When I was pregnant with Hayden, we didn't find out gender on the ultrasound. We thought it would be a fun surprise to wait-which drove a few family members & friends insane-heehee (we also did that with Rachel too).
Since we didn't know gender we knew we needed to have both a girl name and a boy name picked out.
Easier said than done.
We had already used our top two girl names, but Rob & I still managed to agree on Abigail or Ashley. Girl name...Done.
Boy names were WAY tougher. We knew his middle name was going to be Richard, after my dad, but beyond that we were stumped.
Anything I came up with Rob shot down for one reason or another. Yet he wasn't contributing anything usable. While Cletus is a great name for a cartoon character or a hound dog, I will NOT use it for our child! He did manage to save me from making the horrifying mistake of naming him Harrison Richard...the nicknames of that combo would have haunted me FOREVER!!!
Oh that funny husband of mine!
We were running out of time, so I asked the kids one day what they thought we should name the baby. Never wise to let the older siblings name the younger ones...you get some kooky names that way!
Ben's answer was a classic...
"If it's a boy name him Kicking Bear. And if it's a girl name her Dancing Cow."
Since we have about 0% Native American in our bloodline I didn't think those were going to fly.
Rob instantly piped up, "Son, learn now that no woman, no matter how small she is, EVER wants to be called a cow". Wise fatherly advice, dear!
Rob & I finally agreed on Hayden Richard (Rob more or less acquiesced since he couldn't come up with something better).
Once we were at the hospital, we knew that if it was a boy, we were going to put 'Bear' on the nursery name card. Ben would be thrilled! That is exactly what we did and you should have heard the comments in the nursery!
"Did someone REALLY name their baby Bear?" (a nurse)
"I wonder if they named him after, Bear Grylls, the guy on Man vs. Wild." (a dad)
"That is so cool, I wish you would have let us name our kid something cool like Bear" (a young dad)
The nickname Bear stuck. That is the ONLY name Ben calls Hayden (unless he's angry at him, of course).
All considered, it's a pretty good nickname...although sometimes Hayden is more like a monkey than a bear, but that's a horse of a different color worthy of it's own post!
We met grandma at the airport in Salt Lake, had a layover in Atlanta (where Rob was they human jungle gym) & stayed overnight in Miami-not once did my kids ask what was going on (and yes my children are usually sharp). We got into the cruise terminal & decided to reveal the big surprise.
when telling them we were headed to the Eastern Caribbean.
