Anonymous

So far my mother is the only one who knows the joyful news. We've wisely decided to wait until the high danger of miscarriage is over to tell our family members. Me, I'm waiting until I actually look pregnant to break the news, mostly to dispel notions that I am getting fat.

But, admittedly its nice to have someone to be able to confide in, especially since she's (obviously) done this before, and (obviously) all parties survived the experience. So we had dinner with her on Saturday and she handed us an Expectant Motherhood book with a 1940 copyright (which, by the by, tell us with confidence that having alcohol is completely harmless--see sentence about us all surviving the experience) and what she called the most important book of all: Name Your Baby.

Since we don't yet know what species of child we shall have as yet, we just flipped through it for a while and announced names at random. "Brunhilde" was rejected out of hand, as was "Gunther." But then I came across: Hilaria, which means, "always cheerful." I fell in love with it at once. What better name with which to command your offspring to be happy and prosperous? What name would roll better off the tongue? Meet Hilaria, my always cheerful daughter.

"Yes," my husband said, "but what if it's a boy?"

"Why then," I replied, "we would name him Hilarius." And to prove how wonderfully apt this name would prove to be, I then cracked up. Simply imagining the introductions brought tears of joy to my eyes.

"Hi everybody, this is Hilarius."
"What's hilarious?"
"He's Hilarius."
"He thinks he's hilarious?"
"No, he really is Hilarius."

My husband brought me back from my joyful reverie to ask me what I thought of the name Stanley. He was clearly trying to bring us back into the fold of normal society and I wasn't buying it. Besides.... Stanley?? But I agreed we could name the boy Stanley if I could choose his middle name.

Stanley Hilarius. I see a shining future ahead.