Would a rose by any other name...

I've got baby on the brain!

My friend Talika did have her baby boy the day I blogged in excitement about it. Beckett Tucker Freundlich is a sweet little man, with a hearty appetite for such a little thing, and who we joked has a little bit of Benjamin Button going on. He has two characteristics that would make any Indian mother swoon: a full head of hair, and a high forehead (sign of intelligence apparently, which would make me the dumbest of the dumb :)

Isn't he adorable?! I'm such a proud aunty!



My other friend Joanna is due to pop any moment; she was due two days ago but the little one is still cooking! She and Talika are best friends, and they got pregnant around the same time. Those are true best friends, so simpatico that their ovaries are on the same timer. Ha! And in case you thought it couldn't get any more storybook, she's having a girl. So now Beckett and the unnamed one will grow up together and get married, right? Just like Jed and Sarah!


Yesterday, I dropped a bunch of dvds off at the Harvest Home, a home for homeless pregnant women here in LA. I taught a cooking and food sanitation class there this summer to 12 very, very pregnant women. When I went to visit yesterday, one of the women was still there, with her huge eight month old baby in tow! What a great reward! I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that this separate living thing, with her own personality and body parts came out of a girl no bigger than me. It reminded me that our very existence is a miracle; I mean, even if a scientist could build all our parts, our lungs, heart, liver, capilliaries, bones, marrow... how do you make it tick? Where's the spark that gets the battery going and keeps it running?

(Pause for really deep thoughts)

Tangetial moment: I saw "Expelled". You should see it, no matter how you feel about the ID thing. It's a very fair analysis of the whole subject.

Anyway, then I saw this New York Times blog about the baby name game. I know so many Sophia's born this year just in my little circle. Turns out it was the second most popular girl's name of 2008, following Emma. The most popular boys name was Aidan. Isn't the shared human consciousness interesting?!

Since Gwenyth Paltrow stole my favorite name of all, I would like to bagsie the following girls names before any of you rob my psyche again. :)

Moses (can you imagine a little girl named "moe"? so cute!)
Hema
Ooma

Lots of 'm' sounds. Interesting.

If I have a boy, he's done for, because I can't think of any names I like; Dad's dad was named Raphael, which is pretty cool. Bren has some ideas though, and lordy, they are very... Bren-like. He wants a boy named "Quest". Or "Toussaint".

God help us! I'm warming to Quest. Maybe. Oh! I just remembered one I like! Finn!

What are your favorite baby names?

-x-
aarti