Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

Things will be so different this time around. As much as having Kiran was the best thing to ever happen to me, the circumstances were so difficult to overcome that I feel like I'm getting a second chance this time. Bringing Kiran home and beginning our lives together was exhilarating, but I can't help to look back on all the ways in which his birth was the hardest time of my life. For one thing, I was still in the middle of tremendous grief, having lost my mom just six months prior. I mean, preggo hormones are bad enough without dealing with the shock of losing a mother and becoming a mother in such a short time. What compounded the loss was the fact that I was left in charge of cleaning out her house (my childhood home), settling her financial affairs (pain in the arse), and driving back and forth to Stockton by myself with a five-week-old to meet with estate lawyers--all in the first sweltering days of Stockton's early summer. Needless to say, I did a lot of nursing in pa

The answer: I don't know, since we still haven't picked one out. We had just as hard a time picking out Kiran's name, which means 'ray of light' in Hindi. Given that I had just had a very dark year, he was indeed my ray of light. This time around, I'm still stumped. I've looked at lists of Spanish names to represent my side of his heritage, but I hate all the Spanish names I've seen. I mean, there are about ten male Spanish names that are used over and over again, and does the world really need another Miguel? American names are okay, but the naming websites are ridiculously full of Aidens, Braedens, and Jadens. So. We are back to considering Indian names, which we weren't going to do a second time, but there you have it. We have a list going, and although I know that most parents are pretty tight-lipped about their naming choices prior to the birth, I'm putting ours out there and asking--no, begging--for advice and suggestions. So...In order of