After many hours of phone calls, at least 20 emails and all the 4-letter words I learned in the Navy we are finally up on our new ISP – Thank you Bluehost.com – which has great customer service and I highly recommend them. Posts will come far more frequently now and comments are encouraged although you do have to register – I promise no spam.
We know our Daughter’s new name
Despite having at least three naming books sitting on bookshelves for years as we waited for our referral we never really got around to selecting a name. Partly this was because the process seemed so unreal at times and partly because we didn’t know how old our daughter would be nor how pronounceable the name given to her by the orphanage would be.
So when were told our daughter’s name, Cen Li Meng, (pronouned Shun Lee Mung) by our social worker, Nancy, we started thinking about names for the first time, or at least I did, although Catherine may have spent a few minutes (translation days) thinking about names prior to that moment. So we tried out a variety of options, some more interesting than others, all of which we rejected. Among the names that we decided didn’t fit were: Millicent which sounded like a really small rap artist, which our daughter may be but we’ll let her decide that herself; An unspellable and unpronounceable Welsh name; and finally the endless variations of girl state names – Virginia, Georgia, Dakota, etc – because geography class is hard enough without the entire 4th grade making jokes at your expense.
So this morning over dim sum, which seemed somewhat appropriate, her new name which is a mix of her existing Chinese name and an easily pronounceable western name came together effortlessly. Or at least part of it did, the whole last name mess is still being negotiated – hyphen or no hyphen. Unfortunately Howie Mandel won’t be giving us a prize depending on our answer to that question. Or course our choice will affect her every time she fills out a standardized test or goes to the doctor.
Anyway, Elizabeth Li is what we’ll call her, with the nickname of Li Li (pronounced Lee-Lee). Now the big question will be what the order of her last names will be and whether or not they’ll be hyphenated.
Hopefully we’ll get pictures of her this week and travel by January or early February. Ciao, Thom
Maggie soon to be relegated to Dog Status
It will come as a shock to the queen of the mopey face that before long she will be a dog once again. Maggie will be great with Elizabeth because she has already learned that babies and toddlers taste good.
And by that I mean Maggie knows that babies and toddlers always have stuff in their hands or are dropping stuff on the floor. Plus she has a gentle mouth and isn’t protective of her food. Of course we’ll be watching her very carefully for a long time but of all the things that we could worry about, wondering how Maggie will react to our daughter isn’t on our increasingly long list. -t
We Know our Daughter’s Name
We found out our daughter’s name this week. Cen Li Meng from Jiang Xi province. We don’t know when we will travel but we do know it won’t be soon enough. No photos yet but hopefully next week.
