Role models

Yeah, OK, so mom already admitted she has a poster of fairies hanging up in the bedroom, which for the first moon or two will be Lil' Genghis' bedroom, too. Most kids like stuff like fairies.

dad has been hunting for the right artwork to influence the young lady. He has one or two things in mind -- strong, bold women, those uncompromising their ability to stand up to the "stronger" sex, those who know what they want to do and want to do it. Unfortunately, the original posters are out of print and not easily found today. But ...

Dear readers, it may be time to introduce you to Павличенко Людмила Михайловна, a Hero of the Soviet Union for her dedicated work during World War II.

Let us read farther:

Участница Великой Отечественной войны с июня 1941 - доброволец. В составе Чапаевской дивизии участвовала в оборонительных боях в Молдавии и на юге Украины. За хорошую подготовку ее направили в снайперский взвод. С 10 августа 1941 года в составе дивизии участвует в героической обороне города Одессы. В середине октября 1941 года войска Приморской армии вынуждены были оставить Одессу и эвакуироваться в Крым для усиления обороны города Севастополя - военно-морской базы Черноморского флота. 250 дней и ночей Людмила Павличенко провела в тяжелых и героических боях под Севастополем. Она вместе с воинами Приморской армии и моряками Черноморского флота мужественно защищала город русской славы. К июлю 1942 из снайперской винтовки уничтожила 309 гитлеровцев. Людмила была не только отличным снайпером, но и прекрасным педагогом. За период оборонительных боев она воспитала десятки хороших снайперов, которые, следуя ее примеру, истребили не одну сотню гитлеровцев.

Now just try to tell me that that won't be inspirational to a young girl!

Our hero was in intellectual pursuits before she found her higher calling. As one historian wrote, "När Tyskland attackerade Sovjetunionen 22 juni 1941, studerade Ludmila historia vid Kievs Universitet. Precis som sina klasskamrater, anmälde Ludmila sig till sovjetiska armén fšr att slåss mot tyskarna." Now that's drive.

What better example of intellect and purpose can we offer to Lil' Genghis than Ludmilla Pavlichenko?

Dad, you're so shy...

Come on... write it big!




And don't frown... get used to glittery, cutesy, princessy stuff. Mom digs that. Did you ever tell anyone that you have fairy paintings on your master bedroom walls?

Er... probably not. Uh-oh.

Lil' Genghis' new name

So, after much debate and discussion, a few turned backs, some angry recriminations, the use of moderate amounts of high explosives and a broken butter dish, mom and dad have settled on a proper name for Lil' Genghis.

There are some who will call her ... Tim.

Other people, however, will more likely to call her by her given name, which is ...

It will be ...

It already is ...

We're announcing that it's ...

Isabella Kathryn

Got it?

OK. You can go away now.

K. Thx.

Bye!

Yep! mom liked the first name a lot, but dad was worried about "Izzy" popping up. This gives an option on "Bella," which is Italian for beautiful. The middle name of "Donna" he favored -- after a friend, and also to get "beautiful woman" in Italian -- was rejected out of hand by mom. dad can't imagine why.

The middle name is after dad's mother, who never did get a chance to meet mom but would've loved her. It was actually mom's idea, the middle name after her mother-in-law, which is just something most folks won't do for their mothers-in-law. So, that's it!

K. Thx.

Bye!

Oh. Yeah. Except we got a little freaked out by Leeanne's comment the other day, given that she mentioned the name we were thinking of, as well as a ladybug, which is how we refer to a friend's daughter, plus the screaming. But, what the hell, it's almost Halloween. =)

Status update

Blogger/Blogspot have been moving slower than a Republican president trying to grasp the reality of a failed war*, so we apologize for the delays here.

Nevertheless, we may be coming to an agreement on a name for Lil' Genghis, besides Lil' Genghis itself. We seem to have agreed that it's still OK for us to internally refer to our spawn as Genghis on occasion, as well as to refer to other young'uns on the street, e.g., "Ooh, did you see that Genghis walking on the sidewalk?"

But a real name may come soon.

Also, on the dating front, dad is thinking if things don't work out with Marcus, there are other bright young'uns out there in the generation of Lil' Genghis. Just witness this kid:





* We were talking about Nixon. Yeah, that's it. Nixon.

Mom always ten steps ahead (or "Lil' Genghis, nerdy by default")

Thinking about something coming up one year and four days from today. May the Force be with you, baby girl! Costume found by Uncle Bob.

Baby Naming Saga (or "It Keeps Getting Better and Better")

Just go right here and read. What is mom supposed to say?

Cady, I'm so glad you're on my side, specially when our dear husbands decide to put their heads together and come up with such zany ideas!

Searching for a name

mom just made an announcement in the comments for another post:

We're rethinking the name Olivia, by the way. Too many Olivias out there right now. We'll come up with something soon though.

So here's dad again, with some name ideas.

• Olivia Temujin John, with references to the '80s, Genghis and her grandfather;
  
• Isabella Donna, with a version of mom's preferred first name and the name of Mike's friend;
  
• Kathryn DaGrate, with a grandmother's name and something vaguely Italian;
  
• Genghis, simply Genghis.
  

Some of you may be wondering about the Lil' Genghis thing, anyway. Here's the plan: People can raise a child and not know for years how that child will turn out. I mean, you can wait until adolescence and not have a good idea. 15, 16, starts to drive, still no idea. 18, leaves the house for college or a job. 22, maybe graduates college. Only around age 25 will your child set out into the world and prove to be a loser or successful.

On the other hand, name the kid Genghis. Playground ridicule is certain to follow. But by the end of kindergarten, you'll know if your child is going to be a sniveling loser, or will have risen above it all to rule the playground. By the end of second grade, you'll see leadership skills as the kid forms a gang. Give the name Genghis to a girl, and you'll find the first female American president. (Or first female Brazilian president; she'll have dual citizenship.) From there, can "future world leader" be far behind?

Some children are successfully raised by wolves.

I'm not saying that if the kid fails in kindergarten you should completely write him off, you know, maybe to let him or her live among the wolves. -- even this method can offer the children a second chance at success. No, you can just ... refocus ... additional efforts on the second child.

So, Genghis. Dig it.

***

Edited by mom: I'm at a loss for words. And names.

New picture

Here's another shot of our little girl. Today's pictures came out all fuzzy but mom has been thinking about having a 4D ultrasound in a month or two (she still has to talk about it with dad).

Everyone's reaction was great, and mom found out that Grandma Biziza even got some girl's clothes hidden in the house, though she didn't say anything when we were there last week.

mom is now crazed over outfits, starting with the Pretty Blue line from Carter's. Seems like there's another shopping spree coming soon!

The moment you've all been waiting for

Many people have eagerly awaited the results of today's ultrasound, some 19 weeks in coming, to tell us whether Lil' Genghis is a he or a she. Will it be Missus Genghis? Mister Genghis? Oh high and mighty ruler of us all, Lord Genghis?

True to form, Genghis was, like both sides of the family, stubborn. The baby wouldn't sit still for the pictures and then wouldn't move to the right angle. Everything looks OK. And some parts, well, the ultrasound technician looked and looked and looked. And then we believe we found the necessary evidence to say whether Lil' Genghis is a boy or a girl.

Watch closely after you click the play button.



This seems like a good time to thank a technology vendor called Popims.com, which offers a free morphing program. It also seems like a good time to curse morphing software called Morpheus, which offers a free trial that ends just as you figure out what you're doing, and YouTube, which ultimately converts everything to a Shockwave Flash format but doesn't let you upload Shockwave Flash video.

This also a good time to thank the letter

Photo, pending more photos

To hold off the folks eager to get a glimpse of Lil' Genghis' pending ultrasound, we'll offer a photo of ... lil' aunt cristina. mom says that she and Cristina and Uncle Rodrigo all looked nearly identical, so this is a three-for-one kind of deal.



Yeah, dad cropped the photo because Aunt Cristina was flashing her underwear. Diapers, actually, but, hey.

Meanwhile, dad notes that he just caught glimpses of some classic footage of Grandmother Kathryn -- in her wedding dress, no less! More to come, we hope.

Now let's all pray for a girl

... since dad seems to be so hung up on this loony name.

Photos, pending more photos

The photos from Brazil, which include Genghis' first trip to Brazil, are now online here.

The photos we're all most eagerly awaiting -- those that will tell us that Lil' Genghis has 20 toes and fingers, as well as whether he'll be required to sit to pee -- are scheduled for ... tomorrow! Hopefully we'll have something up tomorrow afternoon.

Today's checkup went just fine. Dad's going to tear out three more of his scarce supply of hair trying to figure out how to post the MP3 of the heart sound, if anyone's still interested.

Baby sex, baby name?

So later this day Lil' Genghis is going to get scanned again, and we'll likely all find out the sex of the baby. There's been much speculation, of course; our readers and the family in Brazil have both generally supported the idea of a boy, but a girl is becoming a recent favorite. Only the machine will tell for sure, of course.

That said, we were still working on the names even just a few minutes ago. But ...

We, the undersigned, do hereby agree that our baby, known generically as Lil' Genghis, is deserving of a proper name upon birth. In the case our child is a girl, we shall name the young lady Sarah Grace. In the case our child is a boy, we shall name the young man William Tecumseh. To this writ one name is forged: mom and dad The 19th day of October, 2006

Edited by a stupefied mom: I hereby solemnly declare that I do not endorse this document. What in the world?!?

Guide to Brazil (1): Cachaca liquor

We meant to have the first fotografias from Brasil up today, with the first real stories. Instead, we'll start with the first hint of the Guide to Brazil, with something that was supposed to show up in a latter chapter.

See, this is all because we went to open a suitcase and found out Aunt Becky's gift -- chocolate-mint cachaça -- had broken and spilled through a whole bunch of dad's clothes, the camera bag, his toothbrush and even some of the presents from the Brazilian baby shower for Lil' Genghis. So we'll start by talking about cachaça.

Cachaça is a Brazilian liquor distilled from sugar. It's famously used in a drink called a caipirinha, which mixes the liquor with lime, sugar and ice, as well as a touch of the piranha that helps give it its name.

Brazilians love their cachaça, and take great pride in it. Several hosts in Brazil made a point of finding the most unusual cachaças for us, struggling to find ones that were more illegitimate than the others. Visiting Brazil in the company of Brazilians while in a store with cachaça is something like exploring a great warehouse full of Canadian booze with Al Capone. The more illegitimate or closer to moonshine the cachaça is, the more highly prized it is.

This is a roundabout way of introducing cachaça to our readers, and, eventually, to Lil' Genghis. This is because Brazilians say the liquor has to be tasted to be described. That isn't completely true, because outsiders will be familiar with the smell, which is of course related to the flavor.

So, what does cachaça remind dad of?


Yep. Here we see an avion getting ready to transport a fresh load of mass-produced cachaça. The further the cachaça label is from this image, the more complacent Brazilians are with their national drink.

Home safe

We're just popping in here to say that mom and dad made it home safely after accompanying Lil' Genghis to his first trip to Brazil. Today, the short leg, took about 25 hours door-to-door.

After dozing in chairs, airplane seats, rows of airplane seats and even an airport floor, we're simply Sofa King tired.

We plan to blog more in the coming days, from pictures of family, friends and scenery to the foetid ... er ... feeble ... er ... febrile ... er ... FETAL beginnings of dad's tour guide to Brazil.

A hint of normalcy

Lil' Genghis was expected to have a 1-in-300 chance of getting one of several birth defects. The normal test to check for this has a 1-in-200 chance of causing a miscarriage. Yeah, you do the math.

So mom opted for a something-translucency-something, which mixes an ultrasound with a couple of blood tests. So, we got the results back, and the odds are now 1-in-3,000 of those kinds of problems. In other words, everything's looking fine. (If you're a Brazilian, that's not a 1-in-3 chance. Look. It's a comma, indicating a serial line of thought, much like these in this sentence. The period adds finality. Next thing we know, you guys'll be complaining that we're not using the metric system here. HA! If the metric system is such a good idea, why has no major industrial power switched to it in decades?)

Ahem. Yes. Back to the baby. So the test gives us even more hope to believe that Lil' Genghis will be normal physically. 1-in-3,000 odds is pretty good. Later this month, we'll have another ultrasound to check for missing and surplus pieces -- babies are some-assembly required, of course -- that is almost certain to be just fine.

In other words, the odds are good that baby will be good. Medically.

Given our extended family, though, dad is estimating that the odds are about 31-in-32 that the baby will be weird, simply because of the environment and genetics. We're not even sure about that 1-in-32 chance of being normal, but it seemed polite to leave some doubt.

So the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

A single vote for pink

Since it seems like everyone is pretty much settled on the "It's a Boy Team", it was interesting hearing one dissenting voice today. mom went to get her nails done and a grandmother in the salon said that by the way mom's carrying it's definitely a girl. We shall soon find out.