Baby nicknames

A lot of people I know give their babies nicknames while they are in the womb. I think this makes sense. It’s nice to have a name to call them, as opposed to just “it” or “the baby.” Pat and I like to find out the gender of our babies, but we keep the names we pick a secret until the baby is born. There is a simple reason for this- we don’t want other people’s input on it. I know, that sounds mean. I don’t intend for it to. We talk about names with other people, and toss around ideas. But I have found that when you are just discussing potential names, people feel free to bring up their negative opinions. Yes, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but when it comes to naming my child only two opinions really matter to me- Pat’s and mine. Having a nickname for the baby gives us all something to call him or her until birth and the actual name is decided upon.

When we were expecting Ben Pat came up with his nickname. One day early in the pregnancy, I flopped down on the couch on my belly. Pat, in a silly mood, spouted off in an Irish accent “Don’t squish the wee baby Seamus!” Pat found this to be hilarious, and so did others. I was not as amused at first, but whatever. The nickname stuck, and Ben was referred to as Seamus. Obviously we did not go with that for his real name, but it made us laugh throughout the pregnancy.

This time around the twins are nicknamed Thor and Hulk. We don’t know the genders yet, so the fact these are male names has no bearing on anything. It just kind of happened that way. They each had their own way of coming into use.

Thor is a short story. When we were picking names for Ben we of course tossed out some silly ones. I thought Thor made for a strong name for a boy. Of course it had to be pronounced properly, a resounding “Thoooor.” When we first found out we were expecting again, I grabbed the chance to pick our nickname and announced we would have our Thor. Not a very exciting tale, but I like it for a nickname.

Hulk came about a little differently, and has an additional back story. I have heard that sometimes women just ‘know’ they are pregnant, no test needed. Some sort of sign, a craving, a feeling, a dream, hints to them that they may be expecting. With Ben this didn’t happen. I eagerly awaited the time to test and really had no idea what it would say. Actually, I thought it would be negative. Happily it wasn’t. This time around, I had a big sign that maybe I was indeed expecting again.

Sadly this isn’t a cute pregnancy thing. There are less than adorable and fun side effects of being pregnant that most people don’t talk about. For me, one less than stellar thing that happened while expecting Ben was, well, rage. It isn’t as bad as it sounds though. There were about two occasions where I just saw red, was furious and had to leave the situation. Before anyone worries that I will go nuts on them before the twins were born, they were both directed at Pat. Everyone else is safe. 🙂 (Sorry, Pat!) What makes it funny, well, funny after the fact, is that it has always been about something stupid. Seriously, I’d go off for ridiculous reasons. I know one time was over which water glass belonged to whom. Another was because Pat didn’t like a name I did. I have never experienced this kind of useless, literally see red, have to walk away kind of anger any other time. Luckily it passed in a few minutes and Pat and I can laugh about it.

That being explained, let’s go back to right before we found out we were expecting again. One evening, Pat and I were hanging out and discussing groceries. He was teasing me about cottage cheese. I know, a stupid thing. I went off on him. Like seriously, angry, swearing, completely over reacting to this. I stormed up the stairs and went to bed. A little while later I had the though ‘I wonder if…’ The next morning, sure enough, tested positive.

As I said before, I immediately labeled the baby as Thor. Pat argued we should go with the Hulk since the baby made me, well, rage-y. We went back and forth a bit and basically dropped it. I mean, it wasn’t really important. It came back up the evening we found out we were having twins. Pat turned to me and told me we were both right- we had a Thor and a Hulk.

So now our twins are referred to as Hulk and Thor. We find out the genders very soon, but we’ll stick to Hulk and Thor until they are born.