So we are still debating names. We think we have one, but I am not sure. Bianca is sure. Until she changes her mind. We have some criteria but even running through them will not produce a reliable name. One thing that is fun to play with is the SSA baby name site which can tell you the popularity of any name in the past 100 years so long as it was one of the 1000 most popular names.

Here are some cool stats:

Anthony was #7 most popular name for a boy in 2008.

Bianca was #208 for girls.

Monica was #317.

Vickie (not Victoria) is not in the top 1000 (Victoria is #27). Way to not be trendy Mom!

Dominic is #93 (and DomEnic is #937).

Nancy is #379.

Nicole is #106.

Olivia is #6.

Helen is #371.

Woodrow is not in the top 1000, which I found VERY surprising.

John is #20.

With all of the focus on popular names, there are are some names that we can eliminate:

Adolf (which, according to the SSA baby name site fell off dramatically after 1928 for some mysterious reason, when it was #954 and has not been listed since);

Benedict (which never got higher than the 447th most popular name all the way back in 1914 and hasn't been in the top 1000 since 1968);

Judas (which has never ranked in the top 1000 in the past 100 years, wonder why?);

Osama (yeah...that just sounds so unlikeable and still unlisted);

Atila (again with the famous despot theme and unlisted).


[Begin unrelated political rant prior to the healthcare vote this weekend]

As a side note I would like to nominate the SSA baby name site as another example of something that "big government" does well, for all of the healthcare naysayers out there. This joins the long list of things which includes:

Food Stamps which was tied in with the FDA and helps correct natural variations in farm good surpluses and shortages;

The DOJ especially since they have given up the prosecution of chronically ill chronic users;

NASA which has done a remarkably good job of getting dudes and dudettes into space when compared to private companies;

The Smithsonian Museums which are all federally fund and run;

The National Park System. Your welcome Dad!;

Interstate Highway System which has a really cool story behind it; and

The U.S. Military which, in addition to saving the free world pretty much every time, has done a lot better than private military contractors, was integrated before most of society, essentially created the middle class with the GI Bill, and is about to end the silly Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

I threw a Fox News link in there to help undo all of the lefty karma I have built up in this post.


[End rant]

Sorry for getting political for a minute, but I'd like Peanut and his friends to have good, available health care.

Bianca had a crucial baby checkup today, the 28 week check up. She has begun the third trimester. At the last visit the doctor told us that the placenta might be low which could develop into a condition called placenta previa which would make the pregnancy more complicated. After that visit we began a stringent coaching regime to help Peanut pull up the placenta. After weeks of tireless work HE DID IT! The placenta is all set. They also had Bianca do a glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes, but we won't have the results for a while.

In the mean time Bianca's belly has become an orb of wonder, a perfect bowling ball belly. A few, sometimes skippy, iChat sessions with the Ohio/Kentucky Sculimbrenes/Kreilings showed them exactly what the Buddha Belly looked like. There is no dispute, no hiding it now--Bianca is pregnant.

Here is an obligatory pregnancy joke of my own making:

What do you tell the hijackers when they take your pregnant wife hostage?

Leggo my Preggo.

Hilarity ensues.

Peanut has got into a routine. Around 4-4:30 AM he starts kicking. Then he calms down until "Banana Time" which is when Bianca has her morning banana around 10 AM. Then around 5 PM he re-emerges for another tap dance/karate demonstration. The kicks and punches are much more fierce now.

The baby doctor gave us some more photos of our boy. Here they are for your perusal:

First up, Peanut's coconuts:



Yep, still a boy.

Peanut was really active during the ultrasound (perhaps because of the glucose test drink which is like 110% sugar) so his hands were in front of his face the entire time. We were able to get this picture:



He has already taken sides in the dreaded East Coast/West Coast Rap Feud. That is DEFINITELY the hand sign for West Coast. Dang it, Peanut! I liked Notorious BIG the best.

Then he gave us this shot:



I imagine that this is uterus equivalent of the flashlight under the face shot. Bwahahaha! Spooky.

Oh and then there was one final picture, this one:



There are no words to explain how cool that onesy is. Or maybe there are:

Peanut, may the Force be with you in the final trimester.

Expect a video sometime this weekend of Peanut's room. All we are waiting for is furniture and baby.

So the last poll was a landslide. Apparently before his trip from the future, Peanut will be a classic, sloped shoulder teenager responding to us with grunts and mumbles.

The new poll is a little more straightforward. For the more obscure majors here is some information:

Knot Theory Math is the branch of math that studies knots. Wha!!! that is a part of math? No wonder I never tie my shoes. I am TERRIBLE at math. I am not exactly sure what this is, but I know that Jacob Shapiro studied it at Dennison.

Hotel Management is a REAL major at a REAL school, even though it sounds like something from a late night infomerical. There are classes on how to prevent people from stealing the little soaps from the maid carts, how to fold the toilet paper edge into cool shapes, and how to make a bed where the sheets are so tight that people feel like their sleeping in a straight jacket. The upper division classes show you how to hire has-been lounge singers.

The rest are pretty straightforward.

Chemistry is the study of how to do matchmaking for couples, apparently.

I am not sure if there are any places where you can study sleeping, oh wait, I was wrong.

Philosophy is, apparently, the study of skin care products, which I am sure is a great surprise to Aristotle who wasted his life away working on giant tomes about ethics, logic, the nature of reality, and pretty much every other topic you can think of. He should have been mixing up some moisturizer for all of those pimple-faced Achaeans.

As for football, I am fairly certain that it is a major at The Ohio State University. After all you can major in Turfgrass Science (seriously, check the list), welding, fashion and retail studies, and circulation technology. Actually, now that I think about it, welding seems pretty cool.

I am not even going to bother with a link, we all know business, as a major, is a joke. Fun fact: there is no word for the state of being busy, i.e. business, though I think it is ironic that business and business would be spelled the same way.

Finally, we have the building stuff guys and the choo-choo guys. Fun fact: most engineers of the first sort would probably also like to be engineers of the second sort as trains are just cool.