Kumi Freaks Out!

Uh oh...Aunt Kumi back in Japan heard the name "Tsubaki" and freaked out!

"Not Tsubaki," she said, "I brought a Tsubaki flower in the house and it died in one day and it's head fell off!"

We don't want Ella's head to fall off. That would be awful (and messy), and it doesn't sound like the kind of high maintenance parenting we're interested in starting this family off with. Diaper changing isn't such a big deal...head re-attaching is pretty tricky.

So now we've got our first naming conundrum. Kumi suggested the name "Sakura," which means cherry blossom and it sounds alright to us. No one was crazy stuck on Tsubaki anyway and it's important to us that we include the whole family. Sounds crazy but we kind of like the idea of everyone helping out, even from the other side of the planet.

Now here's the tricky part...June doesn't like the sound of Ella Sakura. She says that it's the two names ending in the letter "A"...? Sure. I get it...I think. So she went rooting for another first name to go with Sakura. Interesting twist to naming your child but whatever, I'll roll with it. Mother knows best they say.

So what name falls out of June's beautiful little mouth...Emi. I LOVE the name "Emi". Right from the start I loved the name "Emi", in fact it was one of the first names I tossed around in my head. Now June likes it too. She had her reservations because friends of ours have a daughter named Emmy. She didn't like the idea of stealing the name, but since our friends live in Saudi Arabia who cares. So now the very real possibility exists that Ella is really Emi and Tsubaki is really Sakura. Confused yet? Naturally, that knackers up this entire blog but who really cares...it's a damn baby blog. No one is reading this except for Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles etc...No one gives a crap about a baby blog...especially a baby that isn't even born yet. Of all the people involved, she cares the least. All that kid cares about is food and sleep right now. She's a little worried about who will win the US Presidential election but not as much as the food and sleep stuff. She's really concerned about that junk. She definately doesn't care about the Phillies and Rays World Series. The minute the Red Sox and Matsuzaka were out she stopped caring completely.

So Emi it very well could be. We like it...her Bachan likes it...June's Bachan might like it, and most importantly, Aunt Kumi likes it, or at least she's not freaking out about it. Emi is much easier to pronounce than Ella anyway. The Japanese language doesn't much like the letter "L" let alone two of them in one little name, and as far as we know Sakura flowers don't lose their heads or die in a single day...according to Aunt Kumi that's pretty important.