Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Name Game

So, I just read my very first post of this blog and laughed.  The girls were 5 weeks old at that time, and I had every intention of getting this blog going back then.  Now they are 4 months old (19 weeks)!!!  Where did the time go?!?!?  I swear I just blinked my eyes and 14 weeks have FLOWN by!

I'm going to try this again, and hopefully I can stay on track.  I want to make sure I'm getting all of this out before I forget, because I think "mommy brain" is WAY worse than "pregnancy brain."  I can barely remember to go to the bathroom sometimes! :-)

While time has been a huge factor in why I've been procrastinating, I think it's also because: A) I wasn't sure if I could write so that anyone found this interesting, and B) I didn't even know where to start. 

Well, I've realized I'm not writing this for anyone else.  I'm writing it for me, so I can look back in a year, or two, or more and remember what it was like when the girls were just a few months old.  As I've already said quite a few times in this post alone, time is going by so fast and I just want to remember every single moment!

I've also realized I just need to start.  It doesn't matter where.  I wanted to somehow go in a chronological order, but really, there is no order to my life anymore.  I just need to start!

Therefore, I'm going to start by explaining how we chose the girls names...

It's really scary thinking of a name for a person.  A name is something they will be attached to for the rest of their life!  I was worried about them getting teased because of their names, first impressions based on their names, how it would look on a resume, if they would have to explain how to pronounce it or have it misspelled, if there would be a bunch of other girls with the same name in their class, and so much more!

I've had a girl name that I'd loved every since I was in high school.  But it was becoming more popular, and someone I knew pretty well had just used it for their daughter.  While I'm sure it would have been fine if I had still used that name, I just didn't feel comfortable using it anymore.  So, I scrapped that idea.

I had a few other names that I had picked out of thin air and I thought were really pretty, but I also knew I wanted at least a part of the name to come from family.

I landed on Violet because of my mom's name, Violeta.  I had originally wanted to name her Violeta and we would just call her Violet for short.  But then I thought about how that could get confusing... I imagined her in elementary school and having a substitute teacher calling role and having to correct the sub, saying "call me Violet...".  While I had my heart set on the name Violet since we started trying to have kids, it took a lot of convincing to get Chaz on board.  He thought it sounded like "violence."  I have no idea how, but I eventually won!  :-)

Violet's middle name is Rosalee.  I wanted to use this because it is my grandma's (my dad's mom's) middle name.  I had originally wanted this to be the first name of the other twin.  But then I thought it sounded cheesy, with both girls having "flowery" names... I was self-conscious and thought people would think we were hippies, or the girls might get teased because "roses are red, violets are blue", and I didn't want their names to coordinate... I know I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do... So, I decided to use it as a middle name.  And it is still pretty cheesy on how we decided that it would be Violet's middle name...  Chaz pointed out that her initials would be VRM, which sounds like "vroom", and since Chaz is into cars and racing, I thought it would be fun if to have those be her initials.  Yeah, I know, it's silly... :-)


Violet Rosalee being silly at only a few hours old!


While Violet's name was pretty much decided since I found out we were having at least 1 girl, Charlotte's name wasn't nailed down until the last month or so of my pregnancy.  I had a lot of pretty names that I wanted for her, but I just didn't like the idea of Violet's name coming from family, and the other twin's name being random.  So, I could never settle on a name.  Chaz had wanted the name Charlotte for a girl long before we were pregnant, because it comes from his name, "Charles."  Although I liked the name, I didn't want to use it because it is becoming so popular.  But finally, I decided I'd let Chaz pick her name if he would let me work part time. :-)  So, that is how Chaz won that battle.

Charlotte's middle name is Louise.  This is Chaz's mom's middle name.  I had known we would be using Louise as a middle name even before we decided to have kids, because it went so well with my favorite name that I had decided on in high school (which I'm purposely not saying because I don't want the person to know they "stole" my name. :-P).  So, it was just a matter of which twin would get it, and since Violet got Rosalee, Charlotte got Louise! :-) 

Charlotte Louise at only a few days old!

I also get asked/was asked how we would decide which twin got which name.  Well, during my pregnancy, the twins were labeled "Baby A" and "Baby B."  I knew that Baby A would be the first born, so I decided to have them named in reverse alphabetical order.  Since Violet will probably always be lined up second after Charlotte, I decided to let her be the first one that was born.  So, Violet was Baby A, and Charlotte was Baby B.

And that's the story behind Violet Rosalee and Charlotte Louise!

Charlotte Louise and Violet Rosalee - about 1 week old!

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