Roses v. Thistles

"What's in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  As much as I like Shakespeare and his writing, he got this one wrong.  With Tommy and Katie, we just knew what their names would be.  With this pregnancy, we were absolutely convinced that we were having a boy, and a boy name we had.  We were so certain that we didn't even discuss girl names.  But then we had an ultrasound last week.  And we saw some girl parts.  I almost asked Dr. McKinley to check again because he was wrong, but then he had another technician come in for 3D imaging, and she confirmed it.  Guess I don't need further checking after a second opinion.  So then who is this girl?

That was Friday.  All day Friday and Saturday, I thought about names.  Sunday, we stayed home from church for health and sanity reasons.  I searched through dozens of baby name websites (which are all obnoxious and aggravating to use), and only ended up getting more stressed and filled with anxiety.  I can't call my child by object names (girl, baby, little woman, etc).  She is a person and needs to have an identity and that's all stripped away by object names.  Shad finally told me I had to stop and he took over searching.  I didn't like much of what he came up with and he admitted that he's not very good at naming girls.  So we quit and decided to finish watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Shad said, "Hey, what about Cassidy?"  Gross.  That name just makes me want to wretch.  So I countered, "How about Butch?"  Then Shad suggested Sundance.  I was fully prepared to shut that down as well, but thought about it for a minute.  We both said, "Awww, Sundance!" at the same time.  We laughed at ourselves, but the more we thought about Sundance, the more we fell in love with the name.  And all my stress and anxiety was replaced with peace and calm.  And then Shad suggested Victoria for a middle name and that just fits so well.  Even having several days to think it over now, we still love it and smile every time we think about Sundance.

I told Tommy that our baby's name is Sundance.  He can say the name.  He just gets a little confused each morning when I ask him if he remembers our baby's name.  "Barnyard Dance!"  It's one of his favorite books.  No, her name is Sundance.  "Oh wwwrrrrright!  Sunnnndance."

So here she is: Sundance Victoria Kendell