2001-12-01
So, my first day of non-work. It's Saturday, though, so it feels like a normal weekend. B and I reverted to the weekend routine we established when we moved (abandoned last weekend due to our Thanksgiving guests): he worked all day on the old house and I ran errands like a maniac.
I went to the warehouse store, the groovy healthfood/gourmet store, the regular grocery store, the hardware store, the pool and spa store to get some chemicals, the library, the credit union, and--true confession time--a couple of thrift stores. But I actually darted in and out fairly quickly. I didn't see any compelling baby stuff and I'm really not interested in getting anything for myself. It's too late to buy more maternity clothes and god knows what I'm going to be wearing after the kid is born. Also, packing to move put me face to face with my past profligate buying in a way that kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing. For now, anyway.
So, getting back to this name thing. We still like the name we came up with two weeks ago. It manages to be unusual without being weird, easy to spell and pronounce. Like my surname and B's surname, it is both short--one syllable--and a common noun, a word you'd find in the dictionary.
Somewhat less satisfying than the first name has been deciding what this kid's last name is going to be. I had somehow gotten the impression that B wanted to hyphenate our two names for the kid's last name. I'm not generally partial to hyphenated names, but given the brevity and simplicity of our names, it wasn't too cumbersome and I figured I could live with it. My preference would've been to choose one or the other.
A few weeks ago I was on the phone with a friend, telling her we were hyphenating because B wanted to when he heard and said, "I don't want to hyphenate, you want to hyphenate."
I really see this as one of those dilemmas with no ideal solution. I've always been a little puzzled by women who kept their original names then gave the kid the father's name without a moment's hesitation. And here I am, hesitating, but also thinking we'll probably go with B's last name. Mine will be in there, as the third of four names: Firstname Middlename MyLast B'sLast.
It doesn't feel ideal, but nothing does. We could reverse things and do Firstname Middlename B'sLast MyLast, but that doesn't feel right either. We could flip a coin but that feels really dumb. So I guess we'll be conventionally unconventional and I'll be the odd person out with a name of my own. I think I'll be able to live with that.
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