Just like that, Hellboy has a name

No, I'm not going to tell you yet. Sorry, this is partial sharing. There is nothing I hate more (well, actually, I have quite a difficult personality and there's plenty that I hate more, but for the purposes of this post, we'll pretend that this is my ultimate peeve) than people naming their unborn children, making a deal about it and then changing their minds when the kid pops out and it turns out that he or she doesn't look so much like a Harold or a Gertrude as they thought he or she would after all. This way, although you're in the dark, you'll have no idea if we change our minds. We'll pretend it's what we were going to do all along. Ha HA! Tricky.

Anywho, the defining moment came a little like this after the husband and I had spent a torturous four and a half minutes looking at baby boy names on the internet.

Me "What about *mumble*?"

The husband, scowls at me quite ferociously and says accusingly "I've liked that for ages. You said you hated it!"

Me, blankly (if all else fails, play dumb. In my current state of Hellboy related brainlessness, it's not exactly hard anyway) "Oh. Really? Did I?"

The husband, stalks off.

Me, hollaring into the lounge "Well, I do hate it. Or, I don't really like it, but I think it may really suit Hellboy."

The husband, still glowering slightly, and looking incredibly suspicious with it, comes back.

Me "We can't spell it like that though" ('tis Gaelic)

The husband "Why not?"

Me, patiently "Because he is going to spend his entire life spelling his name and no one is going to know how to pronounce it."

The husband, sighs loudly and says very patiently "I spend my entire life spelling my name. Only girls get pissed off about that sort of thing. Boys don't care. In fact, he's going to sit there in class and someone is going to try and call the roll, get to his name and say 'Ahhhheeeeerrrm *mumble ... and get it completely wrong*?' ... and he's going to sit there, let them make an arse of themselves and then say 'It's *mumble*' and then sit back with his arms folded. I like that spelling. Besides, it's our prerogative as his parents to ruin his life."

Me "I'll see. It's going to be a bugger coming up with a second name."

The husband, shrugs and goes back to his coffee in the lounge. Name done.

And, as it turns out, the second name is done too. Just like that. Ish. There's potential for the two names to be reversed, but I'm pretty sure it's done. We'll just sit on it for a while though to make sure it doesn't sound like fingernails down a chalk board in a month or two.

(Ok, ok, if you reeeally must know and can't stand the suspense, and you're my mother and extremely worried that we're going to settle on an Irish name ... We're decided we really like Hellboy, and we're pretty sure they'll let us register it. We've also taken an option out on Batman. Feel better? ... No? Can't imagine why ...)

And on that note, I'm going to ground more or less for a week or so because I have an infertility-related writing project and an imminent deadline.