Naming

People keep asking me about the name Mary Margaret, so I thought I would write it down. The reason the blog is named Mary Margaret Maybe is because I wanted to use the name, but my husband did not like it. So, I just kept referring to her as Mary Margaret (rather than "her" or "our daughter", etc.) Lots of people do this when they are pregnant, my brother-in-law names all his unborn kids outlandish names that he calls the baby the entire pregnancy, but that is never the "real" name. So anyway, that's sort of the idea.

I got Mary from my precious 99 year old grandmother who kept me every day after school until I was old enough to drive. She is a saint. She is responsible for my belief in God to this day, I truly believe it because she talked to me about Jesus all the time. For her, being a believer was like going to school or work, it's just something you had to do and you didn't really have too much to think about, she couldn't imagine another way of life. So she instilled that in most of the people around her. My oldest son is named after her husband (my grandfather, obviously.) In addition, my dad's grandmother was named Mary (and she adopted my grandmother, so she certainly is someone who would have understood our heart) and my husband's great-grandmother's name was Mary, so that seems very fitting.

Margaret comes from my dad's mom. She was an amazing woman too. One of the strongest women I've ever known. She was also a very strong believer. I am so proud to be her granddaughter. She passed away last year, but her legacy carries on for sure. For one thing, I look ALOT like her mother. It's weird, I have this old photo of her mother from probably 100 years ago and it's eerie looking to me because it resembles me so much. I have that photo in Mary Margaret's room. Anyway, since she just passed away, I had gotten alot of her things from my dad. And very much by accident, he brought me this pink quilt with butterflies on it. He wasn't actually bringing me the quilt, he was bringing a mirror and used the quilt to wrap it. But that became the anchor piece in her room. After that, my aunt sent me a box of Grandmother's things that included the aprons that are now hanging on the wall. My dad then brought me a quilt box and a little rocker that were her's and the quilt box contained the coverlet that is now Mary Margaret's curtain. I absolutely LOVE walking in her room and being surrounded by all my grandmother's things. My grandparents worked in a factory and farmed all their lives. I can remember spending time with them in the summers after they retired. I would stand on the fence and watch their baby pigs for hours on end. It was my delight when there would be an occassional runt to bring inside and nurse back to health before it could be returned to it's mother. There was no "Charlotte's Web" scenario that I can remember with Grandmother's runts. :) My middle son is named after her husband.

I am so proud and thankful to call these two women my grandmothers. And I feel like my daughter would have a good start to be named after two beautiful, strong, God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth women. So at first, Brian would just smirk when I would say Mary Margaret. But slowly, it caught on and everyone started calling her Mary Margaret. My kids pray for Mary Margaret. My friends call her Mary Margaret. We refer to her room as "Mary Margaret's room." So at this point, her name will most likely be Mary Margaret. However, the one glitch is that both our adopted sons were already named Russian names that equated to the American versions of our grandparents names. That was certainly a nice little pearl. But what are the odds that our Russian daughter will be named Mary or Margaret already? We will just have to wait and see. I can certainly foresee having to revise the name somehow to reflect her Russian heritage, so we are staying open, but for now, that's what we're calling her.