Ussins

[I looked back through some entries on naming him, and boy, do they bother me – although I still hold the point I made in them. It’s *how* I made the point and my animosity that bugged. To be honest maybe I might not abridge a private history – but this is the web. I’m re-writing this without the heckles.]

[April 30]

Why didn’t I think before of buying “The Mother of All Baby Name Books” and then later returning it for a full refund? That would remove a huge bottleneck of driving to Barnes and Noble. I’ll be settled on a final name for baby very soon.

My brother informs me that Baby’s long proposed name is now his name. And my response was extreme peevishness. My thing: I said from the outset I wasn’t settled on a name and it bothers me that others settle on it and then inform me it is just so. I see no compulsion other than a cultural one to decide straightway, though religiously I see that blessings invoke names, and every baby in Israel needs blessing. Baby’s soul is uncounted ages old and I want to take every care naming him [snip more peevish expressions].

No name rings well for me. Maybe the doubt is proof that no mortal name can really do justice to the sprit of any child of God, and I’d best hope that God calls on the baby by whatever name he was called before he came here.

[May 1st]

I ask Baby if he likes the proposed name. He hiccups a few times and responds with a smile: ””Yeeeeaaaooh.””, which sounds for all the world like Adamic for “Yes” or mangled English; either way, that seems like a sign, and I feel cursed for seeking one.

So it’s settled.

Unless I change my mind. I do have to finish reading the [name] book I bought before returning it, anyway.

[May 2nd]

Baby has various names, and so he hasn’t flinched (as someone said) at namelessness. He is “Baby”, “Thumper”, “Bug”, and “Fuss-fuss”.

I wish that our culture like others varied even with official names for a child, or added or changed them easily, or encouraged children to name themselves when they are older.

It bothers me that culture is too strong to accept my initial and oft repeated trepidation with naming. He was given a name for the hospital but documents can be changed.

He likes his various names.

Folks have asked: does Tia like the nonexistence of an official name? I asked her and it’s as I thought: it slightly bothers her, and also she respects my indecision.

[snip something I like not to post here, though I think it funny.]

Returning to the babe, the name is the first gift of contrivance to someone unable to contrive himself. If I do it “wrong”, he’ll suffer. But a mortal name is a paradox: while it is a mortal, finite, imperfect measure, it becomes part of your eternal identity.

[Retrospect April 28th, 2006: Recalling A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA (one of my favorite books), I’ve come to wonder if there is not truth to the idea of an eternal, primeaval name that bears all power on an individual. I wonder if God doesn’t have one for each of us.

Which is why I think God must have a sense of humor to allow some of the.. names that I don’t like.. to be given to His Children. And my whole flipping problem was that I was trying to find the immortal, perfect name for Mago. In all seriousness, the only comfort that let me let go of my naming angst was the thought that whatever I name him, it’s an imperfect name. And I recall a comment my brother posted which offended me and I took it down, I no longer can see why – it was hilarious and struck at the heart of the matter – in retort to my assertion that “Baby likes his name just fine”, my brother said “Maybe it’s because you named him Christ.” Ah ha ha, that is funny. And it makes me think: maybe the many Mexican folks who name their babies Jesus are really onto something – it’s among the only if not the only name divinely declared and ascribed.]

In the morning I greet him and he smiles. Later I tell him “Hiii” a few times and again he mirrors it with “Nyaai!”, to my exhuberance. I read to him. He won’t have the reading, he likes the talking, and interrupts me at three intervals with “Nyaaai!”, each time again to my exhuberance. Meanwhile he’s bored with me saying only this back to him, and I have nothing else to say (for which I’m sorry), so I go again to music. Most of the music I try on him causes a blandly bemused expression. As he has just come from a realm of certain objectivity about many matters, I regard this as a sign that most of my music is, objectively, blandly bemusing. ..okay, tastes are subjective. .. sort of. The title screen music from Game Cube’s “Wario Ware” causes curiousity and involvement. The Star Trek Voyager title music causes interest without blandness. He cries when I stop playing Wario Ware, stops crying when I start it again. To the Star Wars title music he tenses up and darts his eyes around.

For a while he’s been more fussy around me (and more fussy in general since his horrific circumcision) – not tolerant of me holding my face to his. I try music again. He likes “Conquest of Paradise (Theme)” and “Summon the Heroes” from the latter’s title album (of themes used in broadcasts of the Olympic Games) and lets me nuzzle him while he listens, the music putting him into a trance. We then listen to “Freedom Theme” from the ending scenes of BRAVEHEART, and I tell him how the music is about a warrior who gave his life for Scotland, and Robert the Bruce who betrayed him and saw what he had lost when William gave everything for the cause. And how Robert then brought the Scots one morning before the great tyrant of England to battle, and how William’s brother caused William’s sword to fly before the battle. And how the hero reminds me of a greater hero who also gave his life so that we can fly.

(Forget whether any of that is fiction. Forget it. If it claims to be history, don’t forget it, but it doesn’t make the claim. The expressed virtues in the story are the important thing.)

Mom takes him into the room, saying that he wants to listen to the nintendo music I’m playing (while I organize a thousand disparate image files from one computer folder to many). She leaves him in the boppy on the floor to go eat. Behind from the floor, he cooes, and I turn around and he’s looking at me. I pick him up and we dance to Ninja Gaiden track 13; the music relating Ryu compelled to battle his father who is possessed by a demon and transformed into a monster. I exlaim to him of the music: “Oh, the pathos! Father, you’re dying!” He wiggles his arms to the music. Typing this now with him in the boppy in my lap, he offers another greeting, exlaiming: “NYAAAI!”

.. superstitious of the effects of nintendo music (people at lease *act* as if it’s somehow vulgar or tasteless..) I play him instead a mass (Messe La Bataille). After a while he starts fussing. I play Beethoven’s overtures to The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 and Coriolan, Op. 62 (I have no idea what these are – these are just the titles). He likes these much better.

Something happened that I forgot. I should never, never, never do this again. Was it a call to me? Who will hear every cry? Who is there when a call finds absence? Yah is merciful.

I say to Baby three times: “Hiii! Hiii! Hiii!” He utters a few fidgeting sounds, draws in, and lets out: “YNNGAAAAAI!”

I come to him in his mother’s arms and stroke his face and head. He smiles.

Stuff happened I didn’t write down. Baby’s circumusion was a horror; Tia grew faint and couldn’t stand at the table to comfort him with me. I’m convinced the anesthetic didn’t work. He’s changed since; the exhuberance tempered, a prior nonexistent uneasiness emerged. It breaks my heart. Also baby was jaundiced and fought his way out of it with special blue lights. Ooooh. He hated the confinement of the suitcase/blue light booth and ultimately would not use it.