Marsa Joyoy

A member of one of my facebook groups recently posted a meme thing that has been going the rounds in her circles, saying that you have recently given birth to a daughter and her name must be the first three letters of your mother's name plus the last two letters of your own name.

So, announcement: I am now the mother of a baby girl named Marsa.

Marsa fit in pretty well with the names the other ladies in the group got. But then I tried out the same formula with my sisters' names. And what did they get? Maria. Marte. Maryn.

Every single one of those is a real, reasonably normal name. Unfair!

I was able to console myself with the results I got when I gender-flipped it and used my dad's and brothers' names: Ranam and Ranll. At least Marsa has a decent vowel/consonant distribution.

After that, I played around a bit with other family names. When I was born, I guess I really should have been named Loule or Dorle. And Dad was supposed to have been Othnd. (The men in my family aren't doing too well with name pronouncability, are they?)

My favorite is probably what came up when I moved on to middle names: Joyoy.

Maybe I will name my daughter using this method. After all, who would want to be called Martha Joy or Margaret Joy or Miriam Joy if they could be known as Marsa Joyoy?

Relations

There are 31 cousins on my mother's side of the family with an age range of about 20 years. I am number 16. Right in the middle.

People speak of middle child syndrome often enough that I expect all my American readers to have at least heard of the concept. Is there a middle grandchild syndrome that I should be displaying signs of? No? Okay, then.

Anyway. My cousins.

When I was small I remember the oldest of my cousins seeming so far away from where I was, and I'm not referring to geographic distance. They were so high above me that it didn't even occur to me to try to really connect with them. My experience with the younger cousins was similar - they were too little so we had nothing in common. I pretty much ignored both groups a lot of the time because our worlds were just so different.

But now the age difference doesn't seem nearly so large. I feel like I can relate to them, older and younger. Not perfectly, of course, but enough to be friends.

Marriage Gap Stats

Last night I got to flipping through a packet of readings for one of my college classes and found some of the information in one of them pretty interesting and worth sharing. So, for your information and reading pleasure:


Husbands with high-school dropout wives earned less than single men with comparable work and education histories. The chapter did not mention how much less.
Husbands with wives with just a high-school diploma earned 4.3 times as much as comparable single men.
Husbands with college educated wives earned almost 12 percent more than comparable single men.

The effects were shown whether or not they had children and whether or not the wives were employed, although I don't know whether the amount of the difference changed across those conditions. I also don't know what sort of difference the level of college education makes.

Parenthood Matters

I've actually had a couple other posts in the works for a while, but one of the talks in Sacrament Meeting today reminded me of something I had noticed during General Conference. It's pretty short and easy to put together, so I'm posting it first.

In the Saturday afternoon session Elder Neil L. Andersen said:

Many voices in the world today marginalize the importance of having children or suggest delaying or limiting children in a family. My daughters recently referred me to a blog written by a Christian mother (not of our faith) with five children. She commented: "[Growing] up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood. ...Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get." She then adds, "Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for."

The next morning Elaine S. Dalton said:

Today's popular culture tries to erode and demean your eternal role as a patriarch and father and minimize your most important responsibilities. These have been given to you by divine design, and as fathers you are to preside over [your] families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for [your] families.

So two different people in two different talks said basically the same things about mothers and fathers. We need both. Motherhood and fatherhood are both divine callings, more important than any other responsibility we will have on this earth. And the world and Satan are working to minimize the importance of both.

I also found it interesting for some reason that a man said the bit about motherhood and a woman said the part about fatherhood. But I think I'll not read much  into it for now.

And for those of you who want to read the messages in full, I did some searching and found the blog that Elder Andersen quoted. It is desiringgod.org/blog. That particular entry is titled Motherhood Is a Calling (And Where Your Children Rank). Elder Andersen's talk can be found here; Sister Dalton's is here.

Best Friends Forever

It's confession time again.

Sometimes I like to read those dating and relationship articles on MSN.com. It's mostly an entertainment thing. After all, most of those articles are one person's opinion and experiences presented as absolute truth. I definitely am not going to go date a guy who is all wrong for me but has great abs just because some online writer put that on a list of things to do before I get married And it's fun to laugh at the lists of 50 things women wish men knew - about half of which are blatantly untrue. For me, at least.

But mixed in there are some not so fun ones. Griping, bitter ones. Lists of annoying things that couples say or do. I sometimes read those ones too. And most of the things listed I see nothing wrong with. But the one I least understood was on a list of annoying relationship cliches.

"I married my best friend."

I was a little bit stunned to see that on there because I had always thought it was about the most romantic sentiment out there. After all, who doesn't want to be married to somebody who always has their back, whose company they enjoy, and around whom they can feel completely comfortable just being themselves? Then I read the commentary on it:

"Of this, a married girlfriend of mine writes, 'Oh, you're so unique! Your spouse is your BEST FRIEND? Wow. My husband is probably my favorite person to spend time with, but … I have a lot of great friends in my life.' This one is true. Perhaps your spouse is your closest friend, or your best guy friend, but he doesn't have to be your end-all, be-all. So stop making other people feel bad."

So what exactly do these people think a best friend is? Evidently not your closest friend or your favorite person to be with. No, a best friend is apparently supposed to be your only friend. An idea I thought everybody had grown out of by adulthood.

It's About Love

Over the last several days I've had an unprecedented spike in page views. It's been a bit bizarre for me to think of the sheer quantity of people, most likely complete strangers, who found their way over here.

Today during church I thought of a way I could take advantage of this sudden wave of popularity. No, I'm not Monetizing. Notice the lack of ads on the page.

My cousin Bob and his wife want to be parents. They are trying to adopt but need a birth parent to choose them for their child. If you are in a position to place a child for adoption, or if you know somebody who is, please look at their profile. It has a message from them, pictures, and answers to some get-to-know-you questions. I have had a link up on my left sidebar for a while now and it will remain there so you can find it easily should you become aware of a situation where it might prove useful (that sentence sounds very clunky but I can't think of a better way to phrase it at the moment).

Any child placed with them would be loved and cherished. Please give them the chance to fill that spot in their home and their hearts.

Home Sweet Home

I never want to move in with my parents again. I am an adult, I have experienced life on my own, and I like a certain amount of independence. When I moved back in after a year in the dorms, I hated the feeling of returning to childhood. And I would hate it even more if I did it again.

The fact that there aren't a whole lot of people my age living in my parents' neighborhood doesn't help.

But the thought of never again starting to randomly break into song and dance with my sisters on a random boring afternoon or evening is unpleasant. I guess you do always have to give something up.

Love

The first time I fell in love, it was through the internet.

My mom forwarded me an email she got from her brother, telling about how Cousin* went into labor, and Little Boy Cousin was born. I don't remember all the details in the email, but I think there was a basketball game involved in the story. But the important thing was the overwhelming feeling I got when I read Little Boy's name. Right then, I realized that it really is possible to love somebody you have never seen before.

Other baby cousins have come since them, and I love them all, but Little Boy Cousin is always going to be special because of that moment I had in the computer lab at the dorms.

*Names have been changed because I wanted to.

Destination: Unknown

Once upon a time, Hitler was a baby. His mother probably passed him around to friends and relatives, who would coo at him and tickle him and exclaim over his giggles. Then he got older. He was a toddler and a little boy who got excited about showing off his toys. The same is true about men like Gordon B. Hinckley and Abraham Lincoln.

I've thought about this before, but the concept struck me with a little more force yesterday after I spent some time with my cousin's little boys. You really can't look at a baby and know where he is going to end up. For me, I can't very well imagine either of my cousin's sons to end up as Hitler or Hinckley, but I can see them as ordinary young men- nice guys who try to do good. Then again, I doubt Lincoln's relatives imagined he would end up president of the United States when he was a toddler.