Milestone

Yesterday I had the realization that Magnolia is the same age Cora was when Magnolia was born. Twenty-eight months. She's actually about two-and-a-half weeks older than Cora was. But who's counting? ;)

I can't imagine what it would be like to have a newborn right now. I really can't imagine how having been pregnant for the last 7-8 months (depending on how long that pregnancy would have lasted) would have rocked our world. Barfing my guts up, weekly shots, daily Zofran, trips to labor and delivery. Whoa.

Magnolia is still such a baby to me. It may be her size, but she's also so very clingy. I don't think this is a bad thing, just if you see me, you will almost always see her attached to me - wrapped around my legs, in my arms, buried in my chest...up my skirt. And she still pterodactyl screeches. My nerves are shot a lot, especially in the car. It's not just loud, it's like multi-tonal. Like a scratchy train whistle/horn. I hate to say it, but she's as high maintenance as she is cute and sweet and cuddly. Luckily the latter stuff makes up for the former thing. Most of the time. ;)

I think the hard part (though not remorseful - not very much anyway) is thinking about whether or not Cora still needed me the way Magnolia needs me at this age. Cora was super easy, but I also started letting Sesame Street help out a little. I guess that started during my pregnancy when I was concentrating on breathing because it meant I was still alive. Anyway, it's making me appreciate Cora and all of her awesomeness a little more. Rather than feeling like I missed out on her during that stage, I'm paying more attention to all the little things that make her tick. I find myself just staring at her for several minutes at a time. Every reaction, every little movement, the way she concentrates, how her hair falls around her face, the way she scrunches her nose and purses her lips when she thinks I'm being silly. I really love who she is. She has moments, especially when she's tired where I have a hard time recognizing my sweet girl, but most of the time, I take the blame for that. I am, after all, the keeper of her bedtime.

With that being said, and no babies on the horizon, one of my [38] cousins asked for baby name advice today. I LOVE names. On Sunday, we had a little class on indexing (a part of genealogy, sort of - digitizing old records to enhance genealogy searches), and we were asked what our favorite part of doing family history is. Mine is always the names. I mean, Sofia Josephine, come on. That is awesome. Goldie Mae Lois. Get out of town. Denzel, Irl, Gail, Cloyd. I love how those names get attached to stories. The names become the stories and the stories become the names (the stories I uncover/have heard for my whole life are a close second). Anyway, my cousin is having a girl. I gave her some names that I thought went well with the middle name they have picked out as well as her last name. And it got me thinking in hypotheticals... Just like I sometimes plan what my wedding would look like if I was getting married now, I think about what I would name my babies, you know, if I needed a name today.

If ever I have another child, I'm just sure she would be a girl. Her name would be Apple. I always thought it would be Apple Eleanor Bliss. But I've since been thinking of other first-middle names. Names like Sylvia, Isabel (this has always been in the running, but Jake isn't too fond of it having such a similar ending to Apple), and Vivienne.

Apple Vivienne Bliss
Apple Sylvia Bliss
Apple Isabel Bliss
Apple Eleanor Bliss

 I also really like to say Virginia, but it doesn't work as well as a first-middle name between the first and second-middle names I love the most. I've also tried to combine our mothers' names. The best I've done is Linleigh (the first half of my mom's name, Jake's mom's middle name. Jake vetoed it. I think that if fewer baby girls we know would have been named names that have a name followed by any version of "Lee," he would be more convincible.)

And if my womb ever produces a boy, Henry tops the list. I also love Leo, Phineas,  and James. And Atticus is still there for sentimental reasons.

Someday I'll do a whole post about that hypothetical wedding.

PS: I pretended like Air Force One flew over Dot today. It was the loudest plane I've ever heard fly over, and there was another plane close behind it. There were clouds, so I couldn't see anything, but I've never heard/seen planes flying that close together, and lots of planes fly by on their way to the OKC airport. I'll see what I can find out.
PPS: According to the White House Schedule, President Obama was flying somewhere when the planes flew over us, but it was between Virginia and Chicago. Air Force One fly by = highly unlikely. But it was really fun for Cora and me to make stuff up. Being in a super polar state means not much excitement on the campaign trail.

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