OK-So was for some odd reason googled "Solace" under images (well, to make sure that my girl did not come up), and this painting came up. It is a painting I found on the website for the Pierside Gallery in Huntington Beach. It is (obviously) called Solace and painted by Pino. I thought it was beautiful!! Just like my Solace and I just thought I would share. (BTW-can anyone tell by the number of blogs added tonight that Wes is on call?!)

Names, Names, Names...AHHHHH

OK, so not to revisit this name thing over and over (and over and over....) but here is the name saga as it stands now. As many of you know, and as I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have some definite ideas about the names my children get named. Namely, they must be unique, and they would (preferably) have some meaning or significance. The unique thing is the big, huge one!!! It is big enough that Wes and I always go though this whole process in choosing them.

Before I explain that, I should mention that the Social Security Administration has a website that tells you the most popular baby names for the previous year in the US based on the Social Security cards issued for new babies. It also has a place where you can see the popularity of a name from any (or all) year(s) in the past 100 years. (If you want to check out what I mean, click here.) So, this process Wes and I go through in choosing our kids names is that we come up with names we love that seem unique to us, then we go to that site and check to see if those names have ever been on the SSA's top 1000 names anytime in the past 100 years. So far, none of our children's names have been in the top 1000 names anytime in the past 100 years.

At this point (if in fact you have made it this far in this story) you might be thinking, "What the heck is wrong with Beckee that she is so concerned with having SUCH unique names for her kids?" This is a question that I myself have thought a lot about recently, and I think the answer stems back to my elementary school days. For one thing, I NEVER have any school classes without at least one other "Becky/Rebecca" in it. This would have been OK (not ideal, but OK), if it hadn't been for my 4th grade teacher. That class was a particularly Beckee/Rebecca filled class. There were I believe 5 of us in there. All of us were named Rebecca, and all of us went by Becky. This was confusing and unacceptable to my teacher, and since none of us would willingly go by any other name but Becky, our teacher decided to assign us names, yes...assign us names. One was lucky enough to be Becky, one Becca, one Rebecca, (I cannot remember what the 4th had to go by), and I, the 5th, was assigned Reba. That's right, Reba. A name I had never been called, and a name I did not like. I obviously refused to be assigned a name like that, and began experimenting with different spelling options for Becky (I believe it was Beki that whole year. It wasn't until 9th grade that I settled on Beckee). This spelling change has been my only unique feature of my first name since then. This common name thing only got worse, much, MUCH worse when I married a Johnson. Now I had a common first and last name. (As a matter of fact, when I got married I was working as a teacher on a temporary drama project in an elementary school, and there were 2 other teachers named Becky Johnson working there as well.) So, I think that is why the unique thing has been such a big deal...(Also, I should note that I am aware that having a unique name is not always everyone's favorite thing as they get older, so we have given all three kids common names as well in case they decide to break my heart and go by some other name than the ones Wes and I painstakingly chose for them.)

So, now that you are caught up on the psyche of Beckee and the reasons I want unique (or to quote High School Musical 2 that we just watched before bed time-I need something inspiring to help me get along...I need FABULOUS!!!). This is the deal with our names right now. Since I had Solace, there have been many names I have come across that I LOVED and wanted to name my next girl. Some of the names have become unusable (like for example, Paris-obviously now you cannot name a child that thanks to that Hilton terror). There is one name that I was pretty much totally set on, and Wes also liked it. So, I pretty much thought we were done with the name game stress. Oh boy was I wrong!!!

The other day I was at a playgroup with a couple women here discussing the name I love. One of the other women is also pregnant with a girl, and due in 6 weeks. She and her husband also happen to be good friends of ours. so, I was talking about this name of mine, and she mentioned that the name is also the name her husband wants to name their child. Immediately this puts a damper on the name for me, but does not totally count it out yet-just because they like it too doesn't mean it is super popular. Then my friend said "We looked it up on the Social Security page and saw it was like 30 most popular name, so we figured you and Wes would never use it anyway." OK-now it was out and I was devastated. And I realized that I had skipped the crucial step of checking the SSA page in my baby name decision this time. After spending the next 2 nights literally waking up with nightmares about the baby not having a name, Wes and I sat down with the laptop and got on the SSA page. ALL 4 OF OUR TOP FOUR NAMES ARE ON THERE!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH....SO, now we are branching out and have a list of about 15-20 possible other names for baby, but none of them are clicking for me as much as my favored name (or any of the other 3 in the top 4). So, there you go-my name trauma! Will this child have a unique name? Will it be one I like? Will I go crazy thinking about this?! Probably...

When I met a super star...

OK-Sarah Tomoser-this one is for you!

In a previous post I mentioned a story about meeting a famous person. As Wes has pointed out, this story cannot possibly live up now after mentioning it in that post, but here it is anyway.

It was 1997 and I had just graduated from high school. For my senior trip I went with my drama class and drama teacher to New York City. My drama teacher's good friend was our tour guide (basically he was our tour coordinator, but because he was friends with our teacher, he came into town for a couple days when we were there and hung out with us and showed us a bunch of the cool stuff you wouldn't get to see in a normal tour). So this guy was with us at a show one night, and we were supposed to go back to our hotel right after, but instead he was like, "Hey does anyone what to go eat the best dessert in Manhattan?" (He said the famous Lindy's cheesecake was good, but this place was supposed to be a non-tourist location. A place where the native New Yorkers would go for awesome dessert). So, of course, not being one to pass up an adventure (or a great dessert), I of course was the first to jump on that bandwagon. So, a small group of us jumped on the Subway and went to this great place called Mona Lisa. It rocked and the desserts lived up beautifully. After the dessert, our tour guru asked if we wanted to go for a walk around one of the nicest and most exclusive neighborhoods in New York (it was just a few blocks away). Again, I was the first to jump on this bandwagon, and a smaller group of us followed our guru to this great neighborhood.

So, there we were, late at night walking in this great neighborhood around this private gated park. I somehow got behind the group a little and also somehow thought I was still with them. I was still talking to my friends (who, as noted, were ahead of me and not listening anymore), when I turned a corner and literally ran into this over sized (huge) poodle. I looked up at the owner (for the first time noticing I was no longer with my friends) and said, "Sorry...cute dog..." The owner said "Thank you" and looked kind of strangely at me. I talked to this woman for a minute (just nothing/small talk) before she went on with her dog walk, and I saw my friends and went to catch up with them. They were all standing across the street and staring with gaping mouths (including the guru). I walked over and said "What?" They all stared for a minute, then someone said, "Did you realize that was Julia Roberts?" I was in disbelief. So, I turned back to the dog owner who was of course walking the other way, but she happened to have stopped to cross the street, and she turned and waved at me. I waved back as it struck me that it was in fact Julia Roberts...

Great "4-D" shots of our daughter

Yesterday I had to go back for another ultrasound and a perinatal consultation at the hospital (FYI-all is well, baby is just big). I was a bit discouraged to be paying another $250 to be at another ultrasound, and even more disappointed to hear I will be returning to the hospital for another whopping $250 ultrasound in 7 weeks (Just to check baby's growth as she is huge). However, That aside, I was pleasantly surprised to be able to see the "4-D" ultrasound pictures of baby, and to have a good experience at the ultrasound this time with a tech that was really good and really knew what she was doing! We were able to verify pretty solidly that this is in fact a sister for Solace!! (This week we were also able to verify that my name of choice is no longer a possibility, but that is a whole other post I'd say.) So, The awesome tech gave me about 30 pictures of baby, about 8 of which were the "4-D" ones. I just thought I'd post a few of them. So, here they are!

She is a total thumb sucker and we had a hard time getting any pictures without her thumb in her mouth and her hand blocking her face! But these were pretty good shots I thought! Doesn't she look just like her siblings?! I think so...Cute as can be!!!

Chocolate

I saw this (and stole it from) a friends blog. It's kind-of a fun little quiz, and it says my ice cream flavor comes out as chocolate-the perfect blend of sweetness and seduction, lucious and irresistible. Nice-that describes me pretty well, right?! Well, maybe not, but I would hope it does.