When it came time to name our two beautiful children there wasn't too much discussion. As I recall our first child only took one real naming session to get it done. Joel is named after all of the influential men in the lives of both my husband and me. Our son's full name is Joel Elton Everett Marshall. Joel is my "1st Dad", my mother's second husband, and the man who took me in as a little girl and loved me like his own until the day he died. Even after things didn't work out between him and my mother he still kept up with me and was always there for me, no matter what. Elton is Ky's granddad's middle name. Elmer Shockley had more of a hand in raising Ky than his own father; essentially he was the main father figure in his life. He sadly passed away the month before I met my husband, so I never got to meet him, but he lives on in our little boy. Everett is my "2nd Dad"'s middle name. Anyone who has known me since about middle school will know Troy as my Dad because that is exactly what he is. Dad has been a wonderful father for me and I nearly had him adopt me in high school. As far as I am concerned, he's my dad. He's been a good friend, supporter, coach, and occasionally a therapist; everything I hope to instill in my son, or at least have his Papa instill in him!
When we found out we were having another child the discussions happened much more often. We talked about boy names and girl names since we weren't sure what we were having. For boys we threw the name Xavier around a lot...girls names were so much harder to pin down. At the time I was working nights as a bartender to keep our family above water since my hubby's job refused to pay people what they are worth. One night as I was driving down Timothy to cut across town and head home I noticed a street sign I had never seen before. It said "Kalen's Woods" on it and I remember thinking how neat that name was. It stuck with me and I tried spelling it so many different ways before settling on Kaylen. Once we found out we were having a girl Kaylen became the only choice.
Kaylen's whole name is Kaylen Ann Denise Marshall. We again named our child after the most important people in our lives, except for the Kaylen part. I carried the baby and I like Kaylen so I won that battle. Ann is a family name on my side. My mother, grandmother, and I all have the same middle name; now my sweet little girl does too. I am especially excited that we chose to do this in light of my grandmother's battle with cancer. I am so glad she got to see her legacy live on in another little Ann girl. Denise is for the greatest mother in law on the planet. Yes, I am biased, but Ky's mother has been the most supportive, helpful, kind human being I have ever come across. It's funny to think back on when Ky and I first got together and remember how absolutely petrified of her I was at the time. Now when she calls she calls to talk to either the kids or me. Poor hubby :)
We don't plan on having any other children. We have currently taken steps to be certain that this doesn't happen for at least ten years. I am so blessed to have two beautiful, healthy babies. We've had plenty of scares, hardships, and difficulties with each and I see no reason to tempt our chances. I had a dream the other night about another child; in the dream my kids were about 8 and 6 and there was another little girl with us. She was Kaylen's age and her name was Lei Mae. She was an Asian girl that we had domestically adopted. Strange how specific this dream was, and when I woke I told my husband about it. Perhaps our family will expand later, just not via my uterus. That joint is inhospitable from here on out.
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