Plausible Deniability

With the last kid (Dylan) we knew what we wanted to name her (Dylan) pretty early on. We had to spend most of the pregnancy coyly deflecting the inquiries of friends, family, and strangers, all of whom grew increasingly determined to extract this information as the pregnancy progressed. This time we took a different strategy: not talking about it with each other. At all. For a whole bunch of months. That way when people have asked about our thoughts on names we can shrug and act like thinking of a name hasn't occurred to us. Which is possible, in one of our cases.

We have recently realized that time is short, and that this decision is possibly one task that would be good to accomplish soonish. Thusly we have been trying to focus in past few days. Here is our current status:

Kate: "Here is my list and these are my favorites and I especially like this one and this one and remember last time we talked you said you didn't like this for this reason and that for that reason and actually you don't remember that do you and I am ready to decide right now this very second okay?"

Aaron: **percolates**

Your votes in the polls have, of course, been enormously helpful, although there were suggestions of irregularities at times. The winner of each heat will be incorporated into our decision, and I'm sure little Onyong Tommy Humphrey Blumkin will enjoy hearing the origin of his name.

The baby pool is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. Aaron was hedging his bets because he secretly thought things would get rolling last weekend and missed the deadline entirely. I told him he could still enter and not be eligible for the prize, although I have some suspicion that he will use his insider knowledge and wait until I go into labor to enter. Maybe I should cut him out of the phone tree?

There weren't too many people betting against it being a boy. Public opinion also overwhelmingly approves of this option either because we need one ("Your husband must be so happy!") or because now we will have one of each, which greatly pleases people. Or maybe people just need something to say after they enthusiastically inquire about the sex, and it's a tough one to comment on without making yourself look a little silly.

I don't have anything left that I really need to do before the baby is born, but I still have a whole bunch of stuff I would like to do, so I an torn between being done done done (I got to the point today of switching to a rolling suitcase in place of a backpack to save my back, much to the amusement of my adoring husband and his coworkers) and just wanting another couple weeks to work. I've heard it may not actually be up to me how this goes, but that could be a rumor.