She Who Must Be Named

The last 24 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind. Last night the kids and I sat on the balcony and wet the baby's head - me with beer, them with coke spiders. And cheese toasties for everyone.

With all the rushing around, all I can say is thank god for family because with the CEO of Devereaux Incorporated out of the office it's fallen to me to get kids, and their lunches, to school. And to do their hair.

Because their hair has been Tracey's primary concern I have included photos here of my efforts, for your and her perusal. I don't think I'm in any danger of Tracey handing over the hair reigns to me - I mean check out the zigzag pattern at the back of Miss8's head. But the big flowers cover most of their heads so the embarrassment is kept to a minimum.

After a night of deep thought and soul searching (and me bending her arm up behind her back to finally make a decision) Tracey has made up her mind.

Not to be petty, but I should like to point out at this juncture the name we ended up with is the exact name, spelling and all, we were batting around six months ago. Trouble was we almost called Molly the same name and Tracey feels like she's giving our new bub, the youngest of five girls (and who is therefore going to be the Hand-me-down Queen) a hand me down name.

This is why I've historically named the kids: I'm decisive - although outside of baby naming they've not all been fantastically good decisions, I'll admit. But I would have settled this six months ago and we could have been arguing about lots of other stuff instead.

Also we wanted to name our new bub for our dear departed friend Christopher - only she came out with internal plumbing and we weren't sure about Christine or Christina (lovely names though they are). In the end we decided to honour him with the middle name and used his preferred spelling of Chriss.

After months and months of indecision, this morning when I asked Tracey what we're to call our new bub she said, "I don't know. What do you think? What do you want to call her?"

A little psychology was needed. "Morticia," I said. Or Wednesday. Any of the Addams Family names would  have sufficed for this purpose. Actually I admit I've done this before, scaring mine and Tracey's parents by suggesting Fester for a boy. I still think Fester Devereaux has a ring to it. At least it had the desired response of forcing Tracey's hand.

"Eww...really? No."

"Gertrude? Mabel?" Both popular early last decade I'm sure, but not so much now.

"I think I like Emily," she blurted out.

"But with Morticia we could call her Morty for short. That's so sweet."

"Emmy for short. Emily Chriss. I've made a decision." Hallelujah!

Well done Tracey. A beautiful name for a beautiful little girl.

And take your time in coming home to this wonderful chaos. Remember, if necessary the really bad knots can be cut out ;)