The Water Whispered Her Name

Here’s something I started on months ago that I decided to finish for Julia’s birthday, which is today.

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I was getting close to seven months pregnant and Chad and I still hadn’t decided on names. We had pored over the baby name book numerous times, but nothing had really grabbed us. The names we did like had been shot down by others. “Bethany” was the name of a problem student my mom had as a teacher, so that was out. I had always liked “Jason,” but that was also the name of the guy I dated before Chad. Also out. Because we had chosen to not know the baby’s gender before the birth, we had two names to pick out. And the weeks kept going by.

Then there’s the story I don’t tell people. It’s one of those stories a mother treasures in her heart, but seems too precious to speak aloud.

Then one day at work, I saw a woman I knew in the hall. A woman named Julia.

“Hi, Julia,” I said as I passed her.

She returned my greeting and kept going. Then it hit me. Julia! What a beautiful name!

The truth is that years before she was born, her father and I hiked into the Alaskan wilderness and set up camp near a stream that fed into a swift, salmon-filled river. At that point in their journey, the salmon are still; suspended in the blue mass of the frigid river. He stood among them and fly-fished, zipping his line across the water’s surface.

I checked the baby name book that night to make sure it didn’t mean anything odd, like “Delaney” meaning “from the alder grove.” Or sad, the way “Dolores” means “sorrows.” Or funny, the way “Oliver” means “elf army.”

Much to my delight, the name Julia has a lovely meaning. “Youthful.” I had been raised to cherish youthfulness. Not in outward appearances, but from the heart.

“You’re only as old as you act,” my grandmother used to tell me.

My grandmother, who, widowed at the age of 80, moved into a retirement center and began socializing, dating and having the time of her life. Not that she didn’t have a wonderful life with my grandfather. She was just having fun with the time she had left. My grandmother was 88 when she died, but she was really only about 16. I loved her youthful spirit and hoped to pass it on to my own children. Julia was not only a beautiful name, but it had a meaning that was close to my heart. That was important to me.

I stood on a wooden bridge over the narrow stream. The stream was glacier run-off; pristine water so cold it shocked when you touched it. Underneath my hiking boots, the wooden bridge hummed as the water rushed and bubbled in its hurry to join the river.

Now I just had to get it past Chad. I had been a fan of Julia Roberts, the actress, for several years. After I convinced him that I was not trying to name our baby after a celebrity, he agreed that I had found the perfect girl name.

And it’s still perfect for her. I can’t imagine having named her anything else. I’ve always been glad I passed the other Julia in the hall that day.

Years later, I first held her in my arms. So new, but her name already ages old to me, like it was always planned to be hers. My mind traveled back to that day on the river. Standing over the rumbling current, did I not hear the sound that stands so clearly now in my memory? Amid the creek’s splashes and ripples, God spoke through his creation. I heard the water whisper her name.

Another cook in the kitchen

Julia, our resident Bobby Flay fan (although she thinks he's a bit arrogant), has been making us omelettes in the mornings. She does a great job -- even on the tricky fold-over part. (She's still honing her cooking skills. This morning she forgot to turn the burner on and wondered why it was taking so long to cook.)

Over the last year or so, Julia has become quite the foodie. Food Network has replaced Disney Channel as her favorite thing to watch, and I have a feeling we will be shopping Williams-Sonoma instead of the Target toy aisle for her birthday. We're planning an Iron Chef birthday party in our church kitchen, where kids will be given some random ingredients to make into dessert.

Speaking of food, I'm getting to do something really fun AGAIN for an article I'm writing for this magazine. I get to go to this place and interview the owner today. Watch for the story in the November issue!

One more thing: for a pre-Halloween scare, go to my dad's blog and read his column about the haunted house he used to live in. And go here to read my old blog post about the same house.

Jenna's birthday

Our Jen-Jen is four today. Here's something I wrote about her on her birthday last year:

"Blue eyes, my baby's got blue eyes. Like a deep blue sea on a blue, blue day." -- from "Blue Eyes" by Elton John

Jenna was born three years ago tomorrow. Eight-and-a-half pounds. A golden sheen to her head that promised blond hair. Blue eyes.

At least I tell people they're blue. There really isn't a word to describe the color of her eyes.

But I'll try.

I learned to scuba dive in 1993. And I learned something about it right off: scuba diving is a big hassle. So much heavy, awkward equipment is required for breathing underwater. The tank by itself weighs 80 pounds. Then there's the weight belt, which must be adjusted just right so you won't float to the surface or be stuck on the ocean floor. Then you have the BCD, the fins, snorkel, mask and wetsuit -- if the water you're diving in is going to be cold.

But once below the surface, the oppressive gear becomes your key to the underwater world. You swim around weightless, holding out fingers as curious fish swim up to them. Your teeth clench around the regulator that, on land moments before, was uncomfortable in your mouth. Now it's the only way to get air into your lungs. The sound of your constant inhaling and exhaling is a reminder that you're doing something humans weren't made to do. You are living, thriving, underwater. The hassle, for the moment, is forgotten.

It took us a long time to get Jenna into this world. I got pregnant, then miscarried. Pregnant again, then blood one morning. Pregnant a third time, but then more blood. We started thinking adoption. Then I got pregnant again, and this one held. I got very sick, was placed on home healthcare, and then developed gestational diabetes. Then, one Thursday morning, the previous year-and-a-half faded as I finally looked into her eyes.

And I remembered the circle of light.

Thirty feet under the ocean's surface, it's easy to become disoriented -- to the point that you can lose track of which way you're supposed to go to reach air. As a scuba diver, you learn to look for light. Light means surface. When you find the sunlight piercing the blue mass in which you are submerged, you slowly swim toward it, exhaling all the way. Surrounded by varying shades of watery blue, the circle of light expands and seems to pull you toward itself. You keep swimming up, up, up -- until you think your lungs can't expel any more air. But the bubbles keep coming from your mouth, and you keep moving toward the light.

Then you reach it and you burst through it into air, light, life.

That's what color Jenna's eyes are.

Jenna vs. Garage Door, Part II

Remember Jenna's first run-in with our garage door? Well, they met up for a rematch yesterday. Julia, Jenna and I walked into the garage, I hit the button to raise the door, and Jenna took off running towards the driveway. Unfortunately, she didn't wait for the door to get high enough before attempting to run underneath it. I heard a "WHAM!" and then the thunder-like rattle of the garage door, and then saw Jenna sprawled in the driveway. I ran to her, certain there would be blood and possibly insides of her skull exposed, but no. After a moment of crying, she was fine and up running around again.

This is our first house with a garage (yep, we were married 13.5 years before moving into a house with a garage) and the remote-controlled door was a novelty at first. I'm not so impressed anymore.

And now for the book I devoured last week. Imagine learning, at the age of 35, that you have an identical twin. Sounds like a Lifetime movie, but this really happened to Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein. In their book, "Identical Strangers," they take turns telling the story of how they came to find out about each other, and describing the wide range of emotions that comes along with such a discovery. The sisters are very honest about the joy, grief, anger and resentment that entered their lives upon learning of each others' existence. The twins' story is intriguing as they take the reader on their journey of uncovering the mystery of the circumstances of their birth and the search for their birth mother. I got this book from the library Thursday evening and finished it the next night. I didn't skim, either -- the twins' story is pretty complex, so you'll find yourself reading every word trying process it all. The story of Elyse and Paula is amazing and one that could make you grateful for your family members in a new way.

We are recovering from Julia's birthday (a pop star party for a bunch of hyper third-grade girls). She got a Target gift card from Lois, my best Baytown girlfriend and Julia's adopted grandma, and Julia bought the new Nancy Drew PC game, "Legend of the Crystal Skull," with it. We're both working on solving the mystery now. Julia and I started playing these games when she was in first grade, and we're still hooked.

The History of Jenna

August 26, 2004 (in the arms of her Paw Paw.)

August 26, 2005

August 26, 2006

August 26, 2007

Those last three pictures were in three different Nall houses. Hopefully Jenna is done moving for a while. We had a great party Saturday in the backyard -- pictures coming later!

Speaking of birthdays, we were at a very nice restaurant in downtown Little Rock last night for a friend's party and I managed to set a menu on fire.

Blue Eyes

"Blue eyes, my baby's got blue eyes. Like a deep blue sea on a blue, blue day." -- from "Blue Eyes" by Elton John

Jenna was born three years ago tomorrow. Eight-and-a-half pounds. A golden sheen to her head that promised blond hair. Blue eyes.

At least I tell people they're blue. There really isn't a word to describe the color of her eyes.

But I'll try.

I learned to scuba dive in 1993. And I learned something about it right off: scuba diving is a big hassle. So much heavy, awkward equipment is required for breathing underwater. The tank by itself weighs 80 pounds. Then there's the weight belt, which must be adjusted just right so you won't float to the surface or be stuck on the ocean floor. Then you have the BCD, the fins, snorkel, mask and wetsuit -- if the water you're diving in is going to be cold.

But once below the surface, the oppressive gear becomes your key to the underwater world. You swim around weightless, holding out fingers as curious fish swim up to them. Your teeth clench around the regulator that, on land moments before, was uncomfortable in your mouth. Now it's the only way to get air into your lungs. The sound of your constant inhaling and exhaling is a reminder that you're doing something humans weren't made to do. You are living, thriving, underwater. The hassle, for the moment, is forgotten.

It took us a long time to get Jenna into this world. I got pregnant, then miscarried. Pregnant again, then blood one morning. Pregnant a third time, but then more blood. We started thinking adoption. Then I got pregnant again, and this one held. I got very sick, was placed on home healthcare, and then developed gestational diabetes. Then, one Thursday morning, the previous year-and-a-half faded as I finally looked into her eyes.

And I remembered the circle of light.

Thirty feet under the ocean's surface, it's easy to become disoriented -- to the point that you can lose track of which way you're supposed to go to reach air. As a scuba diver, you learn to look for light. Light means surface. When you find the sunlight piercing the blue mass in which you are submerged, you slowly swim toward it, exhaling all the way. Surrounded by varying shades of watery blue, the circle of light expands and seems to pull you toward itself. You keep swimming up, up, up -- until you think your lungs can't expel any more air. But the bubbles keep coming from your mouth, and you keep moving toward the light.

Then you reach it and you burst through it into air, light, life.

That's what color Jenna's eyes are.

My birthday and stuff

Since I last blogged, I turned another year older. Chad and the girls brought me breakfast in bed Thursday (which had to be moved to the kitchen since Jenna was jumping on the bed). They gave me a big bag of Burt's Bees stuff, which Julia picked out. That night, Chad and I had a date planned at Carino's, but when we got there, a bunch of our friends from church were there to surprise me. So I had my second surprise party ever. (The first one was thrown by college roommates and friends in 1991 at the beginning of my junior year. That one was even more of a surprise since it was a full month after my actual birthday.) Anyway, we all had so much fun eating and talking without kids around that we stayed there for THREE HOURS. Plus my Myspace and Facebook profiles were flooded with well wishes from all over. If you absolutely have to turn 36, this was a fun way to do it.

We went to Magic Springs Saturday, where it was CRAZY CROWDED. People we were with who've been going to MS their whole lives said they had never seen it that full of people. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with 300 strangers in the wave people wasn't exactly my idea of fun. But the Third Day show that night rocked. Julia and I annoyed everyone around us by yelling "WE LOVE YOU, MAC!" between songs. Mac appeared to be ignoring us, but I think he was just playing hard to get. He did say the crowd was the biggest they had ever played for. And out of all those tens of thousands of people, Julia and her best friend from school just happened to find each other.

Question: If you've turned on a radio in the last month or so, you've heard Rihanna's "Umbrella." (You know, the song that goes "You can stand under my umbrella-ella-ella-EH-EH-EH...") We hear it on Radio Disney all the time, but a review in Rolling Stone magazine said the song means something really nasty. I'm just wondering if anyone knows because Julia and I rode home from Little Rock today singing it at the top of our lungs.

On another note, I thought this story about the piano John Lennon used to write "Imagine" was interesting.