Name Time

This morning I got in the shower before I realized that we needed a new bar of soap. As a result, I used some of my wife’s fancy body wash from a tube, so all day long I’ve been very conscience of how fruitily good I smell. I picked the perfect day to smell delicious as this afternoon, I endured another shower.

I’ve been to three baby showers in the past three weeks. As a guy, that might be unheard of. At each, I think I’ve blushed and mumbled a thanks as the awkward and uneasiness of being at or near the center of attention quickly faded away into something similar to fun. Actually, they’ve all been fun in their own ways. Hell, I’ll make anything fun if I can have cake and cookies afterwards.

There is always that point, however, where someone asks what the name will be. It’s such a natural question, “Do you have a name all picked out?” but it somehow manages to expose everything about you and poke around at the very essence of who you are.

Questions about the sex of the baby or the due date are pretty cut and dry. I have no power over them – they are what they are – whereas the name is something that my wife and I hemmed and hawed over for weeks. We must have considered every name that ever was, comparing them to our morals and ideals as human beings, and let the sounds of our favorites roll around in our mouths, day after day, in order to better understand it. Names are important so you have to get it right.

In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision as we kept going back to the same name. A few of my loyal readers (Hi, Mom!) have elected not to find out, so all I can do is confirm that it is not Rufus Aloysius, although I kind of like both of those names. My wife and I both really like the name we chose, so now the kid will have to live with it, like it or not. And, he’ll have to put up with the being the center of attention for awhile, which is fine by me.