A few weeks ago, Hot Pregnant Wife and I had a ultrasound done (on Hot Pregnant Wife) and it turns out we will be having a son. Later that day, as I picked up Caroline from day care, I shared the news with her. “Mommy and Daddy went to the doctor today and got some pictures of the baby in mommy’s tummy.” I said. “Would you like to see the pictures of the baby?” So I proudly showed her the print out of the ultrasound. She crinkled her nose up a bit but didn’t seem too fazed that her future sibling looked somewhat like a Rorschach image. I continued, “Caroline, the doctor says the baby is going to be a boy. What would you like to name the baby?” Without hesitation and a big smile, she said “Carl.”
Carl. We don’t know any Carls and we never eat at Carl’s Junior. Where did she get this name? After a frantic discussion with Hot Wife that night (”Are you positive you aren’t seeing a Carl on the side?” No! Are you seeing a Carl?”) we determined that the only Carl that we know is Carl Carlson from the Simpsons. Carl is a good character. He’s a Buddhist, he has a Masters in Nuclear Engineering and is one of the few good influences on Homer. Carl is a great guy and we carefully noted Caroline’s opinion. But when day care teachers tell us that Caroline is talking about her brother Carl and then they say “You’re not really going to name your son Carl, are you?” we gently had to break it to Caroline that although we enjoy and respect her input on the naming of the boy child, we were going to remove Carl from the list of possibilities.
Parenthetically, I take great joy in sharing with ultrasound technicians and doctors that I used to do ultrasounds on desert tortoises. I also like to share that I used to draw blood samples from tortoises. Although I did draw blood from tortoises many hundreds of times, I think I helped ultrasound only a few tortoises. We drew blood for disease testing and did the ultrasounds to count follicles and eggs. I am no expert on interpreting ultrasounds but I am very proud that the boy’s distinguishing parts were quite, um, distinguishable. Whatta boy!
1 response so far ↓
1 Paul // Nov 27, 2006 at 1:03 am
What’s wrong with Carl? Carl is a great name. Carl’s a real name. Carl’s your buddy. Carl is the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car, Carl.
Seriously… Carl and Caroline… there’s a certain ring to it. I say run with it. Besides, Carl Carlson is a Buddhist, so plainly he’s got good karma! And Carl was also the name of Bill Murray’s slightly unhinged greenskeeper in Caddyshack.
Yeah, I’m all for Carl. I say go for it. Kid’s got a big unit, might as well have a nice, blunt, easy to say/remember name like Carl!
Leave a Comment