In case I haven’t talked to you in a while, we’re having our second (and LAST) child; it’s a girl. It’s also nearly here — we’re in the final waiting days.

I’ve been mostly involved in the whole process so far; I go to all the OB appts, Mel and I have talked about the birth-plan, and I’m somewhat educated on the process (enough that I know some buzzwords and am able to ask some questions to our OB).

In spite of all that, it really hadn’t hit me that we’re going to have a little girl until Melissa made this:

Wow.

I’m going to have a daughter soon.

I’m excited about it, of course. The completionist in me is happy that we’re having a girl because now we have one kid of each gender, and our household is 2-and-2, so Mel and I will get the full parenting experience.

I think raising a little girl will be a nice combination of bewildering and exciting. I hope I can be a strong male figure in her life so she isn’t statistically inclined to end up dating assholes. I’m also happy that Mel will have a little girl to raise and do girly-crafty-things with; I think she gets worn out on all the testosterone in this house sometime — especially when I do “guy-things” like teach Sullivan the “pull my finger” game. (Her response: “Not at the dinner table!”)

We still haven’t decided on a name yet — I’m of a mind that I don’t want to name something I haven’t seen yet. I think there’s a lot of significance in the name you choose for people — they’ll have it their whole life and it’s how they will be addressed by others. An ideal name, in my opinion, is one that is both aurally pleasant (in the context of their FULL name) and also meaningful or significant. If we can’t provide our daughter with some kind of reason about why we picked out her name, then I think we didn’t put enough thought into it.

With Sullivan, there were several names we were considering. Sullivan was one of them. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my first pick, but when the Doctor handed him to me, he had these deep dark irises, and it just seemed like the name was perfect. (Sullivan is an Irish name that means “dark eyes”). His full name, “Sullivan Raymond Hill” has a nice rhythm to it (3 syllables, then 2, then 1) — I can sing pretty much any song to him using only his name. His middle name comes from my maternal grandfather, who passed away two months before he was born. (My cousin Andrew’s middle name is also named after that same grandfather).

We’ve talked about giving “Zag” (her working title) the middle name “Sylvia”, after Melissa’s maternal grandmother — I like that name. I actually wouldn’t mind it as a first name except that it sounds an awful lot like Sullivan. I wouldn’t mind “Marie” as the middle name, since that’s a common middle name in my family.

Melissa likes the first names “Zelda”, “Zarida”, “Astrid” and a couple others like that.

I like “Freja” (or possibly “Freya” — both pronounced “FRAY-yuh”), “Alice”, and “Ester” (yes, “Ester” is a chemistry joke ).

Hard to say at this point. We’ll just wait and see what she looks like. Sullivan’s name is very fitting for him, and I’d like to give Zag a fitting name as well.

We’ve got most of our birth contingency plan ready — we’re delivering at Oxford’s McCullough-Hyde hospital; it’s about 45 minutes away. Our OB is terrific. We’ve got a babysitter for Sullivan, a bag packed and a list made, but I don’t think we’re QUITE prepared yet.

Melissa just made shoes tonight; also for Zag.

Today, while we were sitting on the porch in the early evening, the baby kicked so hard I could literally see the outline of part of her foot on Mel’s belly. We got a video of it but I’m waiting for Mel to upload it to her FlickR account. It’s freaky. She thinks it will discourage people from having sex if they saw it.

I still haven’t fully processed what next month is going to be like, with two kids. Sullivan is pretty independent, but still demands a lot of our time. (With “woks” to the “pike”, and making him “tohss”, and lots of “sit?” and “porch?” He also recently developed this over-active imagination that sees monkiss (monsters) everywhere.)

Even though I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep or relaxing…at all…, it’ll be nice to have a vacation. Full of baby.

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