Thursday, January 10, 2013

What's in a Name


A question we've been asked is "What are you going to call her?"  So here's the story behind her name.

Although she was born in the early morning, her name didn't come until much later that day.  Aaron wanted to name her Caroline and I wanted Emily.  For a few hours we were calling her Elizabeth.  But after months of debating, we ended up giving our daughter one of the final three names we'd had in case Nate was a girl.  Margaret in memory of my great Aunt Margaret, known to us kids at Moe.  And Elizabeth to honor my grandmother (Betty) and my mom (Beth).

Aunt Moe lived next door to my grandparents, her brother and his wife.  She wasn't able to have children of her own so she did the next best thing and treated my Mom and her siblings like her own children and then the 16 of us like grandchildren.  It's no surprise we have memories and special names for treats she would always have for us.  Like Moe Moe cookies (Nilla Wafers) and Moe Moe jewelry (Avon costume jewelry she always had in buckets for us to play with).

And my Grammy.  Well, anyone who knows me knows how special she was to me.  It's always sad for me that Aaron only got to know her as she entered into Alzheimer's but I'm glad he was able to know her at all.

I look at Margaret and I'm so moved as I think about these two women she'll never meet but who I know watch over her every day.

So what to call her?  The plan if our first child had been a girl was to call her Maggie.  But we have friends who recently had a Maggie and I worried it's too close to our niece's name.  We searched for other options and the debate came down to Maisie (Aaron) and Margo (Maura).  But Nate's insisting on calling her Margaret and laughs when we suggest any nickname.  And indeed, it seems most people are sticking with Margaret.

Margaret will also be named in honor of another grandparent when we give her her Hebrew name.  But I'll hold off on that for now as Aaron works out the details.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

New Year, New Photos

It's been a while because we've been busy around here.  We welcomed our daughter Margaret Elizabeth on December 18th.  Although scheduled to be induced at 8am on the morning of the 18th, my contractions started coming pretty quickly as the nurse was walking me down the hall to my room in Labor and Delivery at 4am.  Just two hours later we were holding our beautiful baby Margaret in our arms.  What's amusing is how far off the doctors and u/s tech were in estimating her size.  Part of the reason for planning to induce at 40w+1day was the estimated large size of the baby.  But she was born at 7lbs 15ozs, a peanut compared to her older brother.

We came home on 12/20 and everyone is settling in.  Nate loves his sister and wants to hold and kiss her always. The other day he put on my cover and announced he was nursing.  Sorry to break it to you buddy, but your help can only go so far.

We celebrated Christmas Eve with mass and dinner at the Schochs.  Santa came to visit that night and our immediate family celebrated at home on the 25th with the Harris and Davis grandparents all here to join in the fun.  My siblings flew in later that week and we hosted Harris family Christmas in our little house!  It was great having everyone here and Nate was in heaven with so many aunts and uncles to play with.  He even got a sleepover with Aunt Meghan at her hotel.

As people left and Aaron headed back to work, we've finally begun settling into a routine.  We've also been immensely blessed to have my mom here lending a hand until January 15th.  I'm not sure what any of us are going to do when she leaves!

And as it's her first full calendar year, we've begun capturing Margo in at least one picture every day.  The idea was given to me by my friend Dawn with her son Anderson.  What's really cool is in 2013, we're both documenting our daughters.  Waverly is a few months older than Marg but they're experiencing their first full calendar year together.

Here she is, Margaret Elizabeth - Day by Day.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajdavis/sets/72157632423695455/