What’s in a Name?

name (neym) – noun
a word or a combination of words by which a person, place, or thing, a body or class, or any object of thought is designated, called, or known.

When my husband and I decided on the name Liam* we never really looked into what it meant. In fact, we settled with the name Liam for a variety of other reasons. Firstly, you can’t really abbreviate it to anything. So many names that we picked out would shorten to something terrible, and its in our culture for people to shorten your name.

Then there was the wierd factor. Whilst….unique names like Bronx Mowlgi Wentz or Adolf Hitler Campbell might seem like a great idea at the time, do the parents of these children actually think about how such absurd, or downright offensive names will affect their children? I would hate to think that the name that I chose for little Liam would result in him being the butt of everyones jokes. What if our choice of names for our son even resulted in him being handicapped in the workforce in later life? If his name is a joke, perhaps a potential employer will think his resume is a joke too. Or, in the case of little Adolf and his unfortunately named siblings, what if our choice of names gets him removed from our care entirely?

Obviously these are extreme cases, but you can never really predict how people will react to a name. We like to think that the name Liam is, well, boring enough to escape such critisisms, but unique enough that there aren’t 1,000 other Liams enrolled at the same school as him. What it really comes down to is this: we chose the name Liam because it somehow feels right. I can’t explain it, but it just seems to fit!

Now we have the joys of coming up with a middle name and thats opened up a whole other can of worms. We have pressure from both sides of the family to continue their traditions. Name him after your grandfather, give him the same middle name as his father, give him the name of such-and-such who you have never even met. We tried to take their well meaning advice, but we just cannot agree on a middle name. A name of a positive person in my husbands life will have a negative meaning in my families life, or the name simply just doesn’t fit. I think its safe to say that picking a middle name for our little man is harder than picking his first name!

So, its back to the drawing board. We’ve decided that for Liam’s middle name we’ll pick something thats both meaningful to us and to him. He’s a little fighter and so we’re searching for the perfect name that reflects just that. There are thousands of names out there, and the one that is perfect for our little man is out there somewhere. We just need to find it!

*Liam is Irish for determined guardian.

Would You Accept a Cot from the Devil?

My husband has what I like to think is a very…unique family situation. To cut a long story short without divulging into too much of his personal life, his mother is a fruit loop. She has chosen not to attend any important event in his life; the latest one being his wedding. She has tried on countless occasions to poison him against me in a vain effort to get him to move back home. For the record, he is the youngest child by almost a decade and is the only one to have moved out, get married and is about to be the first to provide her with a grandchild.

I was only 8 weeks pregnant when my husband broke the news to her that she was going to be a grandma and within a week she had purchased us a baby bath, a NUK baby bottle pack, teddy bears and an assortment of relatively useless trinkets. I wasn’t even out of the danger zone yet and my linen cupboard was overflowing!

This kind of crazy buying finally subsided when we came back from our honeymoon and my husband asked her to stop. While she was quite happy to throw money at our unborn child, she had made no effort whatsoever to be a part of the pregnancy, or even to stop her campaign to get him to break up with me!

She was good for a few months, but it didn’t last. At my husbands last visit he was given a few more bags of baby goodies. Bags of baby goodies which conveniently had the receipts left in them. Then, we got the phone call which has started so much drama for my husband and I. Dear mother-in-law wanted to buy us a cot.

I’ll be honest, the allure of a free cot is pretty darned tempting! I mean, that’s a huge cost that we won’t have to bear. But, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this kind of generosity came at a far greater price. This was a “gift” from a woman who uses money to try and buy her sons love and I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable with her trying the same tricks on Liam. Was she planning on being some anonymous benifactor, or was she actually going to get off her arse and be a part of our family? This woman claims to never leave the house, so would we be obligated to continually take Liam around to her so she can glare at me the whole time and tell my husband that he should move home so she can do his washing?

In the end I put my foot down and told my husband that I couldn’t accept such a generous gift from someone who I can’t trust. I’d much prefer it if she made some kind of physical effort to get to know Liam rather than just quoting her credit card number to some retailer. My husband told her this, and now we get to play host to her for a BBQ. It will be her first time visiting our home since we moved in two years ago.

History says that she won’t rock up. At the last minute some tragic event will befall her and she’ll have to give it a miss. Then what do we do?