What's in a Name?

I am almost 32 weeks pregnant and basically this bub could come anytime now. Am I organised? Hell, no! I have however started to accumulate the baby singlets and Bonds suits, wraps and baby towels, the bassinet is now assembled, as is all the other nursery furniture, yet my hospital bag is still to be packed.

This is bub number three, gender to be a surprise, and you would assume I would be a little more organised than this but one of our main dilemmas this time around is something a little more important - deciding on a name. After two little girls with beautifully exotic Italian first and middle names (my sister-in-law described them as sounding like glamorous Italian movie stars!), it is especially hard finding a new set of names should this baby be another girl. Our boys names have changed each time too - the original ones didn't sound as good when I did the playground test - you know, where you scream them out (after the girls names) as you pretend to be rounding them up at the playground.

What to do when we have exhausted our four favourite girls names? Someone suggested recycling the middle names ("no one ever uses them anyway") but I couldn't do that. We have found a couple of new names we had never considered before and think we may have found a winner. Adding to the pressure is that our little girls have cute nicknames - Gigi & Lulu - so we needed to find a name we could shorten suitably to two syllables to go with these two.

Our boys middle name is unchanged - named in honour of my husband's late father - so there is also the need to ensure the name we choose goes with this name as well. I would love to use my father's name but ironically, his name is very similar to my married surname so this would leave a little boy open to ridicule. Think John Johnson, or Tom Thompson, or Allen Allan (no offence if this is your name). My father does not mind that we won't be using his name - funnily enough, he has grown up with such a double name (I married a man with a surname not unlike my maiden name - are you lost yet?). Phew, this name business is hard work.

Just to give you a glimpse of how hard choosing names can be, hubby and I were discussing our names tonight - basically my job was to scour the baby name books and create a short list and then run them by him. Here is a sample of the conversation - and a perfect example of why I prefer to keep my baby names close to my chest until the little tacker arrives:

Me: "How about Mica?"
He: "That sounds like a car"
Me: "What about Milo?"
He: "That's sounds like a dog"
Me: "Levi?"
He: "Jeans"
Me: "Leonardo?"
He: "Di Capprio"
Me: "Paloma?"
He: "Sounds like a horse"
Me: "Adrianna?"
He: "Adrienne!" (think bad Sylvester Stallone accent in Rocky)
Me: "Emilio?"
He: "Emilio!" (think even worse Will Ferrell in Night at the Roxbury)

See what I have to deal with....any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

The P-word and other related displays of anti social behaviour to our boys in blue

Last week we heard the story of an appearance by Justin Bieber being canned because police were concerned for the safety of the 5000 or so crowd of mostly unsupervised 13,14 & 15 year old girls. A vast majority of these girls had been dropped off by their parents in the early hours of the morning (ie just after midnight in alot of cases) and left to fend for themselves in the city as they awaited a glimpse of their idol. Girls who, when asked by police numerous times to stop pushing and surging forward to prevent injuries, basically ignored their requests and in many reported cases told the police where to shove it. Girls who, when the appearance was cancelled, went ballistic and blamed the police for being party poopers.

This week we hear the story of the magistrate who deemed the word "prick" to be inoffensive and a part of our modern day vocabulary and hence dismissed a claim against a young man who hurled this obscenity at a police officer who was simply doing his job.

Is it any wonder that the police don't sweat the small stuff, as one former top cop reported today, as why would they bother when they are dealing with both soft magistrates and belligerent youth. Whatever happened to respect? You may not like being pulled over for a breath test or being asked to move along in the interests of your and the people around you's safety but what kind of society are we becoming? I was brought up to respect the police and the job they do but I worry about the world we will be living in when my little girls are teenagers and the police are well and truly over it. We need to restore respect in our youth but I am not sure how we would go about that. I guess we need to start with the parents but if the majority of Justin Bieber fans' parents are anything to go by, what hope have we? Any thoughts?

Six Months in a Leaky Boat - give Jessica Watson her record!

I will be the first to admit that when I first heard the story about this 16 year old girl who wanted to sail around the world solo in a little boat, with her parents blessing, I was horrified. As a mother, I couldn't believe that her parents would let her sail off into the sunset at such a young age. I was scared for her safety, thought her parents irresponsible and was also swaying towards the camp that thought it would all go pear shaped and that our taxes would end up footing the bill to rescue this spoilt child who just wanted to go on this big adventure, without really thinking about the consequences.

My opinion changed a couple of weeks ago when I read a double page spread about Jessica and her family in the Saturday Telegraph.

Though not the type of upbringing I had, Jessica had a very interesting childhood. Home schooled and encouraged to go for her goals, she decided from a young age that she would embark on this expedition. She was also mature enough to realise it wasn't a Huckleberry Finn trip up the Mississippi River either. She studied hard the skills she needed to skipper her own craft, she put in countless hours of work experience with highly trained sailors and she was more than ready and prepared when she left the safety of her parents - with their full support and blessing - in October 2009.

As Jessica is on the home stretch of her trip - just shy of her 17th birthday - the press is reporting that her trip may not in fact set the record she had hoped and that in effect her trip was in vain. I could only imagine this would be heartbreaking for both Jessica, her family & everyone who has supported and sponsored her on her journey. Whatever the outcome of this new information, one thing is for sure - this courageous young woman set herself a goal - albeit a dangerous and ambitious one - and more power to her for achieving what she has. I will be telling my girls all about Jessica when she comes home in the next week or so and as they get older, I hope I will be as encouraging and supportive of their goals as Jessica's parents have been with her. Setting of goals and achieving them is a big part of life and well done Jessica for doing just that - you go girl!