The Name Game

Back when John and I first got married I did what all rational newly married women do... I named our unborn children.

One by one I carefully contemplated their first and middle names and wrote them in beautiful flowing letters across the corners of papers during meetings, or conferences, and maybe even once or twice during a Sunday morning sermon. Hey, nobody's perfect. 

I signed fake Christmas cards and thank you cards and said their names all together to make sure each sounded good when said with the other... And then we got pregnant with Mia. 

My names, which one Mr. Eanes had been silently listening to for four years of marriage were rejected- one by one. Apparently silence does not equal approval... who knew?  

After throwing out literally hundreds of names due to the memories they evoked of past students, we quickly decided on Mia Kate and went on to live in baby name bliss for the remaining 20 weeks of my pregnancy with her. 

And, even though as a social studies teacher, I would defend our need to learn about our past saying the contrary to this... it turns out history does not always in fact repeat itself.

Sometimes something that seemed so effortless once does not end up as effortless the second time around. 

Which is how I ended up 38 weeks pregnant with not one but two names for my sweet baby girl #2. One name that John deemed his favorite and the other that was mine. We would go back and forth in conversation about the two names getting absolutely nowhere in the discussion but back to the beginning, he liked Name A and I liked Name B. 

One day I called him at work and said "I've been thinking... I think we should go with "your name" it's a cute name. Only to hear "well, funny you said that... today I decided we should name her your name... it's growing on me". 

Oh geez.

We did not want to wait until she was born to "see what she looked like", past experience told us she might not look much like either name we had picked out. The planner in me wanted her name on the nursery wall and monogrammed on something for her to come home and the  calculated decision maker in John wanted a rationale decision made before we got to the hospital. 

So, we decided to take the next natural step and let our middle schooler's in our small groups from church vote. 

Emma or Avery?

They voted on Emma. We went home and discussed it some more.

Three days later Mia spent her very first night away from home, without us there. We have left her for the weekend before, but we have always left her at home. You know- where the plugs are covered and the drawers have child safety locks. And, she has traveled plenty of places before but we were always there, you know- within in arms reach of all potential impending disasters. But alas, the time had come for her to venture out.

The day before Mia was set to take her big adventure the day was changed. Mia would not spend Friday night away, she would spend Saturday night away. This gave her grandparents more time with her, me more time to get a pedicure, and her father more time to "get things done" before the baby came. 

So Saturday came and off she went. In our original "Friday night" plan Mr. Eanes and I had decided to try out what we refer to as a "fru-fru" restaurant downtown. You know... the kind of place that gives you leaves instead of lettuce, charges you outrageous prices for what looks like a child sized portion, and has their lights dimmed at all times for the romantic feel. He was going to gaze into my eyes and tell me how happy he was I was going to the Mother of not one but two of his daughters... right before he grimaced at the cost of drinks on the menu.

But, it never happened. When our dinner date got shifted to Saturday night we knew we had to find somewhere we could eat AND watch the LSU game at the same time. 

We may not live in the SEC, but we pretend like we do.... on Saturday's you watch football.

From the comforts of my pedicure, massage chair we tossed various options back and forth via phone until I remembered this unique restaurant in the W-S. It's technically a sports bar by day turned into a fine dining, candles on the table, yes- I am overcharging you for your food but it's all about atomsphere place, by night. So, we decided to go there after we went to the pottery place and painted the "new baby" a piggy bank for her room.

When I was 6 months pregnant with Mia we painted a piggy bank to match her bedding. We put her name on the back of it, wrote the date on the bottom, and marveled at how creative we were. Said piggy bank now sits in her closet because, well... it's breakable and she's two. But one day, we get to pull it out again.

Baby Girl #2 or Baby Mona as she was dubbed by my friends needed a piggy bank.

So at 38 weeks we went into the pottery place and decided we would not leave without a painting a name on the back of the piggy bank. 

We borrowed a paint-able coffee cup and I wrote Emma twice and Avery twice on a left over Starbucks wrapper from my car and threw them into the cup. We shook it up and drew out the name... Emma. Just for kicks I decided to draw again and see what name came out... Emma again. The numbers guy of the family (aka Mr. Eanes) informed me there was a 16.7% chance we would draw the same name twice. 

We kept painting, talked about it some more and painted her name on the piggy bank.

Baby Mona finally has a piggy bank!

Being the fast paced mover that I am, I wanted to immediately send out the picture to all our relatives and begin ordering "homecoming" clothes complete with monograms... but John thought we should wait. 

So, we went home, put the extra seat on the stroller, watered the lawn, unloaded the dishwasher and fretted about the decision. It just seemed wrong.

And then John said... "we'll make a decision at dinner."

To which I responded "ok" but actually thought something more like, "ok, because dinner is going to be so different than the past 9 months we've talked about this."

Regardless, I got all dressed up in my one of three pregnancy shirt options I have at this point and to dinner we went. When we walked in, we noticed all the tables nearest the TV playing the LSU game were taken so we asked if there was anywhere else we could sit in order to see the game. The hostess looked at us and said "well, I mean... you could sit over here", as she pointed to the bar side of the restaurant which was currently closed. We told her that was great with us, we really just wanted to see the game and down we sat. 

On the closed, bar side of the restaurant, with no silverware, no white table clothes or flower center pieces, no little romantic candles or white lights like the other side had.But, keeping our priorities straight, we could see the LSU game.

Side by side we sat discussing names, discussing the game, and discussing how likeable our waitress was albeit not a very good waitress. Even as we sat waiting for forks, spoons, something- anything, to eat our food with we talked about how easy it was to like her. When John suggested we name Baby Mona after her. 

I told him we had really hit rock bottom if we named our unborn child after a bad waitress with a good personality. He gave her more credit- saying she wasn't even technically supposed to be waiting on us... this side was closed. He thought we should just ask  her opinion on the two names, which I still wasn't thrilled with and then as he pondered some more he said... "What if her name is Emma or Avery? I mean that would be enough for me to say ok- that's her name." I told him that would be rather neat but highly unlikely and reminded him that we do not in fact live in a movie. 

Sometime after our food had been sitting in front of us, our likeable waitress remembers to bring over our silverware and John presents her with a task. "Can you help us out- we want your opinion on baby names." She is really excited about her given assignment and wants to know if we are looking for girl names or boy names. To which I respond, "girl names but he is going to give you two choices... we don't want you to pick just any name." She says, "ok" and waits patiently as Mr. Eanes (with a sideways grin) says, "The first name is Emma and the second is...."

John never gets to the second name because our 25 year old waitress stops him and says...

"I'm not sure what the second name is but my name is Emma, and I really like it so I'm going to say go with it." 

Let the open mouth staring contest begin.  

She smiles and bounces away still to remain super likeable but not the best waitress we have ever had. And John says... "wow, well that does it for me."

Sitting on the closed side of a restaurant, we hadn't even planned on being in, on a date night we weren't even supposed to be having, we ended up with a waitress named Emma. 

Now, granted, if you walk into a 1st grade class room your chances of finding an Emma are pretty good- it's a pretty popular name. But this girl, born before the "Oh my word I love Friends and Rachel named her baby Emma boom" was probably one of one in her class.

So it was decided...

Emma Claire Eanes

Praise the Lord- she had a name! Sweet Emma Claire Eanes. The phone call we made next was to an old building in a strip center, answered by an old school answering machine. "Ummm, hi... I was in there today and painted a piggy bank... can you set it aside? I need to make some alterations before you put it in the Kiln"

Mr. Eanes worked his magic.

I'd say it turned out pretty good. We love you Emma Claire and while we acknowledge you will not be the only Emma you ever meet, we feel certain you will be the only one with such a colorful story behind their name!