coulda, woulda, shoulda. that's kind of how i feel about my daughters name. i'm mostly focusing on the coulda than the latter. david and i were married just a few months before we had the "what kind of baby names (for the FUTURE) do you like?" conversation. we easily seized upon augustine isaac and olive adeline and never really faltered in that. well until round two when we had to come up with a second boys name and then we were just sort of ... about it all. i mean we'd settled on a name but i'm very grateful we didn't have another son because his name would have probably been rune, which i do not love anymore. i can't explain it well but i feel like augustine is so perfectly in line with what his name evokes. he's very kind, generous, sweet, and a real thinking type. olive on the other hand i feel does not nearly fit so well with what i feel her name FEELS like. to me an olive is quiet if not shy, sweet, bookish, etc. olive on the other hand, to pull a literary reference from divergent is dauntless. the girl is about to lose her THIRD tooth. none of them have been lost naturally. one to a cavity, another to a freak accident jumping off of a bed, and two weeks ago she bashed her face on another child's head. today i noted that it's starting to discolor. this will be the third tooth to go missing smack in the middle of her top teeth. &#$@!
i realize my vanity but it doesn't make me feel that much better to reflect on. i want a sweet little pigtailed child and instead i've got a sweet and ornery, pig-pen-from-charlie-brown little child who keeps bashing out her teeth. remember 2011 when my yearly goal/resolution/mantra was to give up the illusion that i can control other people? so glad i did that because i am revisiting that gleaned wisdom on the topic. olive is the spirited kid jumping off the top of the playhouse at school while the other kids watch her slack jawed.
see also: my grey hair
let me be very clear, i passionately love and delight in my daughter. she is hilarious, scrappy, adorable, so fun to try to keep up with. she's tough but sweet, and a total rascal. the point is that even almost 5 yrs later i'm still expecting her to line up with what i perceive her namesake to mean. it's silly, bordering on stupid but imma just being real here about my struggle. all of this to say that i feel like olive has a spirit name, which is ramona.
4 comments:
what about the daughter character, Olive in "Little Miss Sunshine"? She was quirky and fierce and outgoing and sparkling. It's such a fabulous name.
Though I feel you on the kiddo personality not really matching up with their "name personality", my eldest (Colin) is not really a Colin to me. Colin in my head is quiet and bookish as well, my Colin (who is a lot like your Olive!) seems like our second choice name: Emmett
It's funny how people form name associations. When I hear the name Olive I think of a kid who sounds a lot like your Olive. My daughter Eden is willful, funny and clumsy and those aren't characteristics I associate with her name. Maybe she has a spirit name too.
So interesting. My first and only is called Georgia. Which means farmer or farmer's wife. She has always loved being outside especially trees. She is only two but I will be interested to see how it develops. Sound wise, she is totally a Georgia. And just this week she has begun to say Elodie, her middle ( Elly, actually!).
I also have a daughter named Olive, and she is not quiet, sweet, or bookish!! They arrive on this earth with their own personality and I guess we have to learn to embrace their strenghts & weaknesses. :) It's a beautiful name no matter what!
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