Friday, March 22, 2013

Choosing a Name

                                         3/22/13 --  CHOOSING A NAME

     Well, here we go....  I can almost hear the Mortal Kombat narrator sound byte, "ROUND THREE...  FIGHT!"  And this will, with all of the most sincere efforts, be the final  and (as I've been informed) most difficult round.  For the first time in our family, we'll be bringing a girl into the world.  My mother has six grandsons and no granddaughters...  ...so she was literally dancing when the ultrasound revealed (or didn't reveal depending on how you look at it ;P) our unborn child's gender.
 
      This bottle-shattering rhetoric will be the maiden voyage of the S.S. Blog, so I want to be clear on what I am trying to do here.  I chose the name "Parenting with Lightsabres" because I wanted to marry the two things I love the most:  my children and science/fantasy fiction.  I wanted to share with my family, friends, and whoever else reads this jargon the absolute silliness that is my family.  So what do I know about parenting?  What gives me the right to give parenting advice when I'm obviously a clueless moron??  Well, the answer to that:  nothing.  I haven't a clue.  And I'm certainly not trying to give advice.  The mantra of my blog is simply to share the silliness and fun that our family endures and post once a week (hopefully Wednesdays or Thursdays).  I intend to use this blog as a personal journal as much as a shared diary of our adventures.  And I hope that the advice part of this venture will come from my readers in the comments section :)

     What is my family?  I have a 17 year-old boy from a previous marriage that lives 30 miles away and is already planning for college.  I see DJ usually about twice a month (after I twist his arm hard enough) as he's more interested in the worlds of anime and computer gaming than he is pretty much anything else (typical teenager).  I have a two (going on three) year-old boy that is absolutely unaware of his future sibling.  Roman is currently in the potty-training stage (that will be the subject of my next post) and is more interested in the worlds of Mickey Mouse and bed-jumping than he is pretty much anything else (typical toddler).  There's the unborn girl that is the focus of all of our planning right now -- baby shower, room preparation, newborn anxiety, nesting, etc.  And then add in the mix the multi-cultural aspect of the Polish immigrant that is my wife.  Joanna is the tough-as-nails/fun-as-hell Pollack that makes everything work.  (the whole subject of exactly how difficult a multi-cultural family is and what comprises one will also be the subject of a future post).  We are about as middle-class as they come -- with average income, a small house/yard, in a very middle-class neighborhood.  We make our payments and put aside just enough for our beloved annual trip to Poland and an added mystery destination that is usually decided by the best price available at the local Krakow-ian travel agency.

     So.... deciding on a name isn't quite as easy for us as the average person.  Why?  Because we really hoped to find a name that could comfortably be used in either an American or Polish setting.  And finding a name that we like that can fit into either category and hasn't already been taken by another family member isn't all that easy.  In Poland, there is a precise list of names for boys or girls that a person chooses from.  This keeps people from naming their child Marijuana Pepsi (I actually read about an American mother that named her daughter that), and it also gives them an assigned day of the year called their Name Day that they celebrate like we do our birthdays (and, of course they celebrate their birthdays, too).  Also, we wanted a name that didn't have a Polish-accented letter in it or would be commonly mispronounced.  For example, the Polish boy's name Marcin (pronounced MAR-CHIN) would probably commonly be mispronounced MAR-SIN.  For our boy we chose the name Roman Alan.  Roman is Joanna's father's name.  We really liked it, thought it could be American-ish, and was still original (not to mention it honored her father who we really do admire).  And Alan we just liked.  But, for a girl, the names in Poland were really difficult to choose from because some of them were really not so American-sounding.  They always end with an "a".  We considered the name Matylda (but I doused that one.. I just didn't like it).  We considered her mother's name:  Krystyna (pronounced Christina); but, we thought, as a first name, she would have to spell that out every time she applied for a credit card.  We considered incorporating my mother into that name, but her name is Edna Mae.. and, damn, mom, I'm sorry...   ...until one day it clicked..

     *drum roll please*

     We chose the name Amelia Krystyna.  We had been considering the name Amelia for a while, and I was just about to shoot it down when something fateful happened.  One of my regular customers (a very sweet, little lady named Amy) asked me what we were going to name our daughter.  I told her we were considering Matylda, but I didn't like it.  And that we were also considering Amelia.  She clapped her hands to her cheeks and looked so-suddenly merry.  "That's my name!"  she proclaimed.  "Everyone calls me Amy, but my name's Amelia."
     And suddenly, I saw the name in a whole new light.  I couldn't shake it.  Amelia.  Amelia.  Amelia.  Like the maid from the children's book, like the legendary airplane pilot.  Amelia.  I realized then that that was my daughter's name.  Not Amy or Lia or Amel (gosh, i hope not), but Amelia.   ...and we could throw Joanna's mother's name in the middle to honor her (because we admire her very much -- but that's a story for another day).  And as a middle name, Amelia wouldn't have to spell Krystyna every time she ordered something at Panera Bread.
    Amelia Krystyna Edwards (Madej), you poor, poor little girl..  you have no idea what you are about to be born into...

    Stayed tuned next week for an exciting episode of poo-poo in the potty and other fun-to-sing songs...

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