What's In a Name?

I just have to share the story behind this because I really think Mark and I did a seriously awesome job on naming our daughter. :)

As any parent knows, naming your child can be one of the most stress-inducing decisions you'll make. I mean, this is a permanent decision here! The name you give your baby will stay with him/her until he/she turns 80 - what if you screw it up? I certainly spent lots of time during my pregnancy fretting about this. Before we got the ultrasound we started to think of boy names because we figured it would be harder to come up with a creative, different boy name that wouldn't result in the poor child being tormented on the playground. We figured it would be super easy to come up with a girl name because you can be a whole lot more creative with a girl's name and get away with it. So when we found out we were having a girl we figured this naming business would be a piece of cake.

Umm... turns out not so much.

You can certainly be more creative with a girl's name - but then that creates a lot more choices. And apparently Mark and I don't really agree on pretty girl names. And we had a lot of criteria: it has to be a name that will last - so no "Shaneequ'a" or something weird like that. No names that double as boy names. Personal pet peeve of mine - a name should be for a boy or it should be for a girl. No middle ground. No names in the top 100 most popular girl's names list. And no names that are also a noun or adjective - no "Hope" or "Pearl" or "Lake." My first choice was Sophie. Mark shot it down - Sophie is a name for a 90-year-old. He liked Stephanie and Rachel. I shot both of those down. Stephanie is too commonplace and I have a bad associated with the name Rachel. A girl by that name in Tennessee would like to tell me that because I was Jewish and didn't believe in Jesus I was going to go to hell. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now but still, the name leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Mark really liked Anastasia - pretty but I just worried people would think of the cartoon. For awhile we told family we were going to go with the name Alexia because it was the only name we could really agree on. I was getting frustrated because Mark would like a name one day and the next day he decided he didn't like it. We were fine with Alexia for several weeks, and then one day Mark suddenly said he didn't like it anymore because it didn't "flow" very well. AARRGH!! I brought up a name that I liked and Mark had been lukewarm about, hoping that he had either forgotten the name or that he would go for it out of desperation since by this point we were about a month away from the due date.

"What about Mira?"

Silence.

"I like it."

Whew!

Mira (mee-rah) is a Russian name that means peace. We were looking at a lot of Russian names, partly because I have Russian ancestry on my mom's side and Mark also has Russian ancestry from his adoptive family, but also because these are obviously feminine names that are also very classic. And not very common either.

Then the middle name. I contacted my Japanese grandmother for suggestions for a Japanese name. One of the suggestions was Yukiko. Even before we knew what it meant we loved the sound of it. When we were told the meaning it was just even more perfect. When we found out the due date was in February I started joking that I would go into labor in the middle of the night during a blizzard. Yukiko means snow. And wouldn't you know it, it did snow as soon as we got to the hospital and the whole day that she was born. Too cool for words. The name was pretty much chosen for us, and we were able to give tribute to Mira's ancestry. You can't be where you are now if it wasn't for the people that came before you.

Mira Yukiko, 9 days old

Here We Go!

Well, I guess I've jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Hopefully this will be somewhat interesting for others to read. I suppose this will make my life easier when it comes to updating family about what I've been up to - especially with a baby who thinks she needs to be held on my lap when I'm on the computer. FYI it takes a lot longer to type when you have to do it one-handed... I tend to be really wordy so bear with me!

I guess we'll start off with a little history about myself. I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My mom comes from a long line of Eastern-European Jewish descent. My dad is a concoction of Dutch, German, and Japanese. I have been called a "melting pot," and for pretty good reason I think! We moved to California when I was about 2 years old, then a couple years later we moved to Tennessee. People are always surprised when I say I grew up on a 10 acre farm in the Appalachian Mountains. I think that's mostly because I don't have an accent (but I can fake one really well!). We lived on that farm until I was about 15 and then we moved to Salt Lake City. All the moving was due to my dad's job. I was homeschooled from 6th grade onwards, although I pretty much taught myself. In high school I took AP classes to get some college credit. I have worked as a CNA, an LPN and now an RN and I've done a few different areas of health care - long term care, adult ICU, adult med-surg (that sucked, by the way), and now pediatric ICU. I used to think I would go back to school pretty quick to become an NP but now I'm not sure I want to do that. I absolutely love my job and I really see no reason to change my job description when I love what I do already.

Mark @ Snowbird Mountain Resort

Me @ Snowbird Mountain Resort

Personal life: I met Mark right before I started college and we've been together ever since. Now, some of you will notice I'm not mentioning a marriage date - well, technically we're not "married." We don't have that piece of paper from the government acknowledging that we have a relationship, anyway. Frankly, we don't see the need for one. However, if you ask me a question about my husband I won't correct you. We say we're married because there really isn't a good word in the English language to convey our level of commitment besides that one. Saying "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" sounds too casual for a couple that's been together for 9 years and "partner" doesn't sound right either. So there you go. Anyway, we talked for years about having a baby - actually our discussions mostly involved Mark trying to convince me to have a kid. I was always the person who was always emphatic about NOT wanting kids. I put Mark off as long as I could but finally ran out of excuses last year. Now that our little girl is here, it seems hard to believe I was ever opposed to this! I guess all those cheesy cliches are true after all.

Our little family