But, we did finally choose a name!

Picking out a boy name was surprisingly difficult for both Stuart and me. Stuart has a (what I think is strange) aversion to duplicating any names within the family, and if you know anything about my family, that is a very difficult feat. I am the 15th of 16 children in my family and Stuart is the oldest of 11 children and let’s just put it this way, this baby boy will be the 106th grandchild on my side (not counting the other 30 great-grandchildren)! We can think of 100 girls names we love but boys names for some reason have been tricky. The one we could agree on, and both liked, was Gideon. That would be Charlotte’s name if she was a boy, but it was quickly snatched up by my brother and sister-in-law shortly before Charlotte was born. So that leaves us back at square one.

We have been toying with the idea of calling him Malcom, which is Stuart’s middle name, but neither of us were totally in love with the name for this baby. So, we decided to explore other names through an app we found called Baby Name. If you know what Tinder is, it’s kind of like that, only for baby names. We’d each individually look at the app and either swipe left on names we didn’t like or right on a name that we did like, and since our accounts were connected, the app would tell us what names we agreed on.

It did reveal a few names that both of us were open to which is nice for future reference but in the end, we decided to revisit the name Malcom and both felt good about it. As for the middle name, we’ve talked for years about naming one of our children after a friend of ours named Aaron. He was largely responsible for Stuart not giving up on me after we started dating.

Aaron is a friend Stuart has known since high school and was Stuart’s roommate in college. Stuart left a note on my car to ask me out for the first time. I had a very sporadic schedule and he could never catch me in person. I thought Stuart was very handsome but didn’t really feel any chemistry with him right off the bat. We went on a few dates, and even though he checked off all the boxes for what I was looking for, I hadn’t felt that initial chemistry as I had with others. So I dragged my feet a little which he interpreted as disinterest. Aaron and Stuart had a chat one night and Stuart had declared that he was no longer going to pursue the relationship. Aaron convinced him to give it one more try.

In the meantime, I had a chat with my nieces (who were my age) and who were something like roommates to me at the time. While talking to them, I talked myself into showing Stuart a little more interest because I could not think of any legitimate reasons why I shouldn’t date him. So, when Stuart did ask me out one more time at Aaron’s request, I flipped the switch and decided to be flirtatious.

Stuart was a little caught off guard by this and didn’t know what to think, but it obviously gave him enough of something to go off of so that we continued to date and eventually fell in love and had 4 kids and moved to Omaha and bought a house and joined the military and Stuart became a doctor and I became a self-proclaimed home designer and DIYer and homeschooler. Sheesh, I really had no idea what was weighing in the balance of that decision.

So, since the beginning of our childbearing days, the name Aaron has always been on the list and now we have decided it is finally time to use it. I can’t wait for Malcom Aaron Montenegro to finally make his debut! He’s quite late since he was supposed to be here at the latest by last Monday 3/20/23, and he is making it quite miserable for me to do simple things like sleep and sit down and stand up and the like. And I’m hoping his lateness doesn’t become a lifelong habit of his, but I guess I can forgive him as long as he comes out cute.

I’d love to hear from you so leave a comment and I’ll be sure to respond!