Baby has a name!

Since I’ve been MIA for a while, I guess I need to do a 2-week catchup!

Last Week
This was a CRAZY week! I worked 40 hours, which I rarely do…thankfully. It made me appreciate what Travis does every week much more! Somehow I survived, but it left little time for blogging. I pretty much spent the week working, sleeping, and eating. Last Thursday marked 25 weeks. We had to move our weekly picture taking session inside because Travis isn’t making it home before dark anymore. Sad day! Saturday, we made a quick trip to Birmingham to hang out with Aimee and Gary for Gary’s birthday. We watched the A&M game while we were there, and it was a heartbreaker. I guess we didn’t deserve to win the game because we played horrible, but they got my hopes up by making it SO close at the end!!

25 weeks

This Week
This week has been much more low-key…I’ve actually had a couple of days off from work! Monday, Travis was off for Veterans Day, so we spent most of the afternoon hanging a new ceiling fan in our bedroom. Bye bye, ugly white and brassy gold fan!! We won’t miss you at all! I haven’t gotten to take a picture of it yet, but our bedroom is a work in progress at this point. Two weekends ago, we moved Travis’s desk into our room from the study (which will soon be the NURSERY!). So, now we need to hang a few pictures in our room, and then our room will finally be finished! Travis has adjusted really well to his desk’s new home…haha…I guess this is just the start of making sacrifices for our little girl! :)

Speaking of our baby, Sunday was a new milestone. We not only felt her kicking….we could SEE it by my belly twitching! Really cool! She has gotten to be really active the past few weeks. Today marks 26 weeks, and right now, she is probably around 14 inches long and 1 2/3 lbs. I’m still jogging a couple of times a week. I’ve cut back to about a mile at a time. I can tell that my lungs don’t have as much room as they used to…which makes it much harder to run! Our next appointment is Monday afternoon, and we are doing the 4D ultrasound then! I hope we get some great pictures!!!! :)

26 weeks

The cats are loving the new “nursery”. It qualifies as a nursery because it has a changing table in it, right? Haha…I guess we’ll get it done by February. Turns out that a changing table makes the perfect kitty bed. Felix and Gabby think we bought it just for them! Look who I caught up there the other day…

“It’s the perfect size for a kitty!”

“You mean this isn’t for ME, Mom???”

We’ve also caught Gabby up there, so it’s not just Felix who’s claiming it. What are we going to do with those kitties?? They’re just too cute!

Gabby’s favorite way to be held

The biggest news of the week is that Baby Grant now has a name!!!!!! I cannot even count the number of times we’ve been asked whether she had a name yet….I feel like it has been thousands of times :) So, now we can finally say yes! Travis and I hadn’t been disagreeing about names; we honestly just hadn’t sat down and talked about it yet. So, Tuesday was the night! Here’s the play-by-play…

How An Engineer Names His Baby

Step 1 – Look at websites for possible names. Don’t forget the Social Security website…it even tells you the most popular names by state! Have your wife make her own list. Do this separately so you don’t influence each other! Your lists should have a minimum of 25 names each.

Step 2 – Rank your list of names in order. Put your most favorite names at the top and least favorite ones at the bottom. Make sure your wife ranks her list also. And, this is KEY….put each list into an Excel spreadsheet. Anything worth doing well must involve a spreadsheet. Amen.

Step 3 – Now, it’s time to compile your lists into ONE spreadsheet. Beside each name, make a column for your own ranking and your wife’s ranking. If a certain name is on BOTH of your lists, put each person’s ranking out beside it. If a name only appears on one of your lists, the ranking from the other spouse should be designated “26”. Once all the names are on the list, you will sort them by ranking from top to bottom. This new order will include the individual rankings from both spouses.

Step 4 – Eliminate any names from the list that either you or your spouse cannot stand. But, DON’T delete them from the spreadsheet….you simply need to “hide” them in the spreadsheet. This will simplify the list down to only names that both of you like. At this point, you probably will have narrowed your list down to about 15 or so names.

Step 5 – Now, using the new, shortened list, you should re-rank the names in order from most favorite to least favorite. Your wife should do this separately…on her own laptop. Email her the new list so she can accomplish this task.

Step 6 – Now, in a single spreadsheet, re-sort the list of names using each of your individual rankings. Sort the list from most favorite to least favorite.

Step 7 – At this point, the spreadsheet has done its duty. You must discuss the final list of names, and decide on one. Your preferred name will probably be one of the top two or three in the list. It’s NUMBERS, remember??? :)

I do love my engineer husband…I just like to poke fun at his spreadsheet love :) So, that’s what our Tuesday night looked like. It really didn’t take as long as it might seem like it would. We were finished in maybe 1 1/2 or 2 hours I think. We finally narrowed down our favorites to three of them, so I guess we’ll have other options if we have another girl in the future. Oh, by the way, that’s another step….don’t throw away your spreadsheet! Save it for the next time around :)

Our little girl’s name is going to be…Brooklyn Reese Grant!!! Back in college, one of my clinical instructors had a daughter named Brooklyn, and I have LOVED that name ever since then. And….we just liked “Reese” with “Brooklyn”….no family names or anything. Now, apparently I biased Travis toward the name “Brooklyn” because I mentioned it as a possibility several weeks ago. Oops :) He does like it though!

We’re excited to be able to call her something other than Baby Grant!!!