Naming a Baby...

21 weeks gone..no further on!

2008-02-13T17:26:00.000-08:00

Lentil hit the 21 week mark yesterday and we're no further on to agreeng a name for him/her once delivered into the real world.

That's not true actually. We were away for a few days there over the weekend and the wife sat and went through a 'Naming baby' book from front to back. Thankfully it wasn't one of these huge hardback efforts that you get that contain about 50,000 names and was just a piddly paperback with 5000.

To say we're no further on is probably a bit misleading. We now have a ripped piece of paper out of a notepad with about half a dozen boys names and the same amount if it's a girl. These do not in any way constitute a shortlist yet though as the other half has still to look on the net and the names we have written down are simply ones that we both curled the face up in a 'Mmmm' kinda way to.

One of the names that never made the 'short-longlist' was Alfie for a boy. I quite like it, it's got a cute kinda ring to it but I do think it's a bit of an old name and I have visions of the poor lad getting cockney 'My name is Michael Caine' voices made at him when he gets on a bit. Saying that, I suppose by the time he grows up Sir Michael Caine will be long forgotten and there's not exactly any Jude Law style patter flys about now is there? Disgrace that film was remade...anyway, off on a tangent there. Anyway, after all our Alfie deliberations I go into work today to find out one of my coleagues missus' has given birth this morning...little lad's name...ALFIE!

What's your thoughts folks? Any Alfie's out there reading my ramblings?

Twenty weeks today...

2008-02-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

So we've hit the 20 week mark today and we are no further on with narrowing down the never-ending list of names for Lentil. It was discussed the other night, in a kind of... 'We better start thinking about names for the baby' and then it was dismissed again as we settled down to another episode of CSI.

Now, talking of CSI, there is a man on there who every boy should be named after. OK, he's not the prettiest cop on the telly but Horatio Kane is a legend! I suggested this to the missus as we watched 'H' cooly and calmy catch the bad guys yet again, but the look I received was one that 'H' himself would have been proud of. Horatio's off my list then and has very little chance of making it onto the final shortlist.

We saw 'Lentil' again today...

2008-01-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Having decided to go ahead with screening of our baby we were just discussing last night when we would get the results. It turned out that today was the day and with the wife away to work a letter dropped that I assumed was from the hospital as it was marked 'Private & Confidential'. I thought I would leave it for her to open on her return, but as the day wore on curiosity got the better of me and I went for it.

Thankfully I did, as it said that high AFP levels had been found and she was booked in for a scan at 3.30pm today! My heart sank on reading this and I made the phone call to her at work to tell her this news knowing that she would be immediately panic-stricken. Not knowing what this meant I Googled it and was actually comforted by what I found as a common cause of this can be bleeding during pregnancy, which has caused us no end of heartacahe since we found out we were going to be parents. To be fair we were both quite calm about it all, but I'm sure the wife's insides were churning the same way mine were.

Anyway, to cut a long story short we saw our 'Lentil' again today.

We saw his/her brain, spine, wee hands and feet, kidneys, stomach and heart pumping away...you name it we saw it and thankfully the specialist was happy that nothing untoward is going on with our little one. It was quite amazing seeing the pictures from a scanner that shows much more detail than we'd seen previously. Every vertebrae was there, bones in legs and arms and even little toes. We never got to see his/her face as the little toerag had his/her hands over it all the time and no amount of prodding would stop this game of keek-a-boo.

It's been a strange day... we're both tired, drained and relieved and I'm going to have a late night glass of wine now while the other two sleep.

Awaiting a kick...

2008-01-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Lentil's reached near-on the 19 week stage now and according to the Haynes manual on babies he/she should be getting ready to give Mummy a good boot. There's been no sign of it yet and this is only making Mummy a bit anxious as she follows the baby bible to the letter of the law.

I know the answer to this, he/she is gonna be just like Daddy...laid back and likes to relax whenever possible. We got a taster of this laid-back attitude when we had our 12 week scan as the little one was lying back playing with it's feet. Something Daddy tries not to do as his are toxic...

What no comments?

2008-01-25T00:49:00.000-08:00

Being new to this blogging business I don't even know if this is being seen out there in the big bad world of cyberspace. Please feel free to leave me some comments if you come across my ramblings just to let me know I'm being seen.

Gurgle...Gurgle

2008-01-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

While having a good scout about on the net we came across a quirky little site a bit different from the norm for people like ourselves lost in the minefield of baby names. Gurgle is a great website containing all things baby and having had a good peruse around it here's a few of the things we enjoyed the most...

The photo gallery is full of great pics of babies and bumps. I'll be adding our little bump to it in the coming days, but don't tell the missus, she's going through the 'I'm massive' phase at the minute and no matter how many times I say, 'Yes darling, it's because you're preganant' it doesn't seem to do the trick. Am I doing something wrong? Anyway, I may get her picture entered in the 'Baby and the Bump' competition that Gurgle are running..give it a go if you're in the club too!

The American baby name section gave me a laugh anyway. There's no doubt the folk of the good ol' U.S of A. don't mess about when it comes to naming a child anything they want, but if we were to try that in Glasgow our child would be in for a nightmare of a life. Here's a few example I enjoyed... it's how you say it I suppose.

Blayze... Jaimee... Shawnette... Karasel... Jaliyiah... Jazalyn... Kadalynn

If any of these are your names then I do apologise but if you knew Glasgow you'd know why the Social Services would be on our case for inflicting these monikers on a child.

Top Ten Baby Names

2008-01-23T06:45:00.000-08:00

One of the first places we chose to look when we knew we were going to be parents was the National Statistics on Baby Names that were chosen this year. It makes very interesting reading, though only covers England and Wales so gives us no idea as to what the top names in Scotland have been. I think we can work that one out for ourselves right enough with the amount of young mothers up here screeching out 'Brrriiittttnnneeyyyyy, stop that' and 'Robbiiieeeee, come 'ere'.

Here's the top ten names for Boys and Girls last year in England and Wales...

Boys
1. Jack
2. Thomas
3. Oliver
4. Joshua
5. Harry
6. Charlie
7. Daniel
8. William
9. James
10. Alfie

Girls
1. Grace
2. Ruby
3. Olivia
4. Emily
5. Jessica
6. Sophie
7. Chloe
8. Lily
9. Ella
10. Amelia

TV tribulations

2008-01-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

Television will not be the same in this household for a while yet anyway.

Gone are the days of watching our favourite programmes then performing the ritual of flicking through the multitudes of channels to see what's next in our viewing diary. A big part of our TV time these days is taken up by watching, yep, you guessed it, THE CREDITS!

There's millions of names in there that not only do you not get in the Baby naming books, but names that you'd never think of even if you been drinking liquid LSD. The American programmes are obviously the best for this. Some of the things people are willing to call their child is jail-worthy.

Anyway, one thing's for sure...we may use this to get ideas but I very much doubt we'll be introducing a Taco, Belvedere or Tallulah-Belle to the clan.

Meet 'Lentil'...

2008-01-20T16:34:00.000-08:00

OK. Before you all start thinking of getting the Social Services on us we haven't made a rash, manic decision and decided that our child will be called LENTIL! I shall try to explain myself here...

The pregnancy hasn't been trouble-free so far. Due to some harrowing weekends and much stress and tension we were in and out of the hospital from around about week three. Though this brought unwanted worries it did give us a greater insight into what's going on in there and because of this we were seeing scans from early doors.

On our first unwanted visit our baby was barely visible other than being a minute speck, that to the trained eye of the ultrasound specialist was a heartbeat. To us it was amazing to see but it was even more amazing to hear that what we had thought had been a miscarraige wasn't and our baby was doing well.

By now you'll be thinking 'What's he on about lentils for then?'

Well, here we go...during this first frightening scan we were looking at this little miracle that was our baby. When I say little I'm talking 3.1mm here, which, according to the bible of birthing that we are following told us that the baby would be the size of, yep, you got it....A LENTIL!

We've been calling Him/Her 'Lentil' ever since and we both love it, the name and the baby that is but we're level-headed enough to know that it's not a name we can put on the birth register, especially when living in the 'no mean city' that is Glasgow

Say 'Hello' to Lentil...

..and we think we've got it bad!

2008-01-18T00:25:00.001-08:00

As we struggle to come up with names for our little treasure we take a quiet moment to reflect on this heartwarming story and think 'Thank God it wasn't us who had to name quads' and wish this family well.

The name game?

2008-01-17T16:11:00.000-08:00

This is the tale of two soon-to-be parents and the conundrum we face in finding a name for our first child. With it being an anything goes type affair these days and throwing in the fact we are like chalk and cheese this is going to be a tough one...believe me!

Our baby is due on the 24th June, so we've got 158 days or so to get this right. 158 days to plough through the millions of possibilites and it's started in earnest already. We've got the books, used the websites, even resorted to random name generators and we're no nearer narowing down either sex into the MILLIONS yet! The random device came up with VIVIAN for a boy and MARIA TERESE for a girl so it didn't take long to rule that useless gimmick out!

Join us in our quest as we seek the perfect praenomen for our little cherub...