It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn't it?

October is my favorite month!  From pumpkin spice foods to halloween costumes.  I love it all. I love it so much I would use October as a name.   Can't wait to share it with a little one. 

First thing

First thing

I have been wanting to collect baby things for a long time now.  Rich however has been the practical one and tells me no because it will still be a while.  We live in a 2 bedroom now, but when we move back to California soon we plan on something smaller for a year to save money for the adoption.  So our storage space is limited, which means he is right, I have no room to collect cute outfits, and shoes, funny bibs, perfect bows ect.  I however saw something at target about 6 months ago and couldn't resist.  This is the first and only baby thing I own for our bundle.
Gender neutral set of onesies with a hot air balloon.   I have decided that our nursery is going to be creamy and dreamy with a hint of hot air balloon and maybe some mint... then I came across this onesie set and had to have it.  Rich let me buy it ;)  Next post will be another nursery idea post.

Baby Name of the Month: Duncan

Baby Name of the Month: Duncan

Back to our regular scheduled program, September's baby name  is




Duncan 

While brands like Duncan Hines, Duncan Toys (the yoyos) and Dunkin' Doughnuts might come to mind for you.. King Duncan is my first association with the name.

First off, Duncan has a lot of history that is grand.  The first sighting of the name is around the 300's as gaelic for meaning brown warrior.  This strong meaning probably encouraged two Scottish kings to use the name.  Both Duncan I and Duncan II King of Scotts reigned in the 11th century.

The Duncan I direct successor was Macbeth.  Sounding familiar yet?  In reality there are no stories of treachery and tragedy to be told, but that wouldn't make a good Shakespeare play now would it?  Shakespeare's Macbeth adaptation was is thought to be first performed in 1611 and based on Holinshed's Chronicles (1587). The Holinshed's Chronicles are a history of England, Scotland and Ireland, although the the play is quite different than actual history, thus it being a Shakespeare tragedy and not a history.

Duncan Hines was the original Yelp.  He was an American traveling salesman and during his travels he made a guide  and rating of restaurants he came across. He published a paper back book called Adventures in Good Eating (1935), and then had a newspaper column 3 times a week.  He then joined a company that made bread and sold the rights to his name, of course that company expanded and now makes the box cake mixes we now know.

Lately in the US this name is quite unpopular, but familiar.  He is ranked 835 out of the top 1000 names and has only ever made it to 377.  This means that in 2012 there were only 259 boys named Duncan, so he is fairly rare.  Which makes me happy.

Of course since we are headed down the road to adopting probably an african american boy, a name that means dark warrior, has a strong Shakespeare connection and a connection to confectioneries (since I am an avid baker) makes perfect sense for a name for a boy.  Rich however just is "meh" on the name.

I gave birth, but not to a baby.

I gave birth, but not to a baby.

I haven't blogged for some time.  This is mostly due to the fact that I was finishing my PhD.  After 5 long years of school I successfully wrote and defended my PhD.  I am now a Dr., my waistline is bigger, my house is messier, my blogs are in shambles, my dogs are neglected, I have no idea what is going on in the world, but I have a doctorate.

Recently there has been a barrage of pregnancy announcements and birth announcements on facebook.  So here is the post I would like to put up, but don't because I'm sure people would think it wasn't very nice and leave me comments about how rude I am blah blah blah.

      " oh you got drunk one night and make a kid with your genitals in under 30 minutes and it is the greatest accomplishment of you life and you would like congratulations and gifts and to tell me what size fruit the kid is every day?  Yah well I spent 5 long years working on a doctorate, not to mention the 17 years of previous schooling I needed to get into graduate school, but hey good job on that baby making thing."

Anyway. I'm done, and relieved.  I can now clean my house, walk my dogs, make dinner, blog, watch the Kardashians and do many of the things I have missed out on in the past few months. Not to mention start packing for a cross country move.

What else is going on?  Well not much, just waiting for the hubby to finish so we can move out of the south and back to a normal state.

Baby making?  Yah its been 1 year and 5 months, no ovulation, no baby making... so pretty much it is either fertility treatments or adoption at this point.  We chose adoption.  I just don't want to do fertility stuff, but that is for another blog post.

So the current plan is to, get jobs, move to california, live in a one bedroom for a year to save money for adoption, start the process around the holidays 2014.

Be looking for more frequent updates now =)

A good read

A good read

I randomly came across this adoption article.  It was a good read and a reminder that I am traveling a road like many others, just a slightly different road, but both are hormonal and emotional and have many little moments worth remembering. 


Favorite quote is
"  Adoption is not our second choice. There is no medical reason why we can’t reproduce biologically. Adoption has always been part of the plan. Sure, we were disappointed, no, devastated, when, after eighteen months, pregnancy just wasn’t happening. But once adoption was mentioned, it quickly moved to the front burner. We would pass on spending a fortune on fertility testing in favor of using those savings for adoption."

There have been a few phone calls lately asking us to go down a fertility road that I am very uncomfortable with.  These phone calls come with comments like "we are still praying for a miracle" just ascertain that they feel that adoption is some how a horrible option and going through life threatening procedures is more desirable.  It is not.  While I am devastated every time someone else gets pregnant and I don't, or every time I walk by the baby isle at Target.. I do believe that  fertility treatments are not for me and that Adoption is the first choice in this situation.

Here is the little article
http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=951

Late Baby Name of the Month

Late Baby Name of the Month

Next late baby name of the month would be from the month of December.

This months baby name is

Winter

Winter is such a lovely sweet little name for a girl.  Most often used seasons are Summer and Autumn, not Fall, Winter or Spring.  Although from what I can tell on baby name websites Winter is certainly up and coming  On "searches" done at baby center she ranked at 735 most search last year to 199 most search this year... so a lot more people are considering her recently.   Currently there are 3 star-babies called winter, Harlow Winter Kate Madden (from Nicole Richie and Joel Madden) Winter Morgan Williams (from Gretchen Mol and Kip Williams) and  very recently Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook just named his daughter Winter Victoria Parker. So Winter is getting some more play in the public eye lately.  Nicole Richie also opened a clothing line named Winter Kate after her daughter of course.

Winter Solstice (usually around Dec 21) to Spring Equinox (March 20ish) is "Winter".  Winter brings cold weather, short days, long nights, Christmas, New Years.  So for most people it conjures up a time of snuggling, sweaters and celebrating.  Awesome things to name your precious baby girl after dont you think?

Winter is what we call a Word name.  The word winter comes from to Old High German word 'wintar' wich meant time of water. It entered old english language sometime before the 12th century and eventually transformed to Winter and represented the "cold and wet season".

Winter is one of those names that really would be mostly nickname proof which I love.  But the nickname that comes to mind is Winnie... which is a name that I have loved since i was a little girl watching the Wonder Years.  So I wouldn't mind a nn so much in this instance.

The only draw back to naming a baby girl Winter is that it ends in -er and sounds terrible with our last name.  But also as I sit here and finish this post I now know that one of my best friends had a baby girl with the middle name Winter , further sealing the deal that I wouldn't use it because of repetition  but I am so glad she picked up on this beautiful unique name for her baby girl =)

Late November Baby Name Of the Month

Late November Baby Name Of the Month

Sooooo this fall/winter has been unbelievably busy So November and December baby names got left out.  I will do them now!
November's baby name of the month is

Gus

I love the name Gus!  I just love the idea of having a rolly polly toddler going by GusGus, and eventually growing into a grandpa Gus.

Gus is more commonly thought of a nickname, some of the many options of a full name would be August, Augustus, Augustin, Augustine, Angus, Fergus, Gustav Mangus, and Octavious.

The only 2 names I like out of this list are Augustus and Octavious.  Rich says Augustus is too "charlie and the chocolate facotry" for him, and to me Octavious with a nn Gus just doesnt sound right to me. And Im not much of a nickname person anyway... I like just Gus.


As for statistics, Gus was given with pretty high frequency from 1880 to 1900, it hovered between 122 and 199 on the US name charts, so it was pretty common back then. For most of the 20th century, Gus slowly crept towards obscurity, and by 1978, dropped out of the Top 1000 entirely.  Which actually makes him more appealing to me, very recognizable but not used at all.

So whats the drawback?  Not much, I just wonder if people will go  "Gus oh is that short for August?".  Which in the scheme of things is not a huge deal.   Overall I love Gus!