Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Rising briefly to the surface...

I have been mostly internetless for the last several weeks, I did not die. I now have internet in the evenings and on weekends, but blogging has not made its way to the top of my priority list as there are quite a few major things going on in our lives these days! God is good throughout it all, and we are loving our little girls more every day! Yesterday I was reading a book to Eliza and Theia was sitting on the floor with her doll. I glanced over at her and realized that she had the doll wrapped in a blanket and was holding her tightly to her chest under her shirt. She looked up at me with her best wrinkly-nosed smile and informed me "I'm feeding her food." She doesn't quite have it all figured out though, she had her shirt pulled up on the side where the doll's feet were! Theia has become very motherly in recent days, and she mimics everything I do with Ingrid on her doll. Eliza has turned into quite the little pocket rocket since Ingrid came. She is into absolutely everything and manages to injure herself about 37 times a day. She is very affectionate towards Ingrid, but her brand of affection is rather dangerous and rarely appreciated. She doesn't believe she can give Ingrid a hug or kiss without lying on top of her, so I can't leave Ingrid anywhere for more than 2 seconds when Eliza is awake. She likes to hold Ingrid on her lap, but when she's done she wants her off her lap NOW. The first time she held Ingrid she might have ended up on the floor because I wasn't prepared for the violent shove she gave her. I am developing very fast reflexes. But she is a very sweet and sensitive soul, and still very snuggly. And Ingrid is just as sweet as a 1 month old little girl who has just started smiling responsively can be!

Monday, September 1, 2008

A Word about Names

I love our children's names. I love saying them, hearing them, writing them, and most of all, introducing them to people by their names. Choosing a name for each of our girls has been such a joyful process. It is such a sacred responsibility and privilege to bestow a name on your child.
Aletheia Vangelis:
We came upon Theia's first name quite by accident. We had chosen a name for a boy that is the Hebrew word for Truth, and is also the name of a character in "The Last Battle", by C. S. Lewis (the name was Emeth, by the way). I was involved in a Beth Moore bible study with a group of ladies while I was pregnant with Theia, and it was in our study that I came across the Greek word for Truth, Aletheia. I was immediately struck that it would be cool to have two meaningful names waiting for our baby, one from the Old Testament, and the other from the New Testament. Both of these words in their original meaning stood for truth in its most absolute form, the implanted recognition of truth that God has written on our hearts. After we settled on Aletheia (always with the intention to shorten it to Theia, pronounced "THAY-uh") we looked for another Greek name to go with it. We settled on Vangelis (van-JEL-iss), partly for its meaning (it is derived from the Greek for Evangelist) and partly because it is also the name of the composer of the music for the movie "Chariots of Fire". That is probably my favorite movie of all time, and it has such a strong message of the rewards that are reserved for those who honor God.
Eliza Marie:
Eliza is a name that I was excited to give a daughter of mine, and I'm so glad that Jessie liked it too. Eliza means "sworn to God". What a challenge, to have a child whose name means "sworn to God". We know they are His from the outset, but our children are the hardest things on this earth to surrender to God. We pray that He will help us to surrender our children to His will and in the trust that His love for them far outsizes anything we could imagine. Marie is Jessie's mother's middle name. I initially wanted to use her first name, Jean, but Jessie grew up watching "Little House on the Prairie", and he felt that Eliza Jean sounded too much like Eliza Jane, who is not a very nice person, so Eliza Marie it was. I never thought I'd have to deal with opinions from my husband that he formed from watching "Little House on the Prairie". He can also quote you any line from "Anne of Green Gables". That's what comes from having a sister only 18 months older than you, I guess.
Ingrid Ralene:
Once again Jessie surprised me with his open-mindedness. I had already had my eye on the name Ingrid, but didn't mention it to Jessie because I felt sure for some reason that he would reject it. But Jessie brought the name up to me himself one day while he was browsing the baby name book. I was tickled pink. Ingrid means beautiful, and she is definitely living up to her name already. Our prayer is that she will also have a spirit that is beautiful and pleasing to the Lord. Ralene is my sister Penny's middle name. My parents actually took that name from another C. S. Lewis book, "The Horse and His Boy", but they actually derived it from a longer name, Lasaraleen. They definitely chose the name on the merits of its aesthetic qualities, because Lasaraleen is not a character that you would want your daughter to live up to! But, now of course Ralene is part of my sister's name, and she is definitely someone that we would want our daughter to emulate.

Read about Emeth's Name