What's in a name ?

We have finally settled on a name for Chocilla. This subject has caused much heartburn for a lot of folks near and dear to us. Some people even thought that we were playing a cruel joke on the poor kid by naming him Chocilla :) A lot of folks were very disturbed that we didn't have a name for the little one. A family member even said "Why couldn't you have been like the rest of us and picked a name before he was born ?" Since we didn't know the sex of the baby before it was born, we picked 3-4 girl and boy names. We wanted to wait for the baby to arrive and see which of the names were a good match for his/her personality. And since this is America, we had to pay attention to a couple of different aspects of the naming tradition. What would be the nickname if any ? No one was going to call our little angel Dick or Chuck. What would be the initials ? One name was ruled out because the initials would have been SAD. As you can tell, a lot of thought and scientific research has gone into this important decision :) And the winner is 'Aiden Gabriel De Souza'

Aiden : Means 'Little fire'. It's a modern form of Aidan which in turn is an anglicized form of the Gaelic name Aodhán. Chocilla may be little but he's already showing a lot of fire.

Gabriel: Means 'God is my might' It's a modern form of the Hebrew name Gavriel. Gabriel is the announcer of the birth of Jesus and according to Hebrew tradition Gabriel is one of the seven archangels. Both Mom and Dad really liked this name from day one.

De Souza: It means 'Coconut Boy' in Goa (just kidding). There is a village saying in Goa 'If you throw a stone, it will fall either on a pig or a De Souza'. Off course, this doesn't mean that De Souzas have anything in common with the source of bacon, except that they are both very popular in Goa and by popular I am referring to numbers.

Chocilla with the family

Grandma, Grandpa & Aunty are tag teaming as our support staff. It is so great to have the family helping us during these first few days. Chocilla has not yet gotten used to the schedule of 'normal' folks and is largely a nocturnal being. He sleeps like a baby during the day and stays up all night long. We barely have enough energy during the day and so it's a real blessing to have Mom, Dad & Helena helping us.

Chocilla's dream team

Mom, Dad, Sister Helena, our super duper nurse midwife, Judi and our awesome Doula, Catherine who drove to our house in the middle of the night all the way from Mill Valley when things got a little too busy. We couldn't have done it without their support. They were and still are simply incredible and we are so glad that we made the right choices when we put together our birth team.

The most sought after stats in the world

I had noticed that whenever new parents sent out the message of the new arrival, they include all the stats of the baby. I used to wonder why people always shared the weight and height of their babies with everyone. It didn't seem like it served any purposed to the general public, so I decided to leave that out when it was my turn. But I can't tell you how disturbing it has been for so many folks. That and the fact that we still don't have a name for the baby. We still haven't decided on the names, the list has been shortened to three and we'll pick the final two in a day or so. But for those of you who felt incomplete without knowing Chocilla's vital stats, here you go. He weighed in at a very trim but muscular 6 lbs 12 ounces and measured a solid 18 ". So now tell me please, is he going to be a good candidate for the Olympic swim team ? All I know is that this dude's gonna play cricket with me when he grows up :)

Chocilla makes his entry into the world

Chocilla arrived on July 26th at 6:42am at a birth center in San Francisco. He had a beautiful water birth and shot through the water like Nemo (from "Finding Nemo", one of my favorite animation movies :). He was a very good baby inside the womb, helped Mommy a lot during the pregnancy and especially on his way out into the world. He rarely cries and we are hoping it stays that way :)

Chocilla's onesie measures up to Mommy's & Daddy's tops

Chocilla at 38 weeks, all cooked and ready to pop anytime now

What we know about Chocilla...

After 9 months we know very little about this person who will change our lives forever. In fact we know more about what we don't know...

We don't know the baby's sex. Lac thinks girl; I think boy but have been having doubts the last month so lately I've been generally confused. Almost everyone we talk to has a strong scientifically based opinion.

Did you get morning sickness? No. Which means girl.
Do you like sweet or sour? Sweet. Also girl.
Are you prettier or uglier pregnant? Ummmmm...not sure....let's just assume prettier. Boy.
Are you carrying long or wide? Ummmmm...not sure but I can't see my toes. This one can go either way...boy or girl depending on the commentator's cultural background.

We don't have a name. We have a top-secret short list. 3-5 girl names and 3-5 boy names. You have no idea how disturbed people are by this. The uber-secret list was recently shared with the 15 year old pool attendant (I won't tell you if it was in San Bruno or San Mateo) after an extensive back-ground check to make sure she didn't know anyone we knew.

Chocilla likes to play footsie at 7 am in the morning. (We will remind him/her of this in 15 years when Chocilla thinks 11 am is way early!)

Chocilla's a pretty chill and cooperative baby and is more of a stretcher than a soccer player. He/She has been head down, butt left and feet right for months. I can tell because feel hiccup taps in the same place every single day.

Chocilla squirms (with delight?) when I sing Kumbaya (pretty much the only long song I know). Don't hold this against Chocilla, we're counting on the rest of you to make sure that our child is exposed to better singing and more diverse tracks.

Chocilla gets really still/quiet when anyone who isn't Vanilla-mama tries to play with him/her. You have to be a little stealthy if you want to feel this baby move.

Chocilla at 30 weeks

Chocilla at 16 weeks in Pacific Grove with Chocolate & Vanilla

Chocilla at 13 weeks