Parents waste a lot of time wondering what their kids are going to be when they grow up. You can’t help it when you spend 24 hours a day with this little person who has the potential to be almost anything. Despite the stereotype of every mother wanting her kid to be a doctor, most parents probably have more realistic expectations than kids themselves. I spent most of my childhood planning to be the world’s first astronaut-ballet dancer-marine biologist-movie star. That didn’t work out so well.  But it doesn’t stop me from projecting just a liiiiiittle bit onto poor Baby Evan.

Baby Evan sits on the dog – He loves animals! He’s going to be a vet!

Baby Evan chews on a board book – He loves books! He’s going to be a famous writer!

Baby Evan falls off the couch – What a daredevil! Maybe he’ll be a skydiving instructor!

Baby Evan kisses my toes – He clearly has an interest in feet. He’s going to be a podiatrist!

Baby Evan eats trash – What an adventurous palate! I bet he wins Top Chef one day!

But the truth is, I don’t care if Baby Evan is any of those things. I don’t care if he’s rich or poor or single or married or owns a mansion or only owns a cardboard box. He can be a successful businessman or a starving artist. He can live in New York or LA or Paris or Sydney or my basement. None of that stuff matters (although if he does live in my basement you better believe he’ll be paying rent and mowing the lawn).

I just want him to be happy.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas, mama-to-bes, and future mamas!

Although Baby Evan is named after his father (and grandfather), I couldn’t stop myself from picking out a few other possible names for boy children during my first pregnancy. Luckily, we don’t have a legacy to continue this time so I get to maybe use some of those choices. I’ve got a list a mile long for possible girl names but E and I have actually almost settled on another boy name – two names from my side of the family, one from my mom’s side and one from my dad’s.

Unfortunately, these two names would give Baby 2 some rather unfortunate initials. I mean, not unfortunate like A.S.S. or G.A.Y. or even D.U.M. but they almost spell something. Think of a specific type of hallucinogenic drug popular among dirty hippies during the 60’s.

There are two ways around this. One, we just name the baby what we want. How often does a guy use their initials for something? I don’t know the middle names of almost ANYONE I went to school with, except for the people who used them as their first names. Plus I don’t think these initials are terrible enough to really matter.

Our second option is just to add a second middle name. It breaks up the initials and gives him something a little bit special, which might be nice since Baby Evan has that annoying III after his name. My only problem is I really like the way the first two names sound and haven’t come up with another one I like as much.

At least, I hadn’t until my mother emailed me last week.

If you’re due Christmas day, she said, then I know how to solve the problem with the boy-name initials…

… His name should be Firstname Middlename Jesus Davis.

GENIUS.

And amen.

Reasons I love my mom:
1. She is willing to spend two hours talking to me on the phone about nothing so we can avoid doing things like cleaning out the closet or doing laundry.
2. I told her I was looking for that bookcase for the nursery and within 20 minutes she had gone to her Target and bought me one. Plus, she works there so I got 10% off!
3. She is willing to come take care of me and help with the baby for as long as I want – but has agreed to go away immediately if things aren’t working out so well.
4. My mother is NOT afraid to say the word vagina. I was telling her one of the things I learned in birthing class was sometimes fetal monitoring has to be done internally and she explained that they did that when she gave birth to my brother. They stick a wire in a plastic tube in through your vagina and it pokes a little hole in the baby’s head. She assured me it was no big deal. So not only am I less concerned about it, I can make fun of my brother for having a hole in his head!
5. While talking about what movies we’d both like to see this weekend, I told her I wanted to see “Taken” because it was by the same people who did “The Transporter”. Her response was “Oh I love Jason Statham. He always has really nice guns”.
6. She is totally willing to follow my parenting rules without judging. She supports my desire to breastfeed but doesn’t think formula will kill my baby. She will happily help change whatever kind of diapers I want. If I decided my baby should wear orange on alternating Tuesdays she would wonder if I was crazy…but would do it anyways.

And finally, because of this:
“Back when I was pregnant, Lamaze classes were popular. My instructor made us all feel really bad about wanting any kind of pain relief so I was too scared to ask for it. That was a bad idea – I really could have used something. Demerol at the very least. Please, Suzanne, get the epidural.”