Author Archives: Jenn Rian
Celebrating Seuss
During the month of March we’ve been celebrating NEA’s Read Across America. March 02 was Dr. Seuss’ birthday and we had a little “celebration” here at home.
We began our day with A Splendiferous Dr. Seuss Breakfast of Green Eggs and “Ham” served with Moose Juice and our bread butterside up!
We watched Horton Hears a Who!
Adaline and I read some Dr. Seuss books. We read the board book version of “Happy Birthday to You” then I read Adaline “Hop on Pop”, “Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?”, The Cat in the Hat, and “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” for the first time. Hop and Pop and Mr. Brown are now favorites. When reading the Cat in the Hat she likes to point out “Sally” and “Baby” (the unnamed brother) on each page and she gets a little irritated when I don’t read fast enough for her to turn the page and find Sally again.
(After reading her Hop on Pop and Mr. Brown only two times on two different days Adaline began bringing me the books and saying “Mr. Bonk Moo” (Bonk = Brown) and “Hop Pop”. I couldn’t believe she’d remembered the names of the books when I’d only read them to her twice!)
I traced Adaline’s hand for some projects that I wanted to do. She didn’t really like getting her hand traced, but she was excited to see it after it was done. I had to trace back over them since her fingers looked crazy 😉
(That’s not some strange cryptic code…Adaline’s been into letters lately especially since Dr. Seuss’ ABC is one of her favorite books so she’s always asking me to draw O, G, or B on her coloring sheets.)
(Yes, I did a wardrobe change…I’m fancy like that.)
Next I traced Adaline’s feet on to cardstock. She seemed to like that a little better than the hands (I don’t think she likes the crayon going in between her fingers).
I let Adaline color her hand and foot tracings.
I wasn’t brave enough this year to stick her hands or feet in any paint, so the tracings will have to do.
I plan on saving this foot tracing and doing something similar each year and putting it all together as her own “Foot Book”. As she gets older maybe we’ll include some real footprints and other things. We’ll have a Dr. Seuss project that we can work on every year and have a keepsake too 🙂
(I held Adaline’s hand and together we wrote out “Foot Book” and her name.)
I had a different plan for the handprints. Adaline really loves Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose. She’s not interested in the story so much as she just loves the illustrations of Thidwick. She’s since replaced her love of Thidwick with the ABC book, but she still really loves to look at that moose.
I thought that I’d use Adaline’s hand tracings as Thidwick’s antlers. Using Adaline’s crayons I traced Thidwick from the book cover (I don’t have time for free hand!). I took the drawing and scanned it into the computer and printed out a copy on cardstock. I cut out Adaline’s handprints (also drawn on cardstock) and glued them over top of Thidwick’s antlers. Ta-da…
The problem is that I should’ve left Thidwick’s original antlers out of my drawing and pasted the hands coming directly out of his head. For whatever reason I drew the antlers anyway, but her hands weren’t big enough to cover them completely, so I had to move them up so that the other antlers didn’t show. This just makes it look like Thidwick is wearing gloves on his antlers. Oh well.
We had a great week celebrating Dr. Seuss. Adaline seemed to enjoy all of the activities we did and the readings that we attended (at Target and the library) and she even liked the green food that we ate. It seems as though she’s in the beginning stages of becoming quite the Dr. Seuss fan (yay!). She really has a love of books and reading and I’m so excited to encourage that and make it fun for her.
How did you celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday?
Let me know in the comments!
Seuss Fails 2011 / Dr. Seuss Celebration at the Library 2011 / Dr. Seuss Storytime at Target 2011 / Read Across America with Dr. Seuss 2011
This post is linked to…
The Ultimate Dr. Seuss Linky Party 2012 @ Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Ready. Set. Read!, Reading Confetti, Montessori Tidbits, Make, Do & Friend, Putti Prapancha, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo, Mama Mia’s Heart2Heart, Living Montessori Now, Kindergarten for Teachers and Parents, Toddler Approved, Creativity My Passion, Rainbows Within Reach, PreK and K Sharing
Spring Ahead: Reflections on Miscarriage
I wrote and posted this article last year on 3/14/2009 on a personal blog that I decided not to continue. Since I never did anything with that blog and no one got to read it I decided to repost it here. I edited a few things to reflect the passage of time, otherwise the text is unaltered.
March 14, 2009 was the due date for our first baby. I had a miscarriage on August 28, 2008 at 11 weeks and 5 days. During the pregnancy we called the baby Biddle. In 2009 on the baby’s due date I wanted to give the baby a name, just as we would have if he/she would’ve been born that day. We named our baby Jordan Shiloh. If he/she had survived Jordan would be two years old now (although likely with a different name). These “anniversaries” are difficult for me. They are marked with sadness for obvious reasons…but they are also very lonely. No one else remembers Jordan’s due date or miscarriage date or the date we found out that I was pregnant (July 5, 2008). I do. These dates are set apart for me now and I will never forget them. I believe I have a right to be sad. I believe I have a right to grieve our baby that we never got to know. However, I don’t want these dates to always be sad and depressing to me. I want to honor our baby.
It’s fitting that last year Jordan’s due date fell on “Spring Ahead”. It’s so symbolic of what I need to do. When going through a miscarriage (especially after following a season of infertility) it’s so easy to “fall back”. Falling back looks so inviting. Fall is a time when the trees go through an amazing transformation. Their colors change but then they shed their old leaves. They prepare for a season that they will spend cold and bare. When I lost my baby I cried more than I had ever cried in my life. My womb felt even more empty and barren then it had during my infertility. The physical pain paled in comparison to the emotional pain that I felt as my baby was leaving my body. I felt alone, empty, and as bare as the naked trees entering winter.
Although the trees are left bare for the winter, they are not dead. The leaves are dead but the trees are not dead. The leaves that they have shed are gone now, but the tree is still alive! I couldn’t bury myself, although I often felt like I wanted to. I couldn’t give up. Although I felt sadness, although I felt bare…I was still alive. I had my emotional fall. I had my emotional winter. But it can’t stay winter forever. It won’t stay winter just because I want it to. Just because I pull the covers over my head and refuse to be part of the world doesn’t make it stop spinning. When I finally get out of bed and look outside I can see that spring has come and life is still going on. Life is going on. Life. Life. LIFE. It’s out there. It’s all around. Spring is all about life, renewal, growth. I need to live life. I need to spring ahead.
This spring to honor Jordan my husband and I want to give life. Between now and the baby’s miscarriage date in August here are some of the things that we hope to do to give life: plant a tree in the baby’s memory, donate blood, and donate food/supplies to the Humane Society. In doing these things we can help the environment, help people, and help animals.
Mommy and Adaline take a walk on Jordan's "due date" (2011)
If you would like to join us in giving life this spring, leave a comment and let me know what you plan to do.
Related Posts:
*Celebrate Your Name Week: Jordan: Why we named the baby we miscarried
*National Infertility Awareness Week
*Childless Mother: Infertility Poem
*Trying to Conceive: Take 1
*My First Pregnancy
*My Miscarriage
*Trying to Conceive: Take 2
*Trying to Conceive: Take 3 Secondary Infertility
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Celebrate Your Name Week: Jennifer
March 6-12 is Celebrate Your Name Week. I told you about how Muppet got his name and how Adaline got her name and why I spell it wrong.
You can read about my birth story and how/why my mom named me here.
Hi, my name is Jenn (“Hi Jenn”). Of course my given name is Jennifer. I went by Jenny from birth until high school. Since my close family called me Jenny I suddenly became uncomfortable with anyone that I wasn’t close with calling me Jenny. In the 10th grade I switched over to Jenn, with two n’s. Please don’t forget the second n. An easy way to remember is “Two n’s means more of Jenn!” (and come on, who doesn’t want that?!). I never go by Jennifer, but often introduce myself as such since apparently people can’t hear and want to call me “Jean” or “Jan” (and believe me, I speak clearly). I’m certain to let people know to call me Jenn as I don’t like being called Jennifer. I think my middle name is pretty sweet so you’ll have to go here to read about it.
If you didn’t know it already Jennifer was/is a really popular name. There are a lot of us named Jennifer in the 25-40 year old age range. There certainly wasn’t anything exciting about growing up with the name Jennifer in the 80s, but at least you could be sure to find my name on a mug, key chain, or notepad. This is riveting information here, people. And it gets more exciting, let’s talk about the meaning of my name.
Ok, so loosely translated Jennifer basically means “hey white girl!”. Oh, yes. The meaning of the name differs slightly from one website to another but the two meanings that I found the most were “fair” and “white wave”. Fair and white are just nice ways of saying pale and pasty 😉
After reading my Celebrate Your Name Week posts on Facebook my good friend, Kelly, let me know that her first and middle names combined mean “Warrior of Light”. Um, well, that’s awesome. My name meaning stinks 😦 I already knew about “fair” and “white wave” so I figured I do a little more research to see if I could find a meaning I liked better 😉
*Fair lady
*White wave, White skin, White shoulders
(Now we’re getting very descriptive about the paleness!)
*One who is fair and beautiful
(Why, thank you 🙂 )
*Fair and Smooth, White Waves White; fair; smooth
(Jennifer…Now available in “smooth” too!)
*White, Fair and Smooth, Soft
(…and soft!)
*White, fair, blessed, holy, smooth
(Blessed and holy are nice!)
*Pure and yielding, whitewave
(Pure and yielding aren’t bad 😉 )
*Fair spirit
(Ooo, spirit)
*White Shadow, White Wave
(Shadow is cool!)
*Fair Phantom or White Wave
(Fair Phantom is sweet!)
*The White Fay, White Ghost, White Phantom, or White Fairy
(Now we’re talking…I sound awesome!)
While these meanings don’t differ that much (and certainly keep with the “white” theme) I definitely like the references to spirit, shadow, ghost, phantom, and fairy! It sounds so mysterious and a little creepy and also fantastical and dreamy. Me likey. Sure, it’s still not as hardcore as being a warrior of light, but at least it’s a little more interesting than “Hey, you need some sun!”. I’ve actually always liked the meaning “White Wave” as I thought it sounded like a Native American name.
A little more about the name Jennifer:
Jennifer is of Welsh origin from Gwenhwyfar, which also can mean “white waves” (source). The name Jennifer is a Cornish variation of Welsh GUINEVERE. There were close to 800,000 Jennifers born in the seventies, making Jennifer the top name of the decade (source).
Jenny was in existence at least as early as 1602 when William Shakespeare punned it with ‘genitive’ in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Jennifer developed in Cornwall, an area of England with strong Celtic connections, including many claims to Arthurian legend, as a separate development from Gwenhwyvar. The name only became fashionable in the rest of England and the world in the last hundred years, perhaps following the increased popular, artistic and literary interest in the Arthurian legend during the Victorian period when the British Empire was at its height (source).
The name (Jennifer) has been in use since the 18th century. Before 1906 the name was fairly uncommon, but it became popular after George Bernard Shaw used it for the main female character in The Doctor’s Dilemma. It gained even more popularity in the 1970s. Though its popularity is often attributed to the novel and film Love Story, Jennifer was already the number 3 name given to baby girls in the United States in 1969, the year before the book and movie were released (source).
According to the Social Security Administration Jennifer was one of the Top 10 baby names for 25 years straight (1966-1991) and was the #1 baby name for 15 years straight from 1970-1985 (source You will have to search “Jennifer” or a specific year as this is not a direct link.).
Jennifer is starting to decline in popularity and recently fell out of the Top 100 baby names for girls. So while the senior set will be crawling with Jennifers 30 years from now, it’s unlikely that my daughter will have many friends by that name.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
A Shadowy Wave of Phantom Paleness (otherwise know as Jenn)
What does your name mean?
Tell me in the comment section!
Other “Celebrate Your Name Week” Posts:
+How Muppet got his name
+How Adaline got her name
+The meaning of Adaline’s name and why I spell it wrong
Celebrate Your Name Week: Jordan
March 6-12 is Celebrate Your Name Week! I figured I’d celebrate by discussing the names of our cast of characters here at Coolest Family on the Block. I told you about how Muppet got his name and how Adaline got her name and why I spell it wrong, and why Cool Daddy’s name is a secret
After almost 5 years of unexplained infertility we got pregnant. Just before 12 weeks I lost the baby. Three months later I got pregnant with Adaline. On the first baby’s due date, 03/14/2009, we “officially” named the baby Jordan Shiloh. (Coincidentally Jordan’s due date fell 2 days after I had my 20 week ultrasound with Adaline and discovered for certain that she was a girl.).
Shortly after finding out we were pregnant with Jordan, Cool Daddy and I were taking a walk and I said, “I’d like us to give the baby a nickname that we can call it until we find out whether it’s a girl or a boy. Any suggestions?” Right away he answered, “Biddle.” and I thought it was great. For the remainder of the pregnancy we called the baby Biddle. After the miscarriage we wanted to give the baby a real name, but we weren’t sure if it had been a boy or a girl. We decided to use a unisex name and Jordan and Shiloh were our favorites. I also liked that Jordan and Shiloh are Biblical place names.
Jordan is the river in the Bible where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. It was at Shiloh where Hannah prayed to God to give her a son and it was there where Samuel was later brought to live.
Jordan means “descending, flowing down” and Shiloh means “He who has been sent” and also “safe, peaceful, tranquil”. Together the name means “Descending, flowing down, He who has been sent safely, peacefully, tranquilly.” Quite honestly I didn’t even know that at the time that I picked the names. While having a name with special meaning was important to me, I just wanted to pick a unisex name that I liked the sound of and Jordan and Shiloh were my favorites. Now I think that the name is so fitting. While losing Jordan was one of the most painful experiences of my life (s)he left this world flowing down and had been sent safely, peacefully, and tranquilly to be with his/her Father in heaven.
I still often refer to the baby as “Biddle” since no one ever seems to know who I’m talking about when I say “Jordan”. I’m glad we gave our baby a name, even if we’re the only ones that remember it.
Follow the links below for more information on the names “Jordan” and “Shiloh”.
*Jordan (Male)
*Jordan (Female)
*Jordan: Meaning “descend, flow down”
*Shiloh (Male)
*Shiloh (Female)
*Shiloh: Meaning “peaceful, tranquil”
*Shiloh: Meaning “He who has been sent”
*Shiloh: Meaning “His gift”
Other “Celebrate Your Name Week” Posts:
+How Muppet got his name
+How Adaline got her name
+The meaning of Adaline’s name and why I spell it wrong
+Why Cool Daddy’s Name is a Secret
+The meaning of the name Jennifer: My name 🙂
+Why “Coolest Family on the Block”?: How I picked the blog name
Read The Short Version of our infertility/miscarriage story, or for the whole story read:
*Part 1: Trying to Conceive: Take 1
*Part 2: My First Pregnancy
*Part 3: My Miscarriage
*Part 4: Trying to Conceive: Take 2
*Part 5: Trying to Conceive: Take 3 Secondary Infertility
*Spring Ahead: Reflections on Miscarriage
*Childless Mother: Infertility Poem
*National Infertility Awareness Week
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Celebrate Your Name Week: Adaline (Part 2)
March 6-12 is Celebrate Your Name Week! I figured I’d celebrate by discussing the names of our cast of characters here at Coolest Family on the Block. I told you about how Muppet got his name and how Adaline got her name.
Today I’d like to tell you about the meaning of Adaline’s name and why I spell it “wrong”.
Before I continue telling you about how/why Adaline got her name, I’m going to take a moment to tell you how we pronounce it. Adaline is said exactly how it is spelled Add-ah-line. It is not Ay-da nor is it linn or leen. All those versions of the name are pretty, but we use the classic pronunciation of Add-ah-line.
Okay, moving on…
I’d always wanted to give my kids Bible names. I’m not really sure why, I just liked the idea of it and the Bible contains some really beautiful timeless names (and some really weird ones too). While I was looking up Biblical names I kept seeing the name “Adah” and I thought that it was really pretty. I felt that “Adah” had the same appeal as Ava, Ella, Emma, and other two-syllable names that end with the “ah” sound. My husband didn’t like it. I think he thought it sounded like an old lady or something. I knew I probably wouldn’t just name my daughter “Adah” especially since I was still hanging on to “Hannah” at the time. When my husband brought up the name “Adeline” while looking through a baby book, not only did I find the full name beautiful but right away I thought about the nickname “Ada”.
Since the meaning of the name was something that was important to me, I began researching the name Adeline and other versions/spellings of the name. Repeatedly I found that Adeline means noble, nobility, of the noble sort, and sometimes kind. I thought that these were all great meanings, so I thought I’d dig a little deeper. I’m a bit obsessive in my researching and this was no different. I decided to research the name Ada into the depths of the internet until my search engine was screaming for mercy. I was thrilled with what I found. I loved that all of the meanings were nice and lovely and I loved that there were 13 different meanings for the name in 13 different countries! In parts of Africa the name means “firstborn daughter”, which was perfect! Many of the websites showed the pronunciation of “Ay-da” while others showed “Aa-da” and some showed both. I decided to change the spelling from Adeline to Adaline so that she would have the prefix of the name “Ada” which has so many wonderful meanings. Also then it wouldn’t be so much of a stretch to use “Ada” for a nickname.
Below is a list of the meanings and origins of the name “Ada” along with links to the sources.
ADALINE/ ADELINE
MEANINGS: Noble, Nobility
ADA
MEANINGS: Brightness, Beautiful, Adorned, Adornment, Ornament, Noble, Kind, Oldest/First Daughter, Wealthy, Prosperous, Happy, Sweet, Pleasant, Joyful
ORIGINS: Hebrew / Biblical, African, Germanic, French, Greek, Danish, American, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, Teutonic, English, Hawaiian
+Hebrew / Biblical: Brightness, Beautiful, Adorned, Adornment
+African: First Daughter, Oldest Daughter
+Germanic: Noble, kind, of the noble sort
+French, Greek, Danish: Noble, Nobility
+American, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian: Noble, kind
+Teutonic: Happy
+English: Prosperous; happy, Wealthy, Happy
+Hawaiian: Happy, Ornament
+Other Meanings: Sweet, Pleasant, Joyful
Origins of Ada
(I’ve edited this due to length. To read the entire text please go here http://www.babynamespedia.com)
1: Ada has its origins in the Germanic language. It is used largely in the English, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian languages. Derived from the word
adal meaning ‘noble, honorable’. The name was born in the 4th century by the sister of Mausolus, the builder of the first mausoleum, and by a 7th-century abbess in France. The name was introduced from Germany to English speakers in the late 18th century. It later became popular in the 19th century, during which Lord Byron gave the name to his daughter Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), a prominent mathematician and patron of Charles Babbage the inventor of the early mechanical computer. The computer language Ada was later named after her.
2: Ada’s language of origin is Hebrew. Biblical name: In the Old Testament of the Bible, a number of women were named Adah, with various meanings such as ‘ornament’ and ‘brightness’.
Another reason I chose the name Adaline over Hannah was because of the song “Sweet Adeline”. I love Barbershop Quartet music and it’s a pretty song and I thought it would be neat to be able to sing this song to her.
In conclusion (for both posts) Adaline got her name because:
1. Daddy found it in a baby book
2. I liked the “old fashioned” name and the barbershop quartet song about it
3. It’s not too popular and trendy like many similar names
4. It’s not too different and sounds similar to other names that are popular (Addison, Madeline)
5. It has a lovely meaning.
6. The prefix and nickname “Ada” is a Bible name that can also be found in 12 other countries with 13 different beautiful meanings including “firstborn daughter”.
7. It’s perfect 🙂
So, at the risk of now making the name more trendy and popular…don’t you want to name your daughter Adaline as well?! 😉
Does your child’s name have a special meaning?
Tell me in the comments!
Be sure to stop back tomorrow when I’ll be talking about the name of our most mysterious family member…Cool Daddy!
Other “Celebrate Your Name Week” Posts:
+How Muppet got his name
+How Adaline got her name
+The meaning of Adaline’s name and why I spell it wrong
Celebrate Your Name Week: Adaline (Part 1)
March 6-12 is Celebrate Your Name Week! Yesterday I told you about how our furbaby, Muppet, got his name.
Today we’ll talk about naming Adaline.
My baby bump has a sinister handlebar mustache. Don’t be jealous.
At some point during our relationship Cool Daddy and I discussed what we’d name our daughter if we had one in the future. I’m not sure exactly how it all came about, but we’d both decided that we liked the name Rebecca Paige.
We had it settled.
Time went on and on and on…and I still wasn’t getting pregnant. It took 4 ½ years of unexplained infertility before we conceived our first baby. I started looking through baby name books and searching online. I’m not really sure if I was actually looking for a name or if I just felt that it was a rite of passage that I wanted to indulge in. Although I’d never really thought about it before, now that I was pregnant the meaning of the name became very important to me. I had already felt myself letting go of Rebecca, but once I read the meaning of the name* I was pretty sure it wasn’t for me. I felt very strongly about naming the baby Hannah if it were a girl. I’d always wanted a Biblical name and now I really related to Hannah. My husband and I thought Hannah Grace would be the perfect name for our little girl (Coincidentally Hannah also means “grace”).
Just before 12 weeks I lost the baby.
Three months later I was pregnant again. Once again I began looking in baby name books and searching online. I’m not sure why. We’d already chosen names during the last pregnancy. Still I felt myself letting go of Hannah Grace. I think part of it was because it was a name I was considering for the other baby and I just felt a little uncomfortable using it for this baby. One day while my husband and I were looking through baby name books he said, “What about Adeline? That’s pretty isn’t it?” I told him, “I love Adeline! Great pick, honey!” And I put it on my short list. I was still searching but from that moment on the baby was “Adeline” to my husband. Part of me wanted to keep both Adeline and Hannah and then decide once I saw the baby. In my mind Adaline had blue eyes and blond hair like me while Hannah had brown hair and brown eyes like her daddy. Somewhere around 34 weeks I had made up my mind.
Her name would be Adaline and here is why…
I loved the name Hannah but I felt like it was becoming too popular. Everyone seemed to be named Hannah (along with many other names that I liked including Emma, Ella, Isabella, and Ava). Because of that it seemed like the significance of the name would be lost in a sea of other Hannahs. I know a little about having a popular name (says the Jennifer from the 80s with a sister named Jessica). Then there’s Hannah Montana. I don’t have any problem with the show, but it can be a little irritating if as soon as you say “Hannah” someone thinks (or says) “Montana!”. And then one time my sister referred to the baby as “Hannah Banana”, and while that’s a cute little nickname…I know my sister. She would’ve started calling the child that all of the time and getting her everything with bananas and monkeys on it. It would’ve been overkill. So that’s why I didn’t name her Hannah. (I still love the name, though, so please do not let my hang ups stop you from naming your daughter Hannah. It’s a lovely name!).
I did name her Adaline because it’s a beautiful name. I also loved that it wasn’t popular, however, similar names like Addison and Madeline are popular. This would mean that plucking the name Adaline out of the early 20th century wouldn’t seem as foreign with similar sounding names being popular. She would also have the option of going by Adaline and being a little more unique or going by Addy like the other Addy’s and Maddy’s she’ll likely encounter. (There was no way to make Jennifer more unique. Unless you go by Lola, which isn’t Jennifer at all actually…so it doesn’t count.). We gave her the middle name “Rose” simply because I thought it sounded beautiful (and roses are my favorite flower, but it has nothing to do with the name selection). Other middle names that we considered were Grace, Joy, and Jayne.
Tomorrow I will tell you about the meaning of Adaline’s name including why I spell her name wrong 🙂
*Meaning of the name Rebecca: To bind, to ensnare, tied, captivating, knotted chord
(I still think Rebecca is a beautiful name.)
How did you choose your child’s name?
Tell me your story in the comments!
Other “Celebrate Your Name Week” Posts:
+How Muppet got his name
+How Adaline got her name
+The meaning of Adaline’s name and why I spell it wrong
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Fun and Dysfunction 