Our Weekend...and a Note on Names

Last Monday, Jon and I started discussing what we wanted to for the weekend. The first idea that came up was camping, which I was really excited about. There’s a mountain range about three hours northeast of us called the White Mountains, and they’re supposed to be amazingly beautiful. Lakes, meadows, cliffs, you name it. So I got advice from some people at work, did a little research online, and called up the Rainbow Campground to make a reservation, only to be told that ALL the campsites are closed. Why could this be? Renovations? Fire danger? No. They still have a foot of snow up there. In my defense, it’s been pushing ninety in Tucson. I forgot about the rest of the world, I guess.

We came up with our next idea on Tuesday. A trip up to Phoenix. I’ve got an aunt and uncle up there, and they’re always super welcoming whenever we want to get away from Tucson for a weekend. So we started planning where we’d go…Cabelas, IKEA, and a Western-style cookout at a ranch, complete with cowboy poetry. And then…I remembered that my aunt is in Europe. And what’s a trip to Phoenix with no aunt?

Idea three was the shortest-lived of all the suggestions. Disneyland. It’s only about a 7 hour drive, and I work half-days now on Fridays, so we’d have almost two days at the park…but the more we thought about it, the more it kind of crashed and burned.

So, what DID we do this weekend? Hmm. Funny you might ask. Well, we did lots of laundry. And I cleaned the toilets, and scrubbed the bathtub. Jon did the dishes and I wiped down the countertops in the kitchen. We organized the front room, adjusted the rug, and vacuumed. And fixed the slip cover – an event that usually only takes place when we’re expecting company. I HATE that stupid slip cover. Each time I tuck it in, I swear up and down that we’re getting new furniture in our front room. But then, I change my mind, because if we’re going to be moving across town or across the country any time soon, I don’t want to have to worry about new furniture getting wrecked in the process. I worry about stuff like that. So we keep putting it off. And it’s starting to drive me crazy.

And ANOTHER thing we did this weekend was celebrate the birth of a brand new little niece, Norah Grace. Jon’s sister, Kelsey, went into labor Friday morning, and had the baby at about 5 in the morning Saturday. We haven’t seen pictures yet, but Kelsey seems to think she's pretty cute. Mom and baby are doing alright, even though it was kind of a long labor. Norah’s being monitored in the NICU for a couple of days, but it’s just mostly precautionary stuff. Anyway, I was so excited when they told us the name. It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry. They were being very secretive about their name choices, which I think is really smart.

I’m mildly obsessed with names. I think about them a lot more than most people, I’m pretty sure. But seriously, naming a child is a huge deal! They will go by that name for the REST OF THEIR LIVES. Idaho and Utah are notorious for bad naming. In fact, my mom made my day a couple of weeks ago when she sent me the annual listings of every single child born in the Madison Memorial Hospital during the previous year. I'm not out to offend anyone..but please, give your child a name that is actually a name. Don’t make anything up. It’s their NAME. People will judge them by it for the rest of their lives. I can’t even list all the made-up atrocities I encountered while reading the announcements, but I DO want to throw in a few highlights.

A popular trend is the mix-n-match. Choose any beginning from column A, and an ending from column B.

Seriously, it works. Watch. Tambree. Kymee. Taydyn. Mayleigh. Kamsee. Kyler. TOLD you. Idaho Naming 101. See how easy it is?? The more I think about it, I don’t know why anyone ever complains about this being a hard decision.

Another trend, at least in Idaho, is naming your baby boy the most masculine word you can think of. Here are some examples, straight from Rexburg.

Ridge
Tracker
Drake
Gage (MORE THAN ONE)
Axton
Triton Duke
Bracken
Rowdy

Or, the ever popular H's-Are-Silent-And-My-Child's-Name-Is-More-Unique-With-One, as evidenced by little Tyhler and Mhya. Poor Cheznee and Jerzee got landed with the Let's-Take-a-Word-That's-Not-a-Name-and-Change-the-S's-to-Z's treatment. Or what about taking a perfectly legitimate name, but making it almost completely unrecognizable? I'm not talking about changing a letter or two, here... I'm talking about making the entire name an ABOMINATION. Kwin, Saije, and Logyn will suffer for the rest of their lives.

And it looks like, in Idaho at least, if all else fails, just name your kid Braxton. Male or female. And hey, if you don’t like Braxton, just spell it with a Y instead. Braxtyn. There were FOUR Braxtons, and TWO Braxtyns in this paper! As my good aunt Mariann once put it, "What if she marries a ‘Hicks’???"

Holy name tangent. I’m done, I promise. Now you all know how I feel about it, so you’ll know that when you tell me that you named your kid "Amberleigh," even though I’ll say "aww, that’s neat," I’m really thinking "Amberleigh? AMBERleigh?? She’s got to put that on her RESUME, you know!"

Just as long as we have that clear between us. We can still be friends, right?

PS- Thankfully, my dad named his dog Gunner, no thanks to all of you that ignored my petition for help ;-)