Introducing the New Adventures of Kaycee!
This is new since I (daddy) have not done an extensive googling of if there are any other previous Kaycees around with documented adventures. Like any narrative story, this is my perspective :)
What's in a name?
There have been numerous books published with baby names. There are countless websites with names, definitions, popularity, history, famous people. The United States Social Security office publishes a yearly trend of 10 most popular names. All this is available, and yet finding the right name has proved frustratingly difficult.
Do we name after our mothers? Grandmothers? Find the naming trends there? Do we have preferences of names (either for or against) from our past experiences with people? Do we choose something different, just to be different? These are questions we inevitably came across and discuss at some given time over the last nine or so months. How then, do we make forward progress towards name selection?
Attempt 1 Make a list!
We both made a list of 5 or so names we each preferred. We each had two vetoes, each veto would eliminate a name from the list. This made 3+3=6 names to deliberate and compromise over. Seems pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Logical, in fact. You just could not fault the sensible nature of it. So of course it didn't work! And why not? Because a name given to a child is more than a word. It is the parents' representation of an identity label. It is the package of hopes for the future, struggle for adulthood, and pains of adolescence.
Attempt 2 Bluff!
I told Mars that my number one choice was... Gretchen. Roll it around, try it out. Chew on it. Still not liking it? Mars and her family did not either. Something about being too old of name. So I suggested something more classic, like Judith (Judy Garland). There was such an immediate backpedaling to Gretchen, I nearly had whiplash! In all honesty, while I do like the name Gretchen... it didn't have the right feel. I put it out there to bluff a bad case scenario.
Attempt 3 Demonstrate the upper hand!
I was lamenting of the name selection process, and garnering sympathy from other parents who have gone through similar exercises. One person gave me great advice... don't compromise. "If we don't have a name that I like..." well then it will be solely up to me. How is this possible? Why go through all of this hardship if the decision was solely mine? So this is the loophole that mothers everywhere do not want you to know... at the hospital, the paper works comes immediately after delivery. And...? And the delivering mothers typically pass out after delivery due either to exertion or drugs. So dads, you have sole control of what to fill out for NAME. I let Mars know this, she doubted me. Luckily for me, one of her best friends works NICU and my mother-in-law is a nurse. They corroborated my story, I could in fact fill out the paperwork while she was tired. (I've also heard stories where some more devious fathers would request outlandish requests at this time too, to take advantage of the delusional state.) Then she got really cranky with me. To take away her input in the naming of our child?! Did I dare? Well, no actually I didn't. But I wanted to have her understand that we needed to make a decision fairly quickly. (By week 39, Mars declared that we must quickly make a decision on names!).
So how did we end up with Kaycee after all? It was all rather simple. I went for a run one Tuesday morning at 7am. The weather was nice, it was still late July and the morning did not quite have a chill yet. I was pushing myself to run the five mile loop at work. Music was playing in my headphones, my mind drifted off. And idea floated in... what if I combined our middle names? Kai Yau and Cecilia? How would that fit together? Kacelia, Celiyau, KaiCec.. Kaice... Kayce... Kaycee. There you go, simple as that. Five permutations, five miles, done deal. I went home, explained how I arrived at Kaycee, Mars was delighted, her family approved and the name stuck.
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