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  • The Battle of the Middle Names

     

    When Hal and I finally decided on the first name of our unborn baby girl, I was relieved. Especially because the name was my idea, and wasn't something Hal (or anyone else for that matter) would have figured to be a name at all. The name grew on him like a weed and pretty soon, there wasn't a doubt in either of our minds that it was the right name. It felt right much like Archer did. Her middle name? Well, that's a whole 'notha story.

     

    There were two middle names I loved. Two middle names that I felt fit with the first name we decided on. Two middle names to honor two people I adored. 

     

    "Two middle names? No way! She's not having two middle names!"

     

    "But YES! She has to! It sounds so pretty! And the names totally flow!"

     

    "NO! Archer only has one middle name! Everyone only has ONE middle name."

     

    "Nu-uh. Lots of people have two middle names. OR TEN! It doesn't even matter anyway what everyone is doing. Jesus, Hal. What are you, some kind of lemming?"

     

    "Two middle names sounds pretentious."

     

    "Classic, you mean. Elegant and classic."

     

    "You're insane."

     

    "Pleeeeeeeaaaaseeeeee???"

     

    "No! You already chose the first name! No."

     

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  • Moments When Everything Seems Worth "It"

    I guess "it" would be relative. We all have different lives and situations and crap we're dealing with, so you can fill in the appropriate words (stress, chaos, depression, fear, instability, confusion, did I say stress?) for "it"...

     

    As I've written ten-squillion times before, parenting is tough, marriage even tougher (or any committed relationship, especially when a child's in the mix) but there are times, moments, when "it" kind of melts away... These moments are seldom caught with a camera because... like SNAP! they're gone.

     

    I used to call these moments "rainbow moments" when I was little, because they were so "colorful and quick to fade." One minute: an upside-down smile across the sky and before I knew it... "Wait, what was I looking at again?"

     

    I experience such moments of ephemeral emotional bounty every now and then. I can only describe the feeling as one of great spiritual? high followed by the absolute fear that such a feeling might soon be forgotten. (Perfect moments often are.)

     

    It took me until writing this post to remember the night, years ago, when an ex-boyfriend and I drove home from Las Vegas the night of a meteor shower. The top of his convertible was down and we shivered in our coats, the heater full-blast in our faces. (I had insisted we watch for shooting stars all the way home.)  Or an afternoon, eight years ago, when I got lost in Paris only to find myself in the garden of some obscure palace, a wrong turn and POW: Paradise. I have a picture in my travel-journal to remind me: a badly-drawn sketch of a bench overtaken with vines. More recently, there was the moment Archer said "I love you Mommy" for the first time, at which point I fell to the floor like Amelie, a puddle of water in the middle of the room. 

     

    The other day I was lucky enough to catch one such moment on my camera. A moment so perfect I was knocked almost out of breath. The photo is mediocre at best and most likely doesn't translate but I felt that same rush of "ohmygod! life is fucking awesome!" when taking this photo (a "rainbow moment" indeed): 

     

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About the Blogger

rebecca woolf

Rebecca Woolf in LA

Who says becoming a mom means succumbing to laser tattoo removal and moving to the suburbs? This young writer and mother of one gives it to you Straight From the Bottle.

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