you secrets to without hesitation.

I told all this to the Mister as we drove around town running errands on Sunday, except for the part about pretty silk bras. I knew that would sidetrack him.

“Olive? Why Olive?”

“It was a dream. I have no idea why Olive. What do you think of the name?”

“We would never have an Olive. I always liked the name Ophelia. Remember how I wanted that name?”

“I remember.”

“It’s a good name, don’t you think? I mean, minus the part about it being the name of a crazy woman.”

Yes, aside from the heartbreak, the madness, and the did-she-or-didn’t-she suicide intrigue from Hamlet, it’s a fine name.

A Walk Among Headstones

I have an old friend who lives across the street from a historic cemetery, one that is often used in movies. On Saturday there were film crews there for hours, but no one cared enough to ask the name of the movie or what it is about. I can’t pretend to be so jaded. I would have walked up to the barriers and asked questions.

We stopped by on Sunday, not to visit the cemetery or even visit friends. We drove over to buy from them a tandem attachment for our bike, but as we crested the hill above the cemetery, I asked the Mister if we could stop and take pictures on our way home.

I’ve always given cemeteries wide birth. I’m superstitious, prone to anxiety and guilty of overactive imagination. I’ve never understood those who wandered the grounds or laid on the grass next to headstones of people they’ve never met. It seemed ridiculous, like instead of tempting fate they decided to run up to it and crush it in a passionate embrace.

Also, I’m empathic. I always assumed I would look upon a stone engraved MOTHER and worry about the son, even if the dates make it likely that he stopped feeling grief for anyone (mother included) sometime during the turn of the last century.

I did a little of that, especially when I stumbled upon headstones for two toddlers only two years apart (1925-1927 was cruel to the Hernandez family), but for the most part I found the cemetery peaceful and quiet. Like the Mister said at one point, it was quiet enough to think.

I was sitting here, on a memorial bench for soldiers that overlooked the front of the cemetery, when Mikey received on my cell phone his first phone call from a school friend. A girl. She had questions about the Great Illustrated Classic Book Club Mikey and two other friends from school formed. Mikey mentioned the club on Friday at the bookstore (she was there with her mother and brother) while they sat on a weathered sofa and thumbed through a Great Illustrated Classic Frankenstein. He looked at a few pictures and decided it was too scary. She looked at the same pictures and decided it was right up her alley.

By Sunday she was hooked and called Mikey (with permission from the moms) to discuss the particulars. Frankenstein was turning out to be a great book, and she wanted more of the same. Mikey was impressed.

“I’m talking to you in a graveyard.” Good grief. I think he wanted to impress her, too.

I watched him walk in and out of Hughes and Lowery, back around Younglove and Covey, all the while talking about book club rules, ghosts, and zombies. I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and remind him he couldn’t possibly be old enough to be talking on the phone with someone other than a grandparent. Impossible.

At Coleman he stopped briefly to think, and then again started moving.

“That’s a very good question, Laney,” he said into my phone. “Well, I guess if we finish all the great illustrated classics we’ll have to look at everything we read, pick our favorites, and then read them again.”

If only we could use that same logic with everything we love. I would do it all again, too.

Conversion

Lent began last Wednesday, and as many of you know (or can imagine) this period of self-reflection is my favorite time of the year, liturgical or otherwise. Unlike years past, I haven’t discussed what I will be giving up for Lent. I had good reason: I couldn’t decide. I’m not even trying to be funny, I swear.

I won’t go through all the Lenten promises I considered. There are many and all had promise, but I didn’t get that feeling in my gut that tells me I am on the right path. I’m an over-thinker by nature, so my gut never gets to say much more than, “You overdid it with the dairy,” or, “Don’t read in a moving car, especially without your glasses.” Every now and then, though, I can count on it to scream louder than the thoughts in my head. In fact, it’s when the thoughts in my head skitter to a stop that I know I’ve hit upon a good idea.

The other day I made a few self-deprecating comments in a post and a reader chided me for it later on Facebook. I realized immediately she was right and edited the post. Then I turned her words around in my head for a few days until they turned into a promise, shiny and smooth.

This year for Lent I will give up the negative self-talk and take on a more forgiving, gentle attitude towards myself. I am very good at restrictions and rules and challenges. I excel at trying to excel. I’m not so good at just being okay.

Lent is about conversion, turning our lives more completely over to Christ and his way of life. That always involves giving up sin in some form. The goal is not just to abstain from sin for the duration of Lent but to root sin out of our lives forever. Conversion means leaving behind an old way of living and acting in order to embrace new life in Christ. For catechumens, Lent is a period intended to bring their initial conversion to completion. Catholic.org

I’m not giving up flour, or sugar, or meat, or blogs, or media. Instead, I’m hoping to gain a new perspective, form new habits, and treat myself the way I want my sons to treat themselves. Jesus would approve.

p.s. I twice caught myself on Saturday practicing negative self talk (once I poked fun at the socks I was wearing and the other time I joked that my nose looked a pencil fresh out of the sharpener). I see this will be a challenging Lenten season, but one that will come with great reward.

Unstyled Life

Buddy knocked down all the pillows and blankets off the sofa and then used them to make a nest. I didn’t have the heart to wake him, and I left them on the floor for him all week.

The One Up

When we were pregnant with Nicholas and people found out we were having a boy, the most common response was, “Oh, well that’s okay. It’s only your second. You can keep trying!” The more diplomatic of our friends would ask, “Are you going to keep trying for a girl?”

Nope! We’re ship-shape. I always replied that the only way we would have more children is if I could guarantee they would all be boys. I was only partly kidding.

All I ever wanted growing up was a sister. My brothers had each other, and together they were thick as thieves, like built-in best friends. The Mister is extremely close with his brother, and my girlfriends with sisters are the same. I know it’s possible to be close to a sibling of the opposite gender, and that some brothers are enemies and sisters are rivals. Likely, even. But it formed in my mind as a young child that same-sex siblings become best friends. I grew up wanting sons or daughters, but not both.

We are lucky that Mikey and Nicholas adore and look out for each other. If Mikey gets a treat from a mom at choir practice, he asks for an extra one to bring home to his brother. Nicholas colors Mikey pictures during the day and waits for him on the front porch to get home from school. They ask to sleep with each other every night.

Lately, though, there has been a competitive streak between the two. Who can jump, run, walk, play, clean up, eat, and drink faster. Who can read, sing, color, kick, swing, and ride bikes better. There are never ending races. Matches, and then rematches. Everything is a competition, including who is the most tired. Last night I heard them squabble back and forth.

“Whooh. I am so tired,” yawned Nico.

“I’m more tired than you,” challenged Mikey.

“No, I’m more tired.”

“I’m so tired, I’m practically asleep standing up!”

“I’m so tired, I already fell alseep and mama woke me up for dinner!”

“I said I’m more tired!”

“No, I AM!”

All this, while wide awake and playing with marbles.

I dropped family off at the airport at 5:30am that morning, then spent the day purging toys. My throat tickled either from impending plague or too much dust. I spent $40 two hours earlier on fish tank supplies and El Pollo Loco and they were arguing about who was more tired? Answer: ME. I was exhausted, in need of a break, and not about to let this opportunity slide by.

So I said, “I don’t know why you two are arguing back and forth. The only way you’ll be able to prove who is more tired is by being the one who falls asleep first.”

Eyes clashed over a ring of marbles. A mad dash to brush teeth and then, separate beds. Prayers recited faster than auction calls. Lights out! Goodnight! I’m already asleep! In less than five minutes, the house was a blanket of quiet.

Suckers.