My bologna has a first name, it's...

none of your business. ;)

No, we are not naming our child Oscar.

John and I have had a good handful of about a half-dozen names picked out for Bean, and from the beginning we determined that we probably couldn't choose one for good until we actually met the kid, and tried some names on for size. When people have asked us if we've chosen a name for the baby, we've been telling them "No," because for one thing, we just don't know for sure yet, and for another, we don't want to tell people.

There are 2 big reasons for not telling people our baby names. One reason is that we don't want unsolicited advice or feedback on our name choices. We don't need to know how you think _____ is not creative enough or unique enough or trendy enough or that _____ is too popular or too common or too plain, or that when you went to school there were 18 kids in your class named _____, at least 4 of whom ended up in prison, or that you dated some jerk named _____, or how _____ is the name of your second-cousin's neighbor's boss's dog who bit the mailman and it's bad luck or even improper to name our child "after" someone you don't approve of, or that you just plain don't like _____ and "_____" would be a much better name. You don't have to like my kid's name. It's not your kid, so it's none of your business, really. I'm sure most people feel this way about their kids' names and I don't think it's unreasonable for us to want to keep this to ourselves for now.

The main reason for keeping it a secret, though, is that we want to keep it a surprise. Since we ended up finding out the baby's sex (which I'd originally wanted to keep a surprise), we thought it would be fun to hang onto at least one big reveal for after the birth, and that's going to be Bean's name. I think it will be exciting to announce Bean's birth and tell people his name for the first time. :)

To be honest, we've gone a long time just leaving it at that and not giving it much further thought. Over the past couple of weeks though, I've gone back and forth between feeling really attached to one or two of the names on our list, then feeling like we needed to start over from scratch and find a new bunch of names to work with. But ultimately, I kept coming back to one name. This one name that I've been attracted to since we started trying to get pregnant a few years ago.

Then last weekend, John -- completely out of the blue -- said, "So, _____ _____ Maurer." I just looked at him. It was the One Name. "Do you like it?" I asked. "I love it," he said. We directed our attention to my belly. "Hey Bean, are you _____? Shall we call you _____? Hi, _____!" It was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying, but John and I both lit up like Christmas trees to hear that name out loud and to actually call our baby _____.

I think that means we've chosen a name for Bean! (Although it's still not set in stone. After all, what if it doesn't really suit him?) (He's so cute, though. It suits him for now.)

We've been calling Bean by his real name for four days now. And his real name even has a super-cute new nickname that makes me smile. (I imagine we'll probably continue to call him Bean for a long time, too.) It's a good name. :)

It's scary to make this big step into making Bean even more of a "real" kid by giving him a real name and actually using it. But considering my issues with how I handle big changes, I think easing into it like this might be a good idea. When we talk to Bean, we use his real name about half of the time now. When we talk about Bean, we use his real name about 25% of the time. (Gotta be careful about not letting it slip in front of other people and spoiling the surprise.)

Just over two months now 'til we meet our boy, and then the rest of the world can call our Bean by his real name, too! Until then, if we're asked what we're naming the baby, we're not telling! So don't even try to guess. ;)