Monday, August 01, 2005

WHAT’S IN A NAME?


Michayla Chenxi Griffith Brown

For the record, we never really intended to call our baby Boba, in fact we chose Michayla months ago. It honours the memory of Nicki’s paternal grandfather Michael, her maternal aunt Maureen, and Nicki’s maternal grandmother’s maiden name, which also began with the letter “M.” Chenxi is obviously in recognition of her Chinese name and heritage, and Griffith is a family name on Mark’s maternal side. The “G” in Griffith also honours “Genovese” and Nicki’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name, which begins with a “G.” The Brown was the easy part. We didn’t originally plan to include her Chinese name, however Chenxi was very pretty, and worked well with the other names. Her Hebrew name will also be Michayla.

Mark had never heard Michayla before, and in doing some research, we discovered that most people spell it “Michaela” or “Mikala” so the challenge for us was to come up with a spelling that would be uncommon and yet provide options for nicknames like Mickie, Kaylie, or Kayla. We figure with all the names we’ve given her, our daughter is sure to find one that suits her personality. And, as Mark points it, whatever she chooses, it will no doubt be preceded by “The Honorable”, making her the first Jewish-Irish-Chinese female justice to sit on the Supreme Court (no pressure there!). We are still getting used to saying her name out loud, and we both giggle every time we say “Michayla.”

TAKING THE SLOW BOAT TO CHINA
Now that we’ve seen her adorable little punim, we are anxious to get our baby home as soon as possible. The earliest we will go is Sunday, August 21. The latest: Sunday, September 4.

We mentioned this in previous postings, but it bears repeating: the group will get two-weeks notice, but since we’re also traveling to Beijing for a little sightseeing, we’ll get one week’s notice! The total group consists of 38 families, which could total about 100 people when one factors in other family members like grandparents and children.

We’ll fly from Los Angeles to Guangzhou to Beijing to Guangzhou to Changsha (Where we’ll finally get Michayla. We’re not going to the orphanage. They’ll bring her to us) to Guangzhou to Los Angeles). Phew!

ALL WE NEED NOW IS THE GIRL
We spent the weekend indulging in our own brand of nesting: kvelling about how beautiful our baby is and cleaning the apartment, including Nicki laundering and ironing the drapes, and Mark hanging out of the 3rd floor window with a squeegee cleaning the outside of the glass. We figure we may never have the opportunity to do such a thorough job again. Next week the crib, high-chair, and shelves for Michayla’s toys and books arrive, which means more shuffling of furniture and probably more cleaning.

Knowing that soon our little baby will be crawling around our apartment kept us smiling all weekend; we’ve never been happier to scrub the floors in our entire lives.

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