what’s in a name?

as most of you hopefully know, we will have our third child on, around, or about july 27th of next year.  as this baby was a little unexpected, we are just now beginning the obligatory name debate.  as usual per the last two children, we are not even close to being on the same page.  probably not even the same book.  in fact,  i don’t even think we are in the same bookstore right now.  i, being the free spirit that i am, tend to gravitate towards more unique or exotic names and brit….does not.

brit is very conservative with names and doesn’t get too far outside the box.  in fact, she has a whole list of rules that must be strictly adhered to for consideration.  here are some of brit’s rules with baby-naming.  write these down, they may come in handy one day…

1. no initials. this rules out names like JP, JT, LT, and my personal favorite TI.

2. the child shall not be called by his middle name. if you name your child thomas parker, you sure as heck better not call him parker.

3. brittany can not have seen, heard of, or known anyone with the same name who is unsavory or has questionable character. seriously.  there have been several times i would name off a potential moniker, and i would get the response, “but i knew a charlotte in third grade and she put glue in my hair.”

4. no nicknames. we had the discussion of naming a son after our grandfathers.  Ivo Thomas or Thomas Ivo.  The issue is that I don’t want to call my son either one of those names.  I posited that we could name him Ivo Thomas and then call them Bear or Blaze.  Maybe even Rock or Titanium…

5. no nerd names. example: i think naming a son Jedidiah and then calling him Jedi would be flipping awesome.  brittany does not.  it’s not like i want to name him skywalker or something.  hm, skywalker…..

so, you can probably understand my frustration with this whole process. with her many, many rules we did manage to pick out a few that meet our criteria. some are unisexual so they will be listed in both categories.

girls

charlotte, parker, reilly, isabella, chloe

boys

parker, thomas, ivo, lane, riley, tyler

i think there are a few more that we discussed, but i can’t remember them right off the top of my head.  sound off in the comments with your ideas or suggestions.

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i am super excited about the Lost season premiere party at casa de lucas.  we always thoroughly enjoy hanging out with that gang and adding lost to the mix just makes it that much better.

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the holiday season at the buckle has been rough.  we have lost employees at an alarming rate and business has been booming, which is good for the paycheck but not my stress level.  adding to the stress is ashley (store manager) pushing me to become a team leader at the beginning of the month.  she is in a bad spot right now with management in the store and i know she likes and trusts me and i am one of her only options and  as exciting as the prospect of making more money is, it would require me to open my availability up to the point of working almost every saturday and at least two nights a week.  this is just not doable.

the worse part is without the move up, i just don’t think i can afford to stay there.  the pay has been decent over the last few weeks, but obviously that’s due to the holidays and come mid-january i will be back to barely making more than minimum wage.  i love the discount, but when you have no money to buy clothes, the discount doesn’t hold much weight.  buckle has been a good temporary solution when i had no other income, but it has always been that, a temporary solution.  my goal is to get on with Max or another bank part-time to earn some money while i finish school.  max is really flexible with school schedules and would give me a set pay rate so that i know what i am bringing home.

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that’s it for me.  no big plans for new years.  we’re just going to hang out at church with the youth watching movies and playing games until 2009 gets here.

happy new year.

peace.