SpaghettiOs

Everything is going well! Brenda returned home Saturday night and is feeling much better. The baby is doing well; he has been upgraded from the NICU to the Intermediate Nursery. He is no longer on any oxygen supplementation, and he no longer has a feeding tube. The only deficiency he has is the absence of a first name. She wants Thomas as his middle name after the Prophet, who has been her "favorite" apostle since childhood. But he lacks a first name! Brenda and I are at a standstill, and we cannot seem to arrive at a mutually satisfying name.

She brought one name to the table with no alternatives: Brady. To her, his name has been Brady the entire pregnancy. Brady means "spirited," an adjective he has demonstrated since early in the pregnancy when we were surprised that he hung in there. It's the first time in any of her three pregnancies that she has known what name she wanted. However, she has brought no alternatives to the table.

I have brought three names to the table, my favorite being Zach. The other two I like are Cole and Trent. She is not crazy about any of them. That being said, the only reason she doesn't like Zach is because it shares the same vowel sound as Matt. That's it. That's the hold-up, a single vowel sound. It's not like I suggested his name be Zatt or Max or Nat--names that actually sound similar to Matt. I just love the idea of Zach Miller. It follows our "one-syllable" trend. Zach is common but not over-used. And it has a great meaning: "the Lord hath remembered," which also seems to beautifully describe the early course of this pregnancy. Plus, you can call him "Z" or "Little Z." How cool is that?

I like to think of this whole scenario as a group of us getting together at a restaurant to order an entree. The only catch is that we can only place one order because we all have to eat the same dish. I have suggested at least three things from the menu that would be enjoyable--Filet Mignon, Alaskan King Crab, and Lemon Rosemary Chicken, but they have all been vetoed. The only thing my dearest treasure of a wife has selected from the menu happens to be an undesirable dish to me: Spaghettios. Certainly it can't be unreasonable to expect that she at least provide a few menu options to choose from... None of this "there's only one thing I like on the menu" nonsense. On the other hand, I could follow my Mom's advice to be more flexible and let her order her SpaghettiOs since it is, in a sense, our last meal. (Seriously, nobody can actually think SpaghettiOs are edible.)

Now we're at the point where we've been sitting around the restaurant table for five days, and nothing has been ordered. The tension at the table is thickening. We are all hungry. The waiters/waitresses are rightfully getting frustrated checking back at our table only to continually be turned away with no order to process. I am now more interested in just getting an entree on the table than to have my selected dish served. I told her to order what she wanted; it's time to end this five-day fast. Just get something on the table, and I will learn to like SpaghettiOs.

By writing this account I am making our marriage into somewhat of an open book involving readers. Maybe it's not maritally-intelligent to do so. That being said, does he look more like a Brady or a Zach?