My girls have boy's names...

which was not a planned thing...

This blog was inspired by a great contest being put on by Erica at The Life & Times of an Ordinary Me... She's giving away a very cute name sign for kid's rooms that she's made herself. Stop over, look at the goods and enter along with me. In order to get 2 addition entries into the contest, I am blogging about my kids names...

For all three of my kids, we didn't find out the sex of the babies during the pregnancy so we had to be prepared with 2 names.

During my first pregnancy, we decided right away that our names were going to by Kyle Elijah or Peyton Elizabeth...then I guess I had some kind of hormone surge during my seventh month because I changed my mind completely and we had to start from square one. The aforementioned hormone surge also caused me to be VERY indecisive and picky so my husband had his work cut out for him. Finally we purchased a 5000+ baby name book; my husband, the king of the list makers, came up with a ranking system. We ranked the names on sound, meaning, look, feeling, etc. and the list got wheedled down that way (I AM SERIOUS...I still have the lists to prove it). We decided on Cameron Julia or Keegan Elijah. Hands down, our families hated the boy's name and wished, hoped, and prayed for a girl. Prayers, wishes, hopes were granted and Cameron Julia entered the world. One of the reasons we liked Cameron's name was we thought her name could break down into cool nicknames which we assumed would be used (Camy/CJ/etc.); funny thing is Cameron is Cameron; no nicknames...

3 years later I am pregnant with our second child...I wasn't as indecisive as with my first pregnancy, but the hubby and I could not agree on any names. So we made the deal, I would pick the girl's name and he would pick the boy's name. I fell in love with the name Emerson Elizabeth (I first heard the name, Emerson, after 9/11; one of the dads that died on Flight 96 had a newborn daughter Emerson...it just clicked for me). My husband chose Clayton Charles for the boy's name (I never really like this name so I wished/prayed/hoped for another girl). At the end of April, my wishes came to fruition...another little girl. Emerson was Emerson for about 1 year and then she became Emmy (Now, I had thought we would always call Emmy, Emerson, but the opposite happened...she's Emmy. Although, she recently told me that I could start calling her by her other name again, she wouldn't mind). I remember being so proud of my name cleverness...this came to a screeching halt one day when I was working out at the YMCA. Emmy was about 3 months old and she became an old lady baby magnet; all of a sudden, I had a gaggle of old gals admiring my offspring...they asked her name and I proudly told them. All of them got a horrified look on their face and one of them actually asked me, "why would you do that to your child" - nice huh? Recently, however, I've been getting nicer comments about the uniqueness of her name. I still love it...

Then came the boy...3 years later I'm pregnant again. Remember my husband and the very specific naming formula? Well he decided that since we had a Cameron & an Emerson that we had to name our 3rd child with a name ending with an on. I disagreed (personally I thought it was a bit hokey), but he felt strongly about it so I gave in. We decided on Jackson Charles for a boy. For a girl...well, that was more difficult...we just couldn't come to an agreement...finally I agreed to Tennyson (I was just so worn down at that point); I never really liked it that much so I kept my fingers crossed for a boy...Yeah! again the name karma was in my favor and Jackson entered the world. He is another nickname kid...you ask him his name and he pats his chest and says, "Yack-Yack" (Jack-Jack) also known as Jack, Bubba, the Dude.

So that's my kid's name stories...this was great blog fodder...again thanks to Erica for the idea and the contest! Wish me luck!!