Names

I found a new blog today, and I love it. It's at the top of "Blogs I Read" on my sidebar. A followed a link on Two Peas to an Ebay description and discovered this hilarious woman. She had a link to her blog, and I've been reading it for hours. I am in awe of her humor writing abilities. And the fact that she can even find the right letters on her keyboard with six kids being, well, kids.

I loved growing up in a big family. Sure, they all got on my nerves most of the time, and I still crave alone time, but my overall memories are very fond. I would not change it for the world. I love the whole dynamic of big families. I am fascinated by the Duggars and their seventeen. I love the atmosphere of a full house and lots of children of varied ages running around.

I'm also fascinated by names. One of my favorite timewasters is to come up with lists of names for the big family in the book I'm never going to get around to writing. JK Rowling said once that she collects names, which is why so many of her characters have such unusual and yet fitting monikers. I tend to mentally collect groups of names. More specifically, I'm interested in naming patterns in siblings. That kind of makes it sound all scientific study-ish. It's not. It's just something I'm drawn to. When I find out someone has more than one child, I need to know their names. When someone has siblings, I need to know names and birth orders.

I am, at the same time, immensely grateful that I don't have lots of children. Naming them and raising them are pretty far apart on the spectrum. I'm content with what I have, thank you very much. And I'm pretty happy with how The Boy has turned out so far. I couldn't get that lucky a second time, much less taking four more chances after that. Nope, I've got a good life. This empty nesting thing is getting better and better every day. All I need now is a job.