We're Officially Outnumbered

Well, I'm a father of three now. Our little Hannah was born about two weeks ago. And we've been blessed with a third healthy, happy child. No jokes about that. I love my wife and my children more every day. And no matter how frustrated or upset I sometimes pretend to be on these posts, I never take for granted what it means to be a husband and a father.

Okay, back to attempted humor!

So a few months ago, my wife and I were trying to come up with a name for our newest edition. We like classic, well-known names. But we don't want plain names that don't mean anything to us. So that makes for a difficult naming process. And we solicited the help of our 5-year old Andrew and 3-year old Madeleine. (See? Classic names.) My son decided that the best name for the baby would be "Sunshine." I'm not sure where he got the idea for that one, but it was funny. And he knew it was silly, so we all laughed about it. But Madeleine, ever the creative one ("creative" is the nice, parental way of saying "weird"), made up a name that doesn't exist. And if future Madeleine is reading this, forgive me if I butcher the spelling here. Her suggestion was "Kadiso" (pronounced "kuh-DEE-so"). And she was very adamant about it. It wasn't a suggestion... it was a decision.

We continued to ask the kids what they wanted the name to be. And Madeleine continued to unflinchingly suggest Kadiso. It got to the point where I couldn't think of any new names because she'd said it so much. In fact, it grew on me so much, that I honestly think it's a real name now (maybe Samoan or Haitian or something). If I ever meet a tropical-looking person and they introduce themselves as "Kadiso," I wouldn't be fazed by it.

Needless to say, we went a different route on the name. But our compromise for the kids was that Hannah's nickname is now "Kadiso Sunshine." And knowing my kids, that'll stick for life.