The Middle Name Game

INGRID THOFT
My standard email sign off is “IPT.”  I always include my middle initial because I don’t want to be the title of a Stephen King novel.  Recipients sometimes try to guess what the “P” stands for, and they are never successful.  Pamela?  Patricia?  Polly?  Nope.

In my family, we were all given family surnames for our middle names, which didn’t seem to be the norm among our friends.  So what does the “P” stand for?

Porter, and its origin is as unorthodox as the name itself.  My father had two middle names, one of which was Porter.  Family lore is that when his mother was being wheeled into the delivery room to give birth to him in their tiny Montana town, Dr. Porter happened to walk by.  He wasn’t my grandmother’s doctor, but she promised if it was a boy, she would name the child after him.  She wasn’t even under the influence of any narcotics!  I suppose she liked the name, and that’s how I became a Porter.

What about you, Reds?  What is your middle name?  Is it your maiden name?  Do you like it or do you wish a different middle name had been bestowed upon you?

RHYS BOWEN: My middle name is Elizabeth. I love the name and was planning to switch to it when I went to college, but chickened out at the last minute . Always regretted that!
My father's middle name was Newcombe, and I wish he'd passed that on to me. Or named me after my fabulous French great-grandmother Josephine who married at 17, had 14 children, still looked like a teenager at 40 and crossed the globe alone at 80 to join her daughter in Australia.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Rhys, one of the couples who run the farm we get our CSA from had a baby Josephine this winter! I was delighted to see the name reappear after a long time in abeyance.

My middle name is Jeanne, which I've always loved, since "Julia Jeanne" has a pleasing resonance to it. My first name is in honor of my father's mother, Jewel Spencer, and my father wanted to give me the same middle name as my mom, Jean. She demurred, until they came up with a compromise: same name, French spelling. Now the Smithie's middle name is Jean. We'll see if it turns up with a different spelling in the next generation.

As near as I can tell, middle names are primarily a way for your mother to signal something is REALLY important. As in, "Julia Jeanne, don't tell me you missed the bus again this morning!" Oddly enough, I say this to myself now, when I forget something or make a boneheaded move. "Julia Jeanne, I can't believe you forgot your shopping bags again." It's true, we do become our mothers.

JENN MCKINLAY: Julia, yes! When we were naming the Hooligans, I said to the Hub, "I have to shout it so that I know it sounds like I mean business." He thought I was crazy, so maybe it's a mom thing. I also shoved my maiden name in there so they both have four names, which driver license and passport issuers just love - not. My middle name is Adelia after my maternal grandmother. I love it since "Jennifers" populated the 80's pretty hard and this was a nice change from all of the other Jennifers who inexplicably all had Marie for a middle name. Plus, my initials were JAM - how can you beat that?

HALLIE EPHRON: I always wanted my middle name to be my first name. Elizabeth. Like, you know, Elizabeth Taylor. And yes, Hallie Elizabeth is what my parents called me when they were issuing orders. What I hated were my initials. HE or HEE. Hee hee hee.

Our daughters are Naomi Samantha and Molly Kate. LOVE the names. When Naomi went to summer camp for the first time, she told everyone her name was Samantha. "Call me Sam." And they did, for two weeks. 

I just had to include this baby.  What a great start to the week!

LUCY BURDETTE: When you have a first name like Roberta (a mouthful, right?), it's good to have an easy middle name. Hence, Ann. One syllable, plain, no mix-ups when you tell someone (except for the pesky question of whether there's an "e" at the end or not.) This name was borrowed from my mother's sister, Barbara Ann, so we always bonded over that. When our daughter was pregnant with her second child, there was a lot of jockeying over prospective names. (They chose not to know the sex until birth.) Ann was popular for a while because both grandmothers have it as middle names, so they could have pleased everyone at once! Didn't need it when Henry was born...

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Of course nothing is simple. Roberta, my middle name is Ann, too. My first name is Harriet. A completely perfect name now, Harriet, and I wish I had kept it.  But when you are 8 and all the cool girls are Debbie and Linda, you do NOT want to be geeky-already without-the-baggage-of-a-terrible-name Harriet. 

So I went by Ann. Or, when I realized about Princess Anne, Anne. OR when I was cool at 16, An. Yes, like the article. It was SO sad.

My parents last name was Landman, so to make things even more terrible,  Ann Landman sounded way too much like--right. Ann Landers. Ha ha ha. Gah.  So when they gave me Hank in college, whoever did, that stuck. 

But I know a good name when I hear one, so I named my characters the names I wished for myself: Charlotte Jane (McNally) and  Jane Elizabeth (Ryland.)  (Now, thinking about that, those names don't fit me at all. I just wish they did.)


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, I am SO boring. All the DEBORAHs in my generation seemed to have been either Deborah Lynn or Deborah Ann, and I am, you guessed it, a Lynn. In my early teen days, when I hated Debbie with a passion, I wanted to be called Lynn. Fortunately, it never stuck. But I still hate Debbie, so unless you are my aunt, my cousins, or my mother-in-law (who's known me since I was a teen) please don't call me Debbie. (Or cupcakes...) Plus, I was a DD, as in Debbie Darden. Ouch. I named my daughter Katharine Claire, and, so far, at least, she's never complained about either.

Your turn, Readers!  What's your middle moniker?

Motherhood Is Not for the Weak by Jenn McKinlay

Several years ago, the Hub called me from work and said, "Darlin', I have a problem."

"What's up?" I asked.

"The cat peed in my shoes," he said.

I put my hand over my mouth so he couldn't hear me laugh. Chubs was our sixteen-year-old cat, who had been with me since college. He was technically my first born -- yes, even though he had fur he was still my baby. 

Chubs - before senility kicked in

"I'm sitting at my desk," he said. "And I keep smelling this awful stink. I'm sniffing and sniffing and finally I realize it's my shoe."

Now I had to hold the phone away from my mouth so he couldn't hear me howl.

"I can't even imagine how many people I've offended today," he said.

"You poor thing," I said. "You know Chubs is senile. You have to watch where you put your shoes. He thinks they're mini litter boxes."

"Yeah, I know," he said.

"Tell you what," I said. "The boys will be up in a few minutes and we'll come by and bring you a fresh pair of shoes."

"And socks?" he asked.

"Sure."

"I love you," he said.

"As you should," I said.

About two weeks after this, I was sitting at my desk and I started to smell this hideous stink. It would assault my senses and disappear. I sniffed my Keds. Yep. Chubs got my shoes. Normally, I could roll with the pet and child shenanigans, but on that day I fell into a funk and stayed that way. A real mean red sort of a day.

I told the Hub, "I don't know what's wrong with me, the boys are rambunctious, the puppy ate a Lego, and the cat peed in my shoes, you know, same old same old, but I can't shake this mood."

He looked at me with one eyebrow raised. We both knew that there were only two other times that I had had such black days. A couple of weeks after we conceived each child, I had a day where I just wanted to punch someone in the throat. I didn't, but I sorely wanted to.

Five days later (on April Fool's Day -- Ha ha! -- NOT) just to end the speculation, I bought a pregnancy test. It was one of those that took all three minutes for the second line to appear. Hub and I stood there shaking our heads. "That can't be right."

I went out to the store and bought two more. This time I ponied up the money for the digital kind that said, "Pregnant or Not pregnant." Both said "Pregnant." 

Hub was delighted and I was catatonic. How could this have happenend? I had finally, after months of waffling, gotten to the place where I was done making babies. I'd given away all of my maternity clothes, baby clothes and was just beginning to unload the baby furniture. 

The next week was a rollercoaster of emotions, riding up the anticipatory ramp of "oh, a baby" to hurtling down the backside of "oh, gees, I have to give birth again". Up and down from pure joy to utter despair and back again. Then I woke up one day, and I knew something was dreadfully wrong. I sobbed, "But I don't want to lose this baby." 

Despite my catatonic state, I had started shopping for a pregnancy journal and had bickered over names with the Hub three times. Hooligan 2, who was not quite two, had demanded to read the book _The New Baby_ every night. He picked it out on his own which I took as a good sign that he'd be okay as the middle child. Hooligan 1 had begun lobbying to name the baby Thomas the Tank Engine. 

I called my doctor and he rushed me in to see what was up. Hub and the boys came with me. The Doc talked to us about what was happening and then they left me to change into the lovely paper outfit you get to wear for an examination. I disrobed, taking off my shoes first. The stink hit me right between the nostrils and I almost doubled over. The cat had peed in my shoes! 

So now this wonderful man, Dr. Cohen, who had brought both of my sons into the world, was going to have to sit in between my feet which reeked of cat pee and give me an exam. Is there a nastier smell? How does one explain this to one's ObGyn? "It's not really me. My cat peed in my shoes." Uh huh. Yeah, I said nothing and hoped he wouldn't notice. Right.

When the Doc finished his exam, he pronounced me about six weeks along but there were some concerns, and I would have to be monitored closely. He left and the Hub and the boys returned to the exam room. Hub's nose wrinkled and he asked, "What is that smell?"

"Chubs peed in my shoes," I said.

"Naturally," he sighed. "Did you tell the Doc?"

"I couldn't really work it in," I said.

Doc returned and mapped out all of the possible scenarios. We braced ourselves for the worst. Unable to contain myself or even try to be cool, I blurted out that our cat was senile and had peed in my shoes.

"One cup hydrogen peroxide, one tablespoon baking soda and one drop of liquid hand soap," Doc said. "That will take the cat pee smell out of anything."

I tried it later that day and he was right. It completely wiped out the smell. Amazing.

Sadly, I eventually lost the baby. Hub and I were crushed. We didn't even know we wanted another until the dumb stick said it was a go. Our poor senile cat passed away the following year, and the Lego eating puppy lived a full life, chasing the hooligans around, until she, too, went over the rainbow bridge many years later. 

In the end, it turned out there were no more babies for us, but at least I got a cure all recipe for removing cat pee stank and we went on to adopt two kittens, who are now old cranky cats but at least they don't pee in our shoes, two more puppies, a fish who won't die, and, of course, King George, our latest rescue kitten. 


Why am I sharing this story on Mother's Day? Because I am the grandmaster of the overshare? Maybe. But I think it's because this was my first real loss as a Mom, and it was a staggering loss. It gave me a deeper understanding of the emotional cost of motherhood, even if it was just for the few weeks of a possibility and not, in this case, an eventuality. As the hooligans perch on the precipice of departure and all of my pets age, I know I am in for more losses, and that's okay, that's how it's supposed to be. Motherhood, of any kind, I have discovered is not for the weak. Also, the recipe for curing cat pee stink really works. You're welcome.




Happy Mother's Day to you and yours, be they finned, feathered, furry, or not!