With great power comes great big stress ulcers

One of the things I've learned over the past few years is that parental incompetence begins long before the stork ever drops that kid off at your door step.  Which brings me to an issue that's been on my mind a great deal lately.  I'm pretty sure I might be an incompetent parent.

First, let me answer your question. No, I'm not drinking. I'm not doing drugs or eating buckets full of tuna or engaging in any other crazy and irresponsible behavior that may label me incompetent. No no, this is different than that.  I don't know, may be worse.

Because in 28 short weeks, I'm suppossed to tell some professional medical-type people what my kid's name is.  And I have no freakin' clue.

I've never had any sort of desire to wield this kind of power over another human.  I never made a list of baby names I would one day name my children when I was in high school.  (Because seriously, girls who don't get dates do NOT plan that far ahead.  We have more pressing concerns from day to day, like, "I hope no one looks at me and notices my... face", or the oh so unforgettable, "Don't fall down don't fall down don't fall down don't fall down don't fall down".) And for heaven's sake, I'm even terrible at naming pets.  Example: we are currently on our second cat named Allie (of course, the first one was an abandoned infant I found in a parking lot and it was sickly and it only lived for about a week, so I'm not sure if that counts.)  Unfortunately, everyone except for George Forman seems to frown on naming each of your kids the same thing.

For years husband and I liked the name Xavier.  Husband recommended it pronounced with a Z sound, and that sometimes we call him Zave.  But now we worry that if our poor kid is a nerd, (I know, OUR kid?? You'd never suspect...) that name will just sort of emphasize the nerdiness.  So Xavier is out.  Sorry Charlie.  Hmmm... Charlie?  No.

Anyway, there's a number of names that I think are ... nice, but nothing I necessarily love.  Nothing I'm elated about.  Nothing I'm ready to brand another human with for the rest of his or her life.  If you're curious how I did this once before, I didn't.  Husband picked the name years before we were in a position to think about it, and it sounded good.  So we went with it, and that worked out fine.  But maybe I should have some say on this kid?

Probably not.  ::Sigh::  This all just feels like one more thing to put in the memo line of the checks I will inevitably be writing to Thing 2's therapist.

Love, Mommy.