On Monday, August 24 at 7:02 PM our second child was born. To our great surprise, he was a boy. We didn't actually find out the gender beforehand, but I was as sure as could be that the baby was a girl, and managed to bamboozle my lovely wife into thinking the same thing.
As such, we were much better prepared to name a little girl than we were to name a little boy. We weren't wholly unprepared to name a boy, but we found out that what we thought was 'our' short list of boy names was really just a combination of the 'Bryce list' of boy names and the 'Karen list' of boy names, and that there was exactly zero overlap of the two lists when it actually came time to name the child.
In the midst of welcoming the beautiful new baby into our lives, then, we went through what turned out to be the fairly painful process of naming him. As a matter of fact, it took us the better part of two days to realize that we could not agree on any of the boy names on our short list. I'll put it to you this way, if you asked Karen whether it was harder to bring the baby into this world or to name him, she'd probably say that it was harder to bring him into the world, but she'd probably take a few moments to think about it.
Literally ten minutes before we were to check out of the hospital we had all the paperwork that we needed to leave the hospital filled out except for the boy's first and middle names. It wasn't until that point that we realized completely that none of the names on our short list would work. So--with ten minutes to H-hour--we decided to widen the scope a bit, and to take another look at a few names that we'd previously passed over.
A few minutes later we agreed to name the baby Davis Bram. Since we'd had a couple of close calls before--with Karen agreeing to a name and then changing her mind 10 minutes later, and before I had filled in the form for the birth certificate--I wrote Davis Bram down on the form (in ink) the instant that she gave it the green light. Shortly after that we were in the car taking the baby home for the first time and thinking about what a wonderful and crazy few days it had been.
Since we've had a few questions about the name itself, I'll take a moment to explain it. Davis is just a name that we like. It isnt' a family name of any kind, at least as far as we know. We like it because--like Jack--it is a classic name that has been around a long time and will--presumably--be around for a long time to come. We also liked the idea that that name isn't so uncommon that he will be the only Davis he ever knows in his life, and yet that it isn't so common that he will be one of five boys named Davis in his kindergarten class.
Bram is actually short for Abraham, at least in Holland (and the fact that neither Karen nor I are Dutch doesn't bother us in the least). I zeroed in on it because I thought it went well with Davis and our last name, but was really sold when I realized that it had some substance as well as style. We also like it because we think that the name has just a tiny little bit of edge, but that it isn't too 'out there' (and if you happen to disagree then we don't care anyway).
Suffice it to say we are absolutely thrilled with the little boy who has just joined our lives and are very happy with the name we chose for him (notwithstanding the adventure it was to name him).
This is our first picture as a family of 4.
Jack absolutely LOVES being a big brother.
As Jack would say, this picture is one of my "new favorites"--an instant classic to be sure.
Doesn't Karen look fantastic? I just can't get over how well she looks after just having given birth. She says the second time has been much easier than the first for her.
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