Landon's name

Picking a child's name is always a big responsibility and a LONG process for us (except for Ryker's name--we had his name picked out pretty quick after getting pregnant with him). Landon was the hardest to name of any of our kids. At least the other kids had names before they were born; Landon was nameless for the first night and we chose his name the morning after he was born. We had a girl name all picked out (Ailey Jessa Somers), but we didn't have a girl. The boy name side of things really had us stumped (hence the several name polls I had here on our blog). At some point, Brice suggested that I give up my hold on picking a super unique name that no other kid would have. He suggested the name Aidan and said it would fit well in our family but I couldn't go for that one for two reasons: one, it's ranked #12 on the charts right now, and while I could settle for more common than I usually like, #12 was just too common. Second, the name Aidan means "fiery one." Why don't I just shoot myself in the foot from the very beginning? Plus, something I noticed about Landon from the very first was that he seemed gentle. All of his in utero movements were gentle and rolling not jabbing and punching like most babies. Definitely not fiery. So we kept looking (and by "we" I mean "I"). We tried out all kinds of names and came up with nothing that we liked the way we liked Ailey (I'm in love with this name--it was hard to find something I liked as much as Ailey. Saving that one for later for sure!).

Another thing. When I was pregnant with Alaina, I was certain it was twins. So certain, that I talked to the other kids about what they would think if we had twins. I was genuinely surprised when the ultrasound tech said there was just one baby. But then when I got pregnant with Landon, I thought that maybe I'd just been feeling two very connected spirits; that they were so close that they didn't want to be apart. Landon didn't want to wait long to rejoin his sister here on earth, so here he is! So I've felt like this is very much Alaina's baby, kind of a soul-mate situation. I mentioned this to Brice and he said that maybe Alaina's so little because she's waiting for her counterpart before she really starts to grow so that they will be more like twins. I also had told my friend about thinking I was carrying twins when I was pregnant with Alaina and I reminded her of that one day and told her about my soul-mate theory. She about fell off her chair because she'd had a dream a few nights prior where she was holding Alaina and then she bent down to pick up the "other" Alaina! She said that in her dream the second baby looked just like Alaina, but there were two of them! Weird. Anyway, during the naming process, I've been running any name I was seriously considering by Alaina to get her feedback. I figured she knows the baby's name and she's intimately connected to him, so I should seek her counsel. But she wasn't giving away any secrets. Every name I asked her about was met with silence. Or else she just toddled off. No input whatsoever.

A few days before Landon was born, I thought of the name Andan. I liked it pretty well. I mentioned it to Brice, saying, "Like Landon, but without the L" to try to help him remember it (he tells me to remind him of every new name I suggest for a few days until it sinks in). But still, we weren't decided on a name when he arrived. A while after he was born, Brice suggested we name him Landon but he didn't expect me to go along with it because of it's popularity. I kind of mulled it over for a while and during the night (I couldn't sleep that first night for some reason--perhaps not having a name for my baby was unsettling to me?) the name kept coming back to me as I'd look at him. He was just becoming Landon. I reconciled with the idea of giving my baby a more common name than I typically prefer and in the morning, I issued a final test. I asked Alaina, "Is the baby's name Landon?" She said, "Lannan!!" and ran away. Well, there was my answer. I knew his name was Landon--Alaina told me so and I'd been feeling it all night. At some point in the morning Brice came in and asked what I'd been thinking about a name for the baby. I told him I thought his name was Landon. He said, "Really?!? I didn't think you'd like it because it was more common. But I've been feeling good about that name too." So Landon it is! His middle name, Thomas, is after my grandpa (technically my step-grandpa, but my grandpa died when I was 8 and Grandpa Tom has been a part of my life since I was about 12 or so. He's a wonderful, loving, generous, brilliant, God-fearing man and he's had a lot of influence in our life and he and my grandma have helped us out a ton over the years in various ways). And even though it wasn't a factor in naming Landon, the name Thomas means twin. Fitting, in a way.

Oh, and the other thing about naming Landon is that this is the first time Brice has come up with the name for a baby. He's usually the vetoer and I have to do all the work of finding the names. I like that Daddy picked this one.