The "talk"

This weekend we went to nephew's bday brunch. All in all a fun weekend. The birthday boy was full spoiled brat meltdown on Saturday, and for the record let me say THIS IS NOT NORMAL! He had just been celebrating his bday for a week straight and was still conviced he was the most imporant thing ever. We would be talking at dinner, and he would be SCREAMING for us to shut up because he couldn't hear the TV. Eventually his mom told him that he was not allowed to talk like that and another word would have the TV off and him in bed. My thought is they have a beautiful TV downstairs... why not just have him watch down there? He made me nervous about having kids. (He was MUCH better the next day. I'm thinking he was just tired.) His brother was sick, and super sweet. He made me feel better about having kids, except I was terrified that he would get me sick and I can't take cold medicine. The next day we visited a friend in the area with a baby (who was also sick) but is now 4-5 months old. Cutest. Thing. Ever. When I last saw the baby, he was only 1-2 months and screamed when I would hold him. Now he was much more stable, and would smile at me, and laugh at me and it was wonderful. That made me all excited again.

Then we went back to the bday brunch. You see, I have a master's degree in Women's Health. I never wanted to change my name, and take on my husband's name, and be reduced to "Mrs." I always wanted to keep my own name, whichI love. Its uncommon, but not wierd. My husband's name is VERY common. So common in fact, that it causes trouble when getting loans etc since there are so many people with the same first AND last name as him. Since our children will have rather normal names, having a common last name would be the kiss of death. So, we will hyphenate. My name is legally hyphenated, and I use my hyphenated name on everything. So will the kids. This was decided before we got married and we are all perfectly fine with it. But... hubby is the only son of an only son of an only son. So we get pulled aside by MIL and Aunt IL to have "the talk." Now I must say I was kinda waiting for it. MIL did all the talking and said "she didn't know why she cared by she just had to voice her opinion or she would reget it forever." Fine. So she voiced a whole bunch of nonsense, without any really good argument but whatever. And then she invoked DH's deceased father and that was what pushed him over the edge. All the "oh, it would have been so imporant for your dad, he would be so dissappinted, blah blah blah." Not cool. Not cool at all! Oh, and my fave line, "The whole family feels this way." Um, okay. So when she was done, I told her there was nothing wrong with expressing her opinion, but we have made up our minds and will not change the baby's name. We are a new family, and this is how we want to do it. The end.

I love our children's names and feel confident that they are right. Being questioned about my parenting decisions is really fricking annoying, especially when everything after that was all about the baby, and advice, and fear mongering, etc. I appreciated advice when I ask for it, and don't mind it in small doses, but for HOURS on end gets tedious. Ugh, what is it going to be like once the baby is actually here?!