The Mom Crowd

I have mentioned before that I am currently in the process of picking baby names for my second little one coming in 4 weeks. We didn’t find out the gender so we have to pick out a boy and a girl name. It is one of the most exciting and difficult parts of having children. That is a lot of a pressure on a parent! Luckily I have a stack of baby name books to help me in the process. I like going to my library and checking out almost every baby name book they have. Here is a review of the stack currently sitting on my desk.

• “Cool Names for Babies” by Pamela Redmond Satran & Linda Rosenkrantz

‘Cool Names’ is a book of lists broken down into four different categories: Mainstream Names, Famous Names, Old Names, and Creative Names.  There is a February 2008 edition with a turquoise cover and an August 2003 edition with a red cover. Both are great sources if you are trying to find a name that is a little off the grid. Some of the lists are titled, “Old Lady Cool,” “Neo-Yuppie Cool Names,” and “Foreign Word Names.” Some of the names are completely off the wall, but it is a fun short book to look through.

• “50,000+ Baby Names! The Baby Name Bible” by Pamela Redmond Satran & Linda Rosenkrantz

’50,000+ Baby Names!’ is a great companion book to the authors’ other book ‘Cool Names’ because you can find a name in ‘Cool Names’ and then look up the definition of the name in the this book. It is also a good baby name book just to read through. I like that it puts a gray box and star next to up-and-coming names. It also has an arrow facing up or down next to names to indicate the trend in popularity. In addition to the definition of the name it also gives an opinion about the name and how it is interpreted in our current culture.

• “A World of Baby Names” by Teresa Norman

We found our first child’s name, Annabelle, in this book. It was sitting in our doctor’s office and my husband was reading through the Spanish section during a visit and found ‘Anabel.’ We decided to go with the most traditional spelling, but I like how this book is broken down into the origin of the name and gives a whole definition of a name. ‘A World of Baby Names’ is comprehensive and has a lot of names from foreign countries.

• “Puffy, Xena, Quentin, Uma : And 10,000 Other Names for Your New Millennium Baby” by Joal Ryan

I picked this one up from the library, because it looked interesting. It is not very comprehensive at all. Each chapter titled by a letter begins with advice in a section called ‘Crib Notes’ which contains comments on famous names, ‘Pocket Ts,’ ‘Trendy Suspenders,’ and ‘Think long, think hard.’ Unfortunately this advice is out of date ten years after being published. It also doesn’t seem to give full definitions of the names. Overall this book is okay, but I wouldn’t use it as my sole source of baby name information.

• “20,001 Names for Baby” by Carol Mcd. Wallace

I found this book in my coat closet left by the previous owners of my house. They knew that we were buying a 4 bedroom to fill it up with kids. They themselves had four children and moved out because the house became too small for them. It seems that I live in a fertile house! ’20,001’ was published in 1999 and is a no-fuss, easy to read baby name book. It has all the mainstream and common names and is great for a quick resource to look up a definition rather quickly.

It seems that I am obsessed with baby name books. I also like looking through them at Barnes and Nobles. I brought them all with me to the hospital when I gave birth to my first one, so we could pick a middle name. I am determined to have a first and middle name chosen before we go into labor this time!

Choosing a name for your baby can be the one of the most fun and hardest tasks when you are expecting.  As little girls we pick out our children’s names after we dream about our wedding.  Even on my honeymoon in Italy I was constantly picking up Italian names and storing them for future use.

Sometimes we even get upset if a friend uses the name that you have dreamt about your whole life. Remember when Charlotte on Sex in the City went to a baby shower and found out that her friend was going to use her unique, made up name, Shayla?

Some families have naming traditions. My husband is a junior and we will never have a “Third” or “III.” My husband and father-in-law’s accounts are constantly getting confused at the library, car insurance company, and our church. Even with nicknames, for our family having a junior is way too complicated.

My second child is due in about 8 weeks! I have checked out almost every baby name book the library has. At night I pour over these books while adding names to my list.

I have some pretty strict criteria for my child’s name:

1. It has to be easily pronounced in English and Spanish, so both sides of the family can say the name. I really liked the name Andres and when I mentioned it to my Anglo-momma she announced that she would just call him Andy. This of course made me strike it off my list immediately, since I didn’t want an Andy. For our Spanish speakers I have to be careful with J names and names with a double L.

2. I want a name that means something nice.  At least not some horrible meaning like “serpent” or “dimwitted.” I actually like the name Soledad for a girl but the meaning of the name is “to be in solitude”, so that name is off the list.

3. I don’t want the name to be too popular in the United States. When I was born the name Amanda was second in popularity, so there was always two or three Amanda’s in my class. In fact, the other Amanda in my class always hated me, because we had the same name. She became the Mandy, while I stayed just Amanda. I am constantly checking the Social Security Baby Names list. My first baby’s name was 236 in popularity when I named her. Now that name has climbed to 206 in popularity.

4. The girl’s name needs to be feminine and the boy’s name masculine. I know gender-neutral names are incredibly popular and some are beautiful. I just don’t prefer them. When I worked in Human Resources I had to input people into the system and I would have to check off the male or female box with only their name to go off of. I always fretted over getting this wrong. I also didn’t like second-guessing if I should address an applicant through email as “Mr.” or “Ms.” For me; it is all about eliminating confusion.

5. We also take into consideration what their nickname would be and if the name can be fun of very easily. I love checking Baby NamesWorld to find out this information, because they survey people who have that name.

For our second little one we currently only have four names on our list: two boy and two girl names. We have to select a boy and girl name since we didn’t find out the gender. I am currently tired of stressing over this and I am happy with those four. We have only let the names we have picked slip to a limited few and the others will have to wait to be surprised!

How about you? Do you have any strict criteria? Do you care about what other people think about your names? Do you tell what name you picked out before the baby is born? Do you get suggestions from other people? Was it an easy process for you?

Pregnancy Lesson #236  – If you are hugely pregnant and you have to pee, don’t hold it. It is physically impossible to hold it, so don’t even try.

You never know when you will be holding your pee, doing just one more thing before the going to the restroom and your husband comes along and makes you laugh. Its starts off innocently with just a drop and you think, “It’s okay, it’s just a drop.” But you are still laughing and it keeps going. Then you are laughing because you are actually peeing and you see your husband realize that you are in fact wetting your pants.

Mortified you just stand there. Luckily you are happy that you are standing on the tile in the kitchen. You look down and realize that your favorite flip-flops are getting wet so you widen your stance a bit so they don’t get even more wet than they already are. You chant to yourself, “Pee is sterile. It can be washed. It can be washed.”

After it is all said and done your husband valiantly cleans the pee in the kitchen and watches the toddler. All while you shower and put your favorite jeans and flip-flops in the washer.

When you get over the shock of what just happened you are just thankful that it didn’t happen outside of your home, that no one else was in the house and it happened on the tile. You vow to never hold your pee again.

Um, yeah, this all happened to me this evening right before dinner! hahaa

Our family cannot leave the house without at least two people wanting to know if my 4 year old and 2 year old are twins.  While my children are separated by 2 years and 3 months, because my oldest has Down syndrome, they are about the same size and are at about the same level in many developmental areas.  My youngest child learned how to walk six months after my firstborn learned how to walk and we have been in “twin mode” ever since.  It’s been exhausting and rewarding all at the same time! There is a constant pursuit among mothers of all races, religions, cultures, and backgrounds to find the magical interval between pregnancies.

“Baby Bunching” seems to be a growing trend among mothers.  “Baby Bunching” is a term two mothers have coined to describe siblings who are less than two years apart.  Linda and Cara have a blog devoted to mothers of “twiblings.”   Their blog contains articles that address the experiences of parenting children who are very close in age.  While my children are a few months out of the spacing requirements of “official baby bunchers,”I can most certainly appreciate the challenges, rewards, and unique chaos that baby bunchers experience due to my children being developmentally very close to each other, even though their chronological age is over two years.

Some of the benefits of having children who are close developmentally I have found is you get the pregnancy and newborn stages over and behind you in one swoop.  Not that I didn’t enjoy my pregnancies, but there are some things I don’t want to do forever!  Another advantage to having “twiblings” is our children play with the same toys and have the same interests.  We never had to hide our older child’s choking hazard toys from our curious crawler.  In our house everyone still naps {or at least goes to their room for an hour for quiet time}.  My firstborn was so easy going, that the transition from one to two children was really easy.  Our first child adjusted so well to her new brother, and I believe that in part is because she was younger.  One of my favorite things about having children close in age is their love for each other.  It is becoming more difficult to distinguish who has the dominant role in their relationship and they have a two sided adoration for each other at a very young age.

Some of the challenges I have found in having children so close in age is the toddler stage is tough all the way around!  Both of my children are constantly going  in separate directions.  If nap time/quiet time gets skipped, I have TWO incredibly angry toddlers who I cannot yet bribe with McDonalds.  I have to do everything twice, many times each day…change two diapers, make sure two children make it safely up and down the stairs, clean up two messes of everything, work on potty training with two children at a time, etc… I pray to God imagine that the toddler stage is probably one of the hardest in baby bunching.  There are moments when I daydream about adopting a seven year old girl to help me with my little “twiblings!”  It may be an illusion, but it seems like my friends who have spaced their children a few years apart have an easier time doing simple things like grocery shop and go on trips to the park.  However, it may just be my cynacism that has evolved from having two toddlers.

What are some other opinions on child spacing?

• Dr. Sears said it best when he said, “There is seldom the ideal time for a child. If we always waited for ‘the perfect time’ to have a child, we would probably have two instead of eight.”  He recommends spacing them two or three years apart if you have a baby who is a high needs baby in an effort to avoid parent burn out and to give parents more energy to devote to that more demanding child.  However, if you have an easy infant, spacing them very close in age typically works great, according to Dr. Sears!
• The New England Journal of Medicine believes that spacing children 18-23 months has the healthiest outcomes for both mom and baby.  Low birthweight, prematurity, and small sized babies are higher risks in children spaced less than 18 months and more than 23 months apart.
• Some argue that having children three years apart is the magical child spacing number.  They say that the older child is old enough to understand more about their new sibling’s arrival, yet they are close enough in age to grow up playing together.

While it’s fun to weigh pros and cons of different child spacing philosophies, I think this is such a personal decision for each family and what works for some families doesn’t always work for all families.  Also, there are outside factors parents should consider before choosing to have another child; most importantly, the health of their relationship with one another.

What do you think is the magic child spacing age difference?  What have you liked about the spacing between your children?  What has been challenging about their age differences?

I sometimes want to wear a shirt that says, “I am due St. Patrick’s Day, I don’t know the gender, and I feel fine!” I get asked those three questions to those answers all the time. Many people ask me “Do you know what your are having?” In fact we did not find out the gender of our first baby and we have not found out the gender of our second one either. Everyone has their own reasons for revealing the gender in the Ultrasound Room or the Delivery Room. Here are a few reasons why we chose to wait. (I would love to hear your reasons for finding out before the baby comes in comments!)

• A fear that the sonogram results would be wrong. I didn’t want to have to return a bunch of items or paint the nursery the wrong color.  (This can be a real fear, check the Barefoot Foodie’s recent post for proof!)

• For practicality – I like that my nursery and newborn clothes are gender neutral, so I can re-use everything for the second child.  Also, because people didn’t know what we were having we received gift cards and diapers instead of dresses and outfits.

• Labor and delivery was more exciting, because we didn’t know what we were having. It was also more exciting to share the baby news, because they didn’t know either.

• The fear of disappointment if the sonogram was wrong and that it would somehow affect my baby’s spirit. For my first pregnancy I felt like my instincts were telling me that I was having a boy and out came this baby girl. I think my disappointment lasted about 3 seconds and my daughter hasn’t been affected by my preggy thoughts of a boy.

• Part of the fun was making others wait. It tortured my mother. She was constantly telling me “Surely, you can see on the sonogram. The Tech knew.” Others would accuse of us knowing and not telling anyone. My husband and I can’t keep a secret. If we knew, everyone else would definitely know.

Waiting to find out the gender worked out well for us. After my daughter came into the world, the pink and purple just flowed in from family and friends. We were glad we waited and we are super excited to find out if our daughter has a brother or sister in about 9 weeks.

Did you find out the gender of your baby? Did you have any fears that the sonogram would be wrong? Was it your spouse that couldn’t wait to find out?