Yet Another Baby Name Post

*DISCLAIMER*

Still not pregnant. Still not trying. Still not close.

But like any other normal female, I've had a list of baby names I like since circa age 10.

And since The Beard and I rarely agree on stuff and fight about pretty much everything (like music, for instance), I thought it prudent to talk about baby names early so we can work up to a good list and fight less when we actually have to name a tiny human. That's extreme, you say?

"You act like you get any say! You're gonna be KO'ed on the table and I'm gonna be the one filling out the birth certificate! And even then, I'LL be the one blessing it in sacrament. I can just change it on the spot and those are the records of THE CHURCH!" - The Beard.

Sunday School is usually the time we work on our list of potential baby names that we like. See if you can guess who chose which names.

On "Stealing" Baby Names - the only people who can truly "steal" baby names that will affect you in the long run are your siblings.  So talk with them if you're worried and GET OVER IT.

Boys

• Reepicheep
• Jacoby (Obi Wan Jacoby, to be precise)
• Jonah
• Boromir
• Dwight (80% kidding)
• Walter 
• Aslan
• Porter
• Apollo (already taken by our fake baby)
• Ender
• Samuel/Samwise

Girls

• Leila (or Layla, according to The Beard. psh. no.)
• Josie
• Arwen
• Lucy
• Leia
• Blair (headbands required)
• Alice
• Norah
• Eowyn (He insisted I add this one even though I don't have the special 'E' character)
• Amelia

Twins

• Merry & Pippin
• Fred & George
• Luke & Leia (weird, though, because they kiss...)
• Blair & Serena
• Peter & Edmund
• Stevie & Nick (get it??) 

 I'm not sure if I should be embarrassed by the number of LOTR, Star Wars and Narnia names on this list. No, I'm not. I'm pretty excited about it.

Although I don't know how we'll narrow it down or how I'll keep The Beard from naming our kids after Narnian animals.

Sometimes-Always-Never: Utah Motherhood Trends

So my Happiness Project last week took me through books, pinboards, documentaries and blog posts about all things motherhood: pregnancy, childbirth, infant care and even parenting philosophies. A lot of the material I found was awesome. I'm only mildly terrified now. But there was so much ridiculous stuff that was just... too.... Utah for me. And I'm FROM Utah. I love Utah. But we've got some problems, you guys. So I thought I'd offer some help. Here are my rules for motherhood.

Sometimes

Unique names. My name is DANICA. Sure, it's more mainstream now. But it wasn't 23 years ago. And I love my name. Wouldn't it be boring if the boys were all named Jason and the girls were all named Brittany? (name that movie) HOWEVER. This is a SOMETIMES.

via Pinterest & Buzzfeed

• Follow the rules of freaking phonics. They exist for a reason. Take an English class. 
• If you name all 8 of your kids crazy Utah names I solemnly promise to call them all by the wrong names. "Oh how's Timpanogos doing in day care?" "... Um... it's Tiyara." "No... I'm pretty sure it's Timpanogos."
• NO APOSTROPHES
•  Picking a common name - Kylie, for instance, and spelling it "Kieleiygh" does not make you unique. It makes you hated by teachers, food service industry workers, and anyone else who has to be corrected during the course of your little one's lifetime. 
• I could keep going, but this article hits it out of the park. Read it for an LOL.

That being said - if you have a unique name, especially a family name, that is phonetically non-idiotic and can belong to someone who is 40 and a CEO, good for you. Go for it. 

Post ultrasounds. The Beard is very vocal and opinionated about this. He thinks it's super gross to see the inside of someone's uterus. He thinks it's super inappropriate to post that on something so public like Instagram or Facebook. I don't really care that much. I don't like the super realistic, 3D looking ones that show like eyes and noses and stuff. Yikes. The grainy black-n-whites? Not so concerned. I can never see anything so I don't care. HOWEVER. FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING THAT IS DECENT AND PURE --- DO NOT CIRCLE, OUTLINE OR DRAW AN ARROW TO YOUR BABY'S TINY JUNK. Please. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. Someone in my Insta feed actually did that a few months ago and I was horrified. We believe you. It's a boy. No need to outline his little weeny in bright red. No thank you. You realize that kid is gonna be like 16 one day and that photo is horrifying?

Always

Do what is right for you, and more importantly, your baby. I already had people telling me that I shouldn't drink Diet Coke when I get pregnant. My friend's family was pressuring her into a natural home birth. There is a plethora of information out there. But like I've said before - people have been doing this for hundreds of years and childbirth is a NATURAL thing. My friend, also named Danica incidentally, emailed me and basically said "All your baby really needs is food, diapers and sleep. It's not rocket science." We can do this, even without the internet and library. Make the informed decisions that feel best to you and keep them to yourself. No one should tell you what to do (except maybe medical professionals, probs) and that also means you shouldn't tell anyone else what to do. {Obviously don't smoke or drink or get in physical fights or crap like that. Goes without saying.}

Never

Posting pictures of your naked, stretch-marked belly for everyone to see is gross and weird. I'm so proud of you. It's amazing. It's a miracle. But for pete's sake just keep a shirt on.

Take this photo for example - a couple of things I really like about this

1. Weird orb of a belly. You can't look away. It's like a car wreck. I can't help but picture the baby bursting out Alien-style.
2. Sexual boob cleavage. Classy. Perfect for a maternity shoot.
3. A dainty flower indicating.. well I don't really know. Fertility? Natural childbirth? It's just something for her hands to do instead of constantly stroking the giant belly?
4. Whenever I see a pregnant belly button it makes me think of sausage and that's uncomfortable for everyone. 
5. The only thing we're missing here is the dad doing something really weird like laying his head on the belly or grabbing it weirdly from behind her. Maybe also naked. 

How do you take photos of your baby in such ridiculous situations? Just take NORMAL PHOTOS.

Headbands are so cute on babies. I love them. This is pretty above and beyond. Do we need flapper headbands and YARN WIGS? Too much. Amiright?

All I see here is the baby having an explosive blowout in this bowl of fruit loops and it makes me gag a little in my mouth.


 Can we all agree that these rules are reasonable and will improve society? If you agree please pass along to your pregnant and one-day-pregnant friends so we can take control of this terrifying trend cycle. I know we can make a difference.

My Happiness Project: Week Six

I had to be really secret this week. I had to employ like super secret agent moves.

Motherhood

For the record: NOT PREGNANT. Not even a little pregnant. Not even baby hungry yet.

But I did want to learn a little more about pregnancy and motherhood since the only things I know I learned from The Office and Baby Mama. I'm getting to the point where the baby aisles at Target don't make me physically sick, so that's good. But I still don't know anything about babies, ultrasounds, infant care, onesies, bath time, car seats... wow this list just keeps getting longer.

-Read up!
--So I sneak-attack put a bunch of books on hold and I wore my trenchcoat and sunglasses to go pick them up at off-hours at the library. I didn't really wear the trenchcoat but I was very sneaky and fast. I don't need to run into students or friends when I have an armload of maternity-info books. I also delved into a lot of the blog posts "348 Things You Need To Know As A Complete Moron Getting Pregnant For The First Time" that I've pinned over time.

-Watch up!
--I watched The Science of Babies on Netflix - fascinating. I even got The Beard to watch What to Expect When You're Expecting with me! He's probably less scared of babies than I am, actually. He's great with babies and little kids - unless they're our niece Lillie who is still terrified of his big black beard.

-Think about what type of mother I'd like to be
-- The biggest thing that I walked away with is "Take a breath, Danica. People have been doing this for thousands of years. Millions of people didn't read books, and watch documentaries, and ask every person on the street about pregnancy. Millions of people! And overall, pregnancy for them is still ok. If the idiots on 16 and Pregnant can do this, I'm pretty sure I can do this. Also multiple people told me that I'd need to drink a bathtub's worth of Diet Coke a day in order for it to hurt any baby I was carrying, so even though I drink an obscene amount, I'm not scratching that surface. That really helped my fears. I won't have to give up Diet Coke!!!

Blog

- Get a "real" blog URL
- Got it. Execpt The Beard got it for me on this weird site and we're still working on getting it linked up to host this blogspot. Get excited for that to come up.

-Make it look cuter.
-- Working on a new logo/name. Added an Instagram feed. Rearranged. I'm creating tabs and pages like a real deal blog. And I'm working on a few new buttons. There's not a lot to show for this right now. But it's still coming. Promise.

- Learn how "real" blogs operate.
-- No surprise - I checked out a bunch of books, read a bunch of posts (Especially Bon's. So helpful) and started mapping out where I want my blog to go. I really have never even TRIED with my blog. I've done a couple of things that friends have asked - giveaways, hosting, guest posts, etc. But I've never really done anything with my blog. But I'm ready to be more real. Blog more regularly, interact more in the blogging world, be a "real" blogger. Who knows. Maybe we'll even get to a sponsorhip phase. I still don't really know what that is. But it sounds cool. Dreamin big over here.

Coming Soon - my overall view of my Happiness Project. Acceptable social media posts when you're pregnant. Annoying stuff Bloggers do. More things that I realized/got bugged by when I did my Happiness Project.

My Happiness Project: Overview
My Happiness Project: Week One
My Happiness Project: Week Two
My Happiness Project: Week Three
My Happiness Project: Week Four
My Happiness Project: Week Five

Our Fake Baby, Apollo

Yesterday, I listed "Apollo" as one of the "odd things" in my house and promised an explanation - here goes.

When Ryan & I were engaged, so were our besties, Brad & Eliesa. My other bestie, Katie, was pregnant with her little sweetheart Diva Eva. And the three of us - Katie, Eliesa & I, worked at the LAO.

During the summer months it got really boring, especially in the afternoons. We'd find things to keep us entertained when everyone was gone.

• Online Typing Tests
• Tomhaverfoods.com
• Stalking singles ward members
• Creating/posting for BYUStyle
• Running to the South End Market, AKA "South of the Border" for Diet Coke

But the weirdest turn those afternoons ever took was the day we created Apollo.

Katie was pregnant and we were talking about ugly babies. Because there are ugly babies. You know there are. We all like to pretend like babies are all perfect and beautiful, but the fact is that some babies are just scary and, as my dad would say "Give that monkey a banana."

To be sure that her baby wouldn't be ugly, she found a free site that takes photos of two interested parties and shows what their theoretical child would look like. If I'm remembering correctly, the first few came out looking troll-like, even though Katie and TJ are goodlooking people. Eliesa joined in with pictures of her and Brad, similar results. I'm serious. Go look at the babies on the front page of the website and you'll see what I mean.

They asked me several times to join in, but I wasn't having it. I was (and still slightly am) terrified of babies and being a mother. I didn't like to think about it. On top of that, my mother-in-law was (and still completely is) all about being a grandma.

Eventually, they pulled pictures of Ryan and me from Facebook and just did it for us. I was pretty scared actually, after seeing so many weird combinations from my friends, all of whom I thought were above average looking people.

But then, they showed me this. And I got over my baby fear. For about 15 seconds. I mean. Look at those curls and that devious little smile?

I emailed it to Ryan, who promptly named him Apollo and forwarded him to my mother-in-law, who promptly printed him out and taped him to her computer. She still affectionately refers to him as her "Little Grandbaby Apollo, who like Mac n Cheese and brings sticks in the house."

He now hangs on our fridge - each day making me slightly less scared for becoming parents.

Until I see a kid screaming uncontrollably at Walmart and then puke all down his front.

Reset button.

I Love Pinterest but I Hate Kids

I express my fears about kids all the time. ALL the time. I fully believe that I will get over that at some point. I mean, I've come a long way in the last few months. I can even talk about potentially having kids, how we want to do things, etc.

For example, we strongly agree that we will keep it a secret as long as possible when we are expecting. Also we're not going to have a gross or ridiculous announcement. You're welcome.

But this poses a problem. I've always been 100% against girls who are obsessed with babies on Pinterest and make multiple boards for these phantom babies they don't have. Especially unmarried girls. You're not going to hide the crazy that way, ladies. The only exception to this rule is my bestie Eliesa, because she pins everything and has impeccable taste (Follow her boards). Also she's going to be an ultimate mom.

I will NOT be seen as baby crazy; I refuse. BUT. What about when I DO get pregnant and want to start pinning baby crap? IT WILL BE A DEAD GIVEAWAY!!!!! I want to keep it a dramatic whispered secret.

Should I start pinning baby shiz now so that I can shield my secrets in the future? Continue fighting the baby craze? Create a secret Pinterest account for my dirty little secret baby pins?

First World Probs.