What's In a Name?

After our birthing class Monday, Rob and I were chatting with another couple about names for the baby. When we told them we were seriously considering Gustav, the man laughed. This is a reaction I am getting used to, but his explanation for the mirth was better than most...

"With a name like that you are giving the child no choice but to be a world leader, musical prodigy, great military mind, innovative scientist. I just can't imagine a guy named Gustav being a normal guy."

While I have to admit it isn't really a ho-hum kind of name and I believe names can influence the kind of person you become, I am more inclined to think that if we actually called him Gustav from birth, he may just become the anti-thesis of our dreams for him, a successful Brain if you will or a baby Stewie with plans to take over the world fresh out of the womb.

I'm Blaming it on Pregnancy

Last week my cousin and I put down wood floors in the kitchen. To do this, we had to get all of the appliances out of the kitchen. The dishwasher hasn't been draining right and had three inches of water that smelled like sewage in the bottom of it. We used a shop-vac to drain the dishwasher, but while attempting to disconnect the dishwasher, we managed to flood the kitchen. So we manage to get the dishwasher out of the way and the water shut off and my cousin's one year old decided to have a meltdown at that particular moment. She goes to tend to the baby and is standing there watching me clean up the mess while she calms the baby down.

Rewind to three months ago
I am standing in my kitchen deciding what to get rid of in my annual kitchen purge. I am holding a mop in my hand that I have not used in five years thinking "I haven't used this in five years, I have a swiffer, I will never use this again," and tossed it into the goodwill pile.

Now back to the flood
I am mopping up the mess with a pile of sham-wows and wringing them into a bucket and cursing myself for getting rid of the mop. My cousin is laughing at me, she cannot believe I don't have a mop, I am grumbling that I hadn't thought about the efficiency of swiffers in flood intervention. By the time everything is cleaned up, I am in a spectacularly foul mood.

Later that night
We are getting ready for bed and I realize that...I have a shop-vac! I tell my cousin and husband about it and they are laughing at me, then my cousin points out that not only do I have a shop-vac, but I had been wringing the shammies out into the bucket part of the shop-vac. Because I don't have a mop anymore, I don't have a mop bucket either. I remind her that she stood there and watched me and it didn't click with her either. Then I remember that I had actually had to dismantle the shop-vac to get the bucket. While I am lamenting having made the situation so much more difficult for myself my husband's only comment was "the baby is doomed."

Sarah Vs. Well, Umm, Old People

Old Lady: Where on your menu are the bacon and eggs?
Me: Umm, we don't have any
Old Lady: Why not? That is what I am in the mood for.
Me: Well, ma'am, this is a steakhouse that is never open for breakfast.
Old Lady: Well, now I have no idea what I want, I really wanted bacon and eggs.
Me: Well we have bacon and we have eggs, I see no reason why we couldn't make you a bacon and egg plate. Do you want toast too?
Old Lady: Yes please, do you have wheat toast?
Me: Well no, we have white bread, and we don't have a toaster, but we could grill it a little for you.
Old Lady: That will be fine, with some jam.
Me: All we have is mint jelly and raspberry puree for the cheesecake.
Old Lady: I guess that will have to do then.

In the kitchen

Me: I have an order for bacon eggs, toast and the raspberry syrup we put on cheesecake.
Cook: What?
Me: Its an old lady, she wants what she wants.
Cook: Why doesn't she go to Denny's across the street? Or Cracker Barrel?
Me: Well, her husband is getting a filet and a martini, I don't think he could get that at Denny's or Cracker Barrel.

At least they thought I was charming and accommodating and complemented me. Sometimes this "no rules" policy thing gets really funny.

Baby Names

The great baby name debate, Month 7 update:

Tired of surfing the net looking for ideas, Rob and I checked out a baby name book from our birthing class and went through the boy section writing down every name that seemed somewhat plausible. Now instead of five or six choices to argue about we have forty-odd choices to argue about. One step forward, twenty steps back...

This is muddled even further by the fact that we want this baby to have an oldest child sounding name and while I am not sure exactly what that means or that it necessarily applies to girls, it seems that the oldest boy should have a solid responsible sounding name, e.g. Theodore or Vincent instead of Linus or Felix.

Who Knew?

If Walt is leaving point A to go to point B, averaging 50 mph to cover 8.7 miles and Rob gets a wake up call that Walt has left for destination B, how long can Rob stay in bed assuming he can make it from bed to car in 3 min and will average 40 mph to cover the 2.2 miles between point C and destination B?

And you thought those problems would never come up in real life...

It Can Be Taught

As a woman who has learned to live with her man in relative peace and harmony, I am a firm believer in using positive reinforcement to reinforce desirable behavior in my mate. We jokingly call this "training" him and I thought I had been rather subtle about it over the years. It keeps me from having to nag and I don't kill him for not being a woman able to understand hints. These behaviors that we have worked on tasks having to do with dirty laundry making it to the hamper, learning to actually use a dishwasher, taking out the trash and other simple tasks.

It occurred to me while talking to a friend today about doing laundry that I have been trained as well and never even realized it. My friend asked why Rob couldn't help with the laundry and after I expressed horror over the thought it dawned on me. There is no reason why a man as intelligent as Rob should be unable to master folding clothes or grocery shopping from a specific list. The only conclusion that I have been able to reach is that he has mastered ineptness in these tasks so that I will only ask him to do them as a last resort.

Of course there are chores that both of us hate and the other doesn't mind so a natural division of chores has evolved, but with laundry and grocery shopping, chores we both dislike, I feel I have been outmaneuvered.

Belated Musings

It occurs to me that the Christmas garland that is laying on my office floor really should join the rest of the Christmas decorations in the garage before everyone gets here this weekend. On the other hand, it is November. If I put it off another three weeks it will time to hang it back up. So what do you think? Christmas decoration that hung until mid September and has been coiled neatly on my office floor since then. Hang it back up, leave it where it is, or put it away?

Frankenberry

My friend Sarah and I go grocery shopping on Sundays together.

Sarah: Oo! look, Frankenberry cereal for a dollar a box!
Me: I haven't had that since I was a kid, grab me a box too.
Me: (Inspecting the box) I can't remember what it tastes like
Sarah: It tastes like sugar now put it in the cart

For the record, it tastes like the berry part of Crunch Berry cereal mixed with the marshmallows from Lucky Charms. Weird.

Milton, Homer, Ovid and Poe for Babies

One of the girls from work asked if I had been reading to the baby. Apparently they have discovered that reading to the child in the womb and playing music for them has no effect whatsoever on their intelligence, so I haven't really been doing it. I told her as much and she expressed surprise that me being such an avid reader hadn't been reading to the baby. Selfishly, I see my reading time mostly disappearing after the bundle of joy arrives and have been reading obsessively for the last few months (at the rate of 8 or 9 books a week). I would share my books with him, but reading aloud slows me down. The one exception has been with epic poems. I tend to skip too much if I read those silently and tend to read them aloud. So to date, the only things that have been read to my child are "Paradise Lost," "The Illiad," "Metamorphoses," and some of Poe's poetry. At least if the studies are wrong and children are affected by what is read to them in the womb, my baby was exposed to some of the more pretentious classics. This should ensure that he is a book snob, correct?