I'm almost done reading my book here at the beach, "The Time Traveler's Wife". It is just so good to soak up the sun with a good book. Today, Henry and Clare had a baby girl in my book, and it wasn't until two weeks before she was born that they chose her name. I loved this chapter...they were spitting out names and looking up their meanings. Of course, I had my own little time travel - in my mind- back to a conversation that Bailey, Brody and I just had yesterday.
Here we go...We were walking along the beach, joking about what if Bradley and I were to have more babies. Brody would love that, but not Bailey. She is just fine being the only princess in our family. But immediately, she said, it would be a Cooper or a Delaney. That led us into this great conversation about names. I asked Bailey if she liked her name and she said an emphatic "yes!" Of course, Brody chimed in just the same. She was almost an "Emerson" and she likes that name, but told me that she is very happy being a Bailey. I told her that I never really liked my name when I was growing up (sorry Daddy). My brother has a very important family name, James Andrew Gore III. He was a promised fulfilled to my grandfather, the Sr., and just in case you want to know, the IV has been born and he'll be 12 this year. Back to our conversation....I was telling Bailey that my brother Jamie got to have 2 names - his long one and then the one we all called him, Jamie. But everyone called me Elaine and that was my middle name. But my Aunt Jane started calling me Lainie when I was little and I LOVED IT! I have always wanted that to just be my real name. Don't get me wrong, I love who I am named for, my Aunt Elaine who passed away when she was only 8 years old from brain cancer. In my mind-time-traveling state, I often wish I could have met her. She was a beautiful little girl with beautiful ringlet curls all over her head. My niece Chloe has her hair. Anyway...I love that I was named for her, but to me Lainie just fits my personality.
It was then that Bailey asked me if she would be the next to have twins. I told her that it was definitely possible. Twins skip generations in my family. My Mamms had a twin brother, Robert. I have a twin brother, Jamie...so Bailey could be the next to have twins. WOW...just consider this time warp conversation. Bailey, almost 11 years old next week, begins to tell me that she'd like to keep the B's going. She will name the twins Bradie Rebecca (for the girl) and Brett Lee (for the boy). Rebecca is a family name for both the Thomas side and the Gore side. Lee is her Grandad Thomas's middle name and one we wanted to pass along, but just didn't have enough kids for that. Bailey has seemed to settle on the fact that she too will have boy and girl twins. I tell her that Daddy and I will love them and we'll come and help her when she has them. And then we begin to talk about the day when her kids are running around on the beach with us. I happen to ask if she knows her husband's name just in case. She just responds with an "ew..no!" That's enough to make a mom of an 11 year old girl smile. :)
And just like that, we're back to 2009...it's time to come in and make dinner. Just as we're about to leave the beach, she looks over at me and says, "Mom, if I really have twins some day, I'm gonna need your photographic memory to help me remember what I want to name them, ok?" I smile and say, "I've got ya covered, girlie." What a conversation filled with many different periods of time and locations - memories of the past and hopes of ones to come.
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