As I sit here anxiously awaiting Timothy’s first day of Playschool tomorrow I know deep down what I’m most anxious about.
Timothy is our last baby. The last “firsts” we will experience with a child of our own. And although there were many times I wished we were “on track” with other kids, I relished the extra time I got with Timothy needing me. I got to carry him a little bit longer and to snuggle him to sleep just those few extra times. I got to drag out the last of our firsts.
Now everything is about to change. I’ve seen it coming the past few months. The leaps and bounds forward Timothy has made. And it’s amazing, truly. But it’s scary too.
Playschool is going to open so many doors for Timothy. The help and services he will receive is what we’ve hoped for these past 2 years. But it also means that he is about to grow into a little boy, the last traces I have of my baby slowly going away.
I know that now comes the growing up, the independence, the need for me a little bit less. I know that now comes the letting go.
Naming your baby is one of the first big decisions you will make for your child.
A lot of people have names picked out for their future kids at a young age. Something from a book or a movie, someone they look up to, or just a name they heard that stuck with them.
I had several names that I liked over the years but never really one specific name that I knew I wanted to name my children. It actually took quite a while during my pregnancies to decide on their names. But I wasn’t the type to wait and see what I felt fit when the baby was born. I’m way too indecisive for that, my children would have been nameless for months.
I had thought I settled on a boy name I really liked before we found out that Charlotte was a girl but then it became the most popular boy name around. And when I found out I was having a boy for my third I just couldn’t imagine having my son be the 7th Noah in his classroom every year haha. So we were back to square one. Except this time I did have a specific name I wanted to include, two actually.
Timothy Edward.
Something I haven’t talked about much on here before is the fact that I have lost two of my brothers. Eddie in 2010 and Tim in 2017. So finding out we were having the first grandson in the family was emotional for many reasons, and it was important to me to honor the memory of my brothers in someway.
James and I spent months going over hundreds and hundreds of baby boy names. All while trying to accommodate two middle names. Mixing and matching names to figure out what order flowed the best and what went with our last name (not a lot does – trust me) but we could never agree on one that felt right.
Then one day the thought came to me to just skip an original first name altogether and use one of my brothers’ names as his first name and one as his middle name. It was an emotional choice. Something I felt the pull to do as the loss of my brothers has shaped my life in so many ways. I also really wanted to keep the names together because it didn’t feel right to have one without the other. It was something I tried out in my head for a few weeks and kept to myself until I was sure I wanted to bring it up as an idea. I mean was James really going to say no to something that sentimental and meaningful? Of course not (there is also some sort of batman connection to the name he liked haha) but I was still nervous because I wanted him to feel like that was the right name for our son.
Once I felt like it was the only name I could truly think of using I decided to bring it up and luckily James agreed that it felt like the perfect fit. We also decided out of respect we would ask my immediate family how they felt about it because we wanted it to be a nice way to remember my brothers and not a constant painful reminder of their loss. Everyone was on board and it made welcoming the first grandson even more special and emotional.
Now everyday I get to remember two people I love deeply through my little boy who is the most special person I’ve ever met.
It was the first big decision we were making for our baby and it was made out of immense love. I can’t wait until the day I can tell him all about the two uncles he got his name from.
Happiness Is Blind 