Our Baby Boy's Name

*** Please check in Monday as well, as I'm going to do a question/answer session. If you've asked anything in my comment section, I'll answer your wonderful questions on Monday. :) ***

Thank you all so much for the congrats we received yesterday. It really means the world to both Taher and I that people are happy for us and celebrate with us. Thank you.

I'm very happy we are going to have a little girl. I of course would have said the same thing had we found out that our baby was a little boy. But I thought about it long and hard yesterday, and one of my beautiful blog commenters pointed out that having both a boy and a girl is a good thing because if I had two boys, my fears of raising them exactly the same and equally would really be true. But having a child of each gender, I will naturally raise them a little differently, so it may be easier. Also, I'm happy that I can now refer to our children as our son and our daughter. Many people in our lives have been referring to our children as the adoptive child and the bio baby. I even got in the habit of doing that. But the terms make me cringe. I don't want that distinction. I also don't like when someone is called an adoptive Mom. Let's face it. . . we are all just Mom's, regardless of how our children came to be.

Anyway, our boy's name. :-D

We've been really leaning towards a particular name for a while. We refer to him by that name, but we didn't want to solidify the name for sure until we knew what gender our other child will be. Now that we know, Taher and I talked last night, and decided that yes, this would be our son's name.

And the name we have chosen for our son is. . .

Khalil

Pronounced Ka-Leel

As many of you who read my blog know, Taher is a 1st generation American. His parents moved to the United States from Egypt over 35 years ago to seek better opportunity. Taher's Egyptian heritage is very important to both us. Don't get me wrong, my heritage is very important to me also, but my ancestors have been in this country for a VERY long time. Therefore, I identify myself with being American. Sure, I'm a little Irish, a little German, a little Norwegian, A little Swedish, and a little English. But really. . . I'm an American. Taher was raised with Arabic being spoken in the home, frequent trips to Egypt to visit his aunts and uncles and cousins, and Friday trips to the Mosque. Taher identifies himself with two countries. . . both American and Egypt.

So, it was really important to the both of us that our children have Arabic names. And we both love the name Khalil.

One reason we love this name, is it stems from one of our favorite authors, Khalil Gibran, who wrote The Prophet. When Taher and I got married over 5 years ago, we had Khalil Gibran's Marriage read at our wedding. And when my parents were married over 30 years ago, they had the same reading at their wedding. He is a very special author in our lives, and we love his name, and are proud to give our son the same name.

Marriage

By: Khalil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke again and said, "And what of Marriage, master?"
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.