Damon stuff

There's a lot I never posted about Damon, such as how we chose his name.

As many of you know, there's a lot of thought and pickiness that goes into our naming process. We have many specifications that a name must have, so there's definitely an elimination process that happens even before preference comes into play.

Criteria include:

-Gender obvious

-Obviously spelled

-Obvious (correct) pronunciation

-Established name: nothing made up (nix on Quaiden or Fraiden)

-No direct, immediate nickname (aka, no David/Dave, Steven/Steve, etc.)

-More than 1 syllable

-Different first initial from other family members

-No sound slurring (aka, can't end in the first sound of his next name: so, LucaS-Steven or Caleb-Brown were out)

-Different first name from other immediate family members or close extended family (this pared it down a lot)

At some point while we were pouring over baby naming sites and books, it became evident that, as similar and compatible as Steven and I are, our male naming preferences were not quite as aligned as I would have assumed. Some of my favorite names were vetoed before the first cut, for reasons I still don't understand, but hope go away in case we ever have another boy.

However, we did at some point start to lean toward D names...something about them sounded right. And it so happened that for Christmas I gave Steven a book of short stories by one of my favorite authors, Damon Runyon. This put the name on our radar. While our other kids have Spanish names, Damon is actually a Greek name: Damon was a character in Greek mythology who was a selfless friend who stood in to be executed in his friend Pythias's place (both were eventually pardoned); Damon, son of Damonides was a Greek musicologist and teacher of Pericles. It passed our other conditions, and we both liked it. It sounded well with the names of our other children. For a while, Steven was holding out on commitment for something more revelatory, but the night after Damon was born I called him from the hospital to let him know his time was up - the baby was here, and we had to decide. In my head I had started referring to him as Damon, and it fit. While neither of us felt the same confirmation about the name as we did for, say, Carmen (who is indisputably a Carmen, if anyone ever was), Damon's a good Damon, and we're happy with it. And him.

Now enough talk. Time for some pictures!

Here's Damon's beautiful hair swirl. A lot of it is rubbed off now, but I sure loved it.

And here he is sitting next to his cousin, and showing how he has his mommy's scowl (I'm so proud!)

And here he is looking dapper in the blessing outfit I made him. This is the last time he will wear it, as I had to peel it off of him - I just needed one good picture before I put it away, to be worn again at some fabled day by another fabled little boy.

He's a happy boy, and I'm a happy mommy.