What's In A Name?

I was hoping to announce our Baby Girl's name when we announced she was a girl. But due to some indecisiveness on both Brian and my parts, we didn't have it quite figured out at the time of the ultrasound. I've always been the type to share my babies' names. Partly because I really stink at keeping secrets and know that there is no way I could not share for 3 to 4 months! And partly because I love the idea of calling her by her name from the moment it's decided. I feel like I knew Austin better when he was born because we had always called him by his name. It probably sounds silly, but it makes sense to me and that's all that matters.

So today I'm happy to announce that we won't have to go through the next 3 months calling Baby Girl "Baby Girl" anymore. From now on she is McKenna Rose Crowley!

McKenna is a name I've loved since high school. I went to school with an awful, awful girl named Makenna, but I really loved the name. I'm just choosing to ignore how awful she was (Seriously, she was just awful!!) by spelling my daughter's name differently. Makenna/Makena is the Hawaiian version. McKenna is the Gaelic version and since Brian is 1/2 Irish, we like that spelling better.

Also, in the midst of our indecision, we looked up the meanings of the names we were considering and discovered that McKenna means "Son of Kenneth" in Gaelic. Now while she's not a son, it is a fun tie to my family cuz my dad's name is Kenneth. The significance of being linked to my family put us over the edge for the name.

Her middle name, Rose, is in honor of Brian's mom, Grandma Judy. Judy's maiden name is DeRose and we've known for a while that we'd love to use Rose as the middle name because of that! I love that she will carry a little bit of each of our families' heritage with her forever!

Now we just have to wait another 112 days or so to call her McKenna in person!

How's Your Day Going?

This pretty much sums up my day.






How's your day going?

Not Me Monday

Not Me! Monday was born out of MckMama's desire to admit some of her imperfections and reveal a few moments she'd rather forget. She invited her readers to also post things that they couldn't possibly have done. You may find it therapeutic to join in and do the same thing!

I've never joined in Not Me! Monday because I've never done anything that would warrant such a post! After all I'm such an attentive Momma!

For example, it certainly wasn't me that turned her back on a one year old on a changing table to retrieve a sock, allowing him just enough time to tumble off and land on the floor. Not me! I would never do something like that!

And I'd never leave said one year old downstairs alone at my parents' house so I could just grab a few things from upstairs, only to find him, not 30 seconds later, rounding the top stair of their two flights of stairs! I know that it's dangerous to leave a child alone by himself! So that couldn't have been me!

And of course, I'd never take my eyes of my child near the bathtub while the water was heating up, even if it is just to flush a dead bee. Not Me! That's just asking for him to attempt to climb over the side, whack his head on the faucet and get caught under the down turrant of running HOT (but thankfully not scalding!) water! Nope, I always have 2 hands on my child at all times near the bathtub.

Oh and I'm sure it wasn't me that said "My child is soooo cautious, I don't need to wrap my furniture in baby proofing cushions! He's not going to fall hard." So it certainly can't be me that has a poor little boy with a huge red line down his forehead where he took a header into the side of the sharp-edged computer desk. If I did have a kid like that, he might look something like this...



And all of this wouldn't be in the span of just one week, cuz if I were to make such atrocious mistakes, I'd at least spread them out over the course of several months!

But once again. That can't be me. I'm such an attentive Momma!

I'm Sorry, I Did Not Understand Your Selection. Please Try Again

I just learned that voice automated phone services do not work so well when you have a one year old. A loud one year old at that! The pilot light on our heater keeps going out and our house is ridiculously cold in the morning. So cold that my child has purple-y lips right now and my fingers are frozen. I'm trying to make an appointment for the gas company to come out and fix whatever needs fixing and this is how my experience with their system went.


Gas Company Automated phone lady: Thank you for calling the Gas Company. If you smell gas, please say "Emergency." If...

Austin in background: Blah blah blah doodle bwahh ahhh

Gas: I'm sorry. I did not understand your selection. Please try again. If you smell gas, please say "Emergency." If you have a billing question, please say "Billing." If you need an appliance fixed, please say "Appliance."

Me: Applian...

Austin:Pttthhh ahhhh grrrrr eeeeeee!!!

Gas: I'm sorry. I did not understand your selection. Please try again. If you smell gas, please say...


And that's when I hung up and realized that I'm just going to have to wait until naptime to make this appointment! Whoever designed those systems did not have children or otherwise they would have given me a touch-tone option.

We're Having A Little ...............................

That's right! We're about to enter the grand new world of dresses and bows and oh, so much pink stuff! I can't wait! Honestly I would have been just as excited about a little boy too. It would have been fun for Austin to have a little brother, but I'm just as excited to do all the girly stuff too!

Our ultrasound was wonderful. She's healthy as can be. Cute little round head. Got all her brain, which is a good thing! Good pumping heart! Both kidneys! And the all so important 10 fingers and 10 toes! Our dr has a beautiful new ultrasound machine and you could (well, I could at least!) really see what the tech was looking at. It was so neat to see her cute little cerebellum and the ventricles or the brain and watch her heart beat in real time. This technology is amazing! Yes, I'm still an uber-nerd even in motherhood!

Isn't she just the cutest little Skeletor ever??

And look at that perfectly round little noggin'!


This one is kinda hard to tell what you're looking at, but she's sucking on her hand.


She was really active the whole ultrasound. I had a bag of skittles right before hand, in hopes that she would be enough of an exhibitionist to tell the gender. But I may have overdone the skittles cuz she was bouncing around a bunch. It's so weird to see kicks on the screen but only be able to feel about 1/2 of them. It won't be long though until I feel every kick and wiggle!

At one point she even reached down and grabbed her foot. You can see it in this pic.


That's a hand holding a foot. You can even see her big toe!

We can't wait to meet our little princess! What a fun new adventure!! I'm so looking forward to seeing Brian as big time mushy daddy too! All wrapped around a sweet little finger! But if she's anything like me, we need to start praying about the teenage years now!

Also, we have no final decision yet on her name, but hopefully we will figure it out soon. We just need to "live" with our few last choices a little bit before pulling the trigger. I can't wait to start calling her by her name though instead of calling her baby girl or munchkin! We'll announce it when we have it figured out.