Baby Stuff

Rob and I have been tossing name ideas for daughter #2 back and forth and have decided that come December, we will happily welcome our new daughter into the world as Gomer.

Just kidding!  Could there be a worse name for a little girl?  For anybody rusty on their Judeo-Christian religious tradition, Gomer was the wife of Hosea, an Old Testament prophet.  She was a prostitute that God told Hosea to bring out of a life of sexual exploitation and abuse by marrying.  After several years of the social protection and growing love of marriage, Gomer was gradually sucked back into her old life, was unfaithful, and eventually abandoned Hosea (and their three children) to go back to prostitution.  Rather than saying, "Good riddance!" Hosea went on a search to find her and eventually discovered her sick, dirty, and under the control of a slave trader.  He literally bought her back, nursed her back to health, and restored her as his wife.  It's a story I've loved for a long time, both at the level of a story about human love and forgiveness and also as a picture of God's relentless love, even when I fail.  Anyway, despite the wonderful story, it's really hard to think of a worse name than Gomer to our English-speaking, 21st-century ears.  Could it be any more unfeminine sounding?  And then there's this Gomer?  And is naming a little girl after a prostitute, even an eventually redeemed one, ever a good idea?  I know Old Testament names are super popular right now (Noah, Caleb, Abigail, Jacob, Hannah, Elijah, etc.) but perhaps we should pass on this one.

So we have not made any progress on a name, nor much progress on how to decorate the new baby's room.  Right now it is painted a muted, pastel, grayish sage green; it's about as un-Julia a color as one could come up with.  Well, maybe a yellow-y cream color would be the MOST un-Julia color.  Or a really grayed-out dusty rose.  Anyway, I want the room to be painted a warm color because we have an abundance of cool colors in the house already (purple in Grace's room, green in our room, robin's egg blue in the living room).  I was originally really wanting orange, a light, almost-pastel tangerine orange.  However, Rob is really not feeling the orange.  After several discussions about it, it has become obvious to me that he really doesn't want an orange room and I've decided to stop pushing the issue.  I mean, it is his house too and I usually get to do whatever I want so surely I can come up with another color.  Right?  I would do pink, except Grace's nursery was pink and I want to do something different.  Maybe a light, clear pink?  That doesn't seem very different to me, though.  I am definitely not wanting yellow, for whatever reason, although I am somewhat open to an orange-y saffron yellow.  The front runner at the current moment is red.  This nursery is pretty cool, and our crib is even black like in the picture.

I've been browsing around Etsy looking for prints and artwork for both Grace's room and the new nursery and found this delightfully geeky art by Tiffany Ard.  I'm definitely either getting that H-R diagram print above or the ABC flashcards she has.  And we could spell out the new baby's name with the flashcards framed on the wall?  How awesome is that?  "G-O-M-E-R"  Ha ha!  Still just kidding!  Or am I...

A little part of me does wonder how important it is to actually decorate a nursery considering that Grace didn't spend much time in hers until she was pushing her first birthday.  Maybe this new baby will be a stupendous sleeper and be one of those mythical babies who actually sleep better on his or her own.  A pregnant lady can dream, right?  And anyway, we need to paint and organize the room, even if it functions more as a place for diaper changing, rocking, and storage than actual sleeping.