bogumil superbus

until very recently, one of us (guess which one?) had become a bit stressed at our complete lack of having discussed baby names given that we were halfway through the third trimester. i was concerned that we might not find names we agreed upon until the very end, and after my experience last time of clutching a list of boys names while i was about a half hour away from actually pushing the baby out, i really wanted to avoid a last-minute decision. a person needs time to mull it over, to be sure. naming another person should in no way resemble impulse shopping. (damn, where did i put that receipt, anyway?)

well, it turns out my worry was for naught. we messed around for a week or so crossing names off a big list (a mix of the plausible and the slightly ridiculous), and made some progress. then, we decided to each make a list of our top names (i had about a dozen for each gender; larry had around five), and then compare the lists. we had a high degree of overlap (i was going to say a "surprising" degree, but it's not so unexpected, since we generally have the same tastes in names... and most things, really). armed with a list of our mutual top five or so names, i figured we'd mull it over for a while, and then start narrowing. but we both looked at the list and said: "i like this one" "hey, me too." and weirdly, that happened for both the boy and girl names. and there you have it, a full month before the due date, too.

i kept waiting for "The Name" to jump out at me, and i guess it did. there's still time should we decide to change our minds, but i think we're pretty settled. now we just need to find middle names, but that feels more fun and less stressful (says one of the parents who had to return to the hospital when eva was three days old to legally bestow upon her a middle name).

in the course of reading through names, we came across some that caught our eye. larry always makes lots of jokes about baby names (making the actual decision making process both more humorous and more frustrating). last time, our unborn child was often referred to as "strikeforce", a foreshadow of her future ninja training in her quest to take over the world, or so i am told. before that, she was lampwick. well, it goes without saying this baby would eventually get such a name (and panowah doesn't count; that came from eva). we'd both become impressed by the name bogumil -- i mean, how great is that? and then later, larry came across superbus (apparently the last king of rome, as in "superb"), and announces "super bus!"

now, you should know that when i'm pregnant, i tend to find things very funny. things that otherwise would illicit a chuckle or even just a grin cause a massive belly laugh. and i think that's just the reason -- the massive belly. i think saint nick and his bowl-full-of-jelly style of laughter was no exaggeration. i laugh and find the laughing itself so funny it spirals a bit out of control, until i fear i'm going to pull a belly ligament. "stop it! stop saying superbus, i'm going to hurt myself..." and then it's sealed; i'll find that same thing immensely funny from that point forward.

so, wee baby, in case you thought panowah wasn't enough of a fake name... you now have bogumil superbus. i really think (despite tradition) that it could work for a boy or a girl. so if anyone asks, that's what we're naming the baby.

just admit it, you secretly love it, too. it's perfect.