I know a lot of you have been super concerned about baby McG's name or lack there of. Both my mom and John's mom have expressed their extreme concern at the idea that their grandson is going to be named Wendall (don't worry mom's I wouldn't let that happen). And I get asked daily by someone if we are any closer on names, of course I always reply with "Nope." The closer it's getting I have been feeling a bit more pressure to get serious about it, but John... not so much... A few weeks ago we were out to lunch and I told him we needed to get a list of 3-4 names we liked and then we could wait to make the final call at the hospital. Despite my effort to just get a shortlist he still told me he wasn't ready to have "this conversation." Over Christmas my mom tried to get John to talk the name game with her and he wasn't budging it was the typical "I like the name Wendall" or "Ubaldo" response. I have to admit the humor of these "joke names" has long worn off since we have gotten so close, but shockingly, my type A, planner of a self has not started freaking out about it. I guess I have been taking the "we will figure it out when we have to" road. I just assume that once he arrives we will have no choice but to make a choice. Plus, I'm not going to lie I created a back-up plan - I made a list of some names I like on my iPad weeks ago - you know so that we'd have something to fall back on at the hospital if all else failed and we never discussed it prior to the baby's arrival. I'd hate to be sitting in a hospital bed after giving birth, 100% exhausted trying to Google names from scratch. Lord knows that would never work. At that point I would probably agree to Wendell if it meant I didn't have to make a decision or use my brain.
Well John found out about my little list, and on Tuesday night he decided that he wanted to get serious and have "this" conversation.
John: "Let's see your list."
Me: "What list?" (insert me doing my best to pretend that no list exists because I feared it would become a massacre of my names, and I didn't know if I wanted to share my ideas first)
John: "You know what list... your name list on your iPad. I'm going to pick the name now."
Me: "Oh no no, you're not just going to pick it..."
With that he grabbed my iPad that was sitting by me and found my said list. Crap, here we go.
I had a handful of both first and middle names which upon looking at the list he immediately started rearranging and deleting names (only after calling them terrible or douchy). I will say, none of the names he omitted were "my favorites" so I was actually feeling good that we were making progress as the list was getting shorter! Clearly I had the names he actually liked (no, not Wendell or Ubaldo) already on my list because he didn't want to add anything. Shocking. Before long he had my list paired down to 4 first name options plus a handful of middle name combos. Woohoo we have what we need to get the job done at the hospital now! Time for bed.
Then, the following morning at work I got an email from John titled "names" it included a google doc of an excel spreadsheet with all the names options we had settled on from the night before . Of course he sent me a spreadsheet. He puts together a damn spreadsheet for everything (vacation budgets, household spending, gas mileage, etc) because everything in life can have a system, right? Even selecting your child's name. Ugh, this Aquarian lady thinks otherwise. His spreadsheet also included tabs where each of us was supposed to rank our names from our #1 to our least favorite (while there were only 4 first names there were 12 names total when he listed all the combos with the middle names). John had already ranked his but somehow was able to lock his ranking tab so I couldn't peek or know his ranking ahead of time. I'll tell ya these people who deal with spreadsheets all day and their "locked cells" think they are soooo cool. Anyway, to appease my left-brained husband this right-brained girl decided to fill out his little spreadsheet later last night. Then after "voting" was complete we sat in bed with our iPads lined up and John "unlocked" his rankings so we were able to compare.
Now, what are the chances that we agreed? You people know us... we challenge each other on everything. Everything. I say black so he will say white... it's how we roll... it keeps us on our toes at all times (truthfully we'd be bored stiff otherwise). So of course there was no way this next part would be easy... I mean it had only taken us 9 months to even start to seriously discuss any names.
Well pick your jaws up off the floor because we both ranked the same name as our number 1 choice. Yep, you read that correctly. We picked the same freaking name! Can you even believe it?!? Now, true to form once John realized that he told me he had picked that name 12 hours prior and was thinking he might prefer his number #2 selection now. There you go...making it more difficult...now that's the McGarry's I know and love. This is also the reason that we have waited this long to make any sort of list... John couldn't even make it 12 hours without second guessing his selection. That being said, John's # 2 selection was my #3 pick, so it was still high on my list and for sure a name combo that I like. Therefore, we have ultimately shortlisted to 2 names and will pick "the one" when we meet the little guy on d-day. Big progress for us! So fear not, baby McG is VERY close to having a name now.
And no, I'm not sharing those 2 names... you'll have to wait. Plus you never know we could totally change our minds again.... I wouldn't put it past us.
No comments:
Post a Comment