The Name

It's a touchy thing really. The name for your offspring that makes your heart soar, will often be met with stifled looks of disgust when you divulge it to the curious. And sometimes they don't bother to stifle it. For me, the names I give my children are something sacred, a part of their destiny, of who they are and will become. And unfortunately, Mel and I never agree on names, at least for the greater part of any of my pregnancies. With Zoe, my struggle had been so long and grueling to bring life into the world, that naming her "Life" was a statement of triumph. No one liked that name before she was born, but I talked Mel into it around month 5. Then there was Isabelle, whose name I woke up in the night declaring. Who could argue with a name as gorgeous as Isabelle? When we had little Camille, we were so undecided that we put the names up on a whiteboard in my hospital room and debated them for 2 days. Mel was really pushing for "Lily", and I'm so glad I didn't cave because there were a ton of Lilys that year, at least here in Hicktown. Simon was maybe the hardest because Mel had very strong feelings about a name I really didn't want and he was our first boy. We ended up with a name that although Biblical, we loved from our favorite SNL skit when we were dating in college--you remember the one with Mike Meyers in the bathtub.

I've been contemplating the name for this current bean since I developed my list of names for Simon and found "Quentin", which is a popular French name and means "the fifth". It seemed so perfect. However, Mel has put the kybosh (is there a proper way to spell that?) on this, and hopefully I have put to rest that other name he keeps bringing up. I've given him a couple of other ideas, but we have vowel issues with one of them. We're only at 20 weeks and I've been angsting over this name, until today.

That's right, folks, I think we've found something that will work for both of us. This morning, as Mel and I enjoyed our morning coffee in bed, catching up after him being in Vegas for a few days, I told him, "Kabob has been moving a ton this week."
"Is that what we're going to name him? Kabob?"
We both started giggling madly, which is always a good sign. "Kabob," he reasoned," Khalil Robert. Kabob for short." Khalil has been on the list since Camille, but all my whitebread family feels it's to "ethnic", especially when teamed with our Lebanese last name.

So at least for the duration of the pregnancy, we'll be calling him Kabob, but you'll have to wait 20 more weeks to find out if we're serious.