Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Name Game

There are few things that people get more passionate about than the naming of a child. It seems that everyone has a (conflicting) opinion. That is why Monica and I decided not to tell anyone our preferred names. We figure once the baby is born, no one can tell us how much they hate the name (at least, not to our face).

Of course, we always get questions about our preferred names...so we decided to keep a running list of "fake" names. Obviously, we made these names as awkward as possible so we can see the reaction of our friends. Examples include Sanjaya (of American Idol fame), Anal (seriously, this is a real name), and Cal (go bears). The reaction on some people's faces were hilarious, with only one person really being honest (Ed: "Do NOT name your kid Sanjaya").

To be quite honest, coming up with a name is not an easy task, especially for a boy. We either find that the name is a little TOO Indian (test: can a substitute teacher pronounce it?) or the name has a negative association with people we don't like (thanks Berkeley).

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources out there to help you. The most fun was the Name Voyager where you can see the popularity of names over time. There are also books that have names categorized for your benefit: including Movie Stars (Keanu, Angelina, Humphrey), Hippies (Sky, Echo, Rain), or even States (Nevada, Minnesota, Montana).

We are always willing to take suggestions, so send them our way. Just make sure not to mention them to Ed...

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Olivia hangs out with Baby Chandra



It was a lot of fun to have Olivia over, especially now that she is saying her first words. One of her favorite words is "baby", so we tried to explain to her the baby in Monica's belly. It took us a while, but she finally started point to the baby.

Poor Em and Rod. I can only imagine how long it will take for Olivia to start incorrectly identifying the "baby" on some random stranger.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Reality Check

Over the last few days, Monica has started to experience Braxton Hicks contractions. They don't know exactly why these occur, but they are thought to aid the body in preparation for birth. Most of the time these are painless, but in some cases they can become quite painful.

A serious reality check took place when we visited our doctor and she asked, on a scale of 1 to 10, the level of pain. Monica, who looked in serious pain, gave a reasonable response of an "8". It was then that our doctor had to reset our expectations to the Pregnancy Pain Scale: a 10 would be the equivalent of wanting to jump out the window, a 8 equivalent to wanting to strangle someone, and a 5 being just serious, but normal pain.

At some point between this statement and me blurting "oh, crap," did we finally realize what we were getting ourselves into...

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Baby Chandra, meet Oski



Thanks to Renu for the great gift! Bootylicious.
Let the competition for the best Auntie begin. (just kidding. kinda.)

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Little One finds a playmate

It is my theory that one of the biggest requests from any couple having a baby...is for all of their friends to also have babies.

Why, you ask? Maybe it's sharing similar experiences with your closest friends. Or knowing your kids can play together from the very beginning. But mostly, it's the comfort of knowing your friends' lives, much like your own, are essentially over. Somehow this would help me sleep better at night when the baby is crying at 3AM. No wonder Em and Rod (and baby Olivia) were so excited when we told them we were pregnant.

As of last week, the closest thing we had going for us was Suj and Sheryl's new puppy that had to be let out every three hours to pee.

So let me be the first to congratulate Kris and Ashlyn on their pregnancy! Now we just need to find a name for pregnant Ashlyn that is equivalent to Pregneto.