Were pregnant! Jessica is four weeks pregnant with our second child! I’m so excited and scared all over again! I hope it’s a girl, just for variety’s sake, but I’m happy with whomever. Hopefully, we will have an ultrasound in eight weeks and that’ll allow us to know the gender. We’re willing to have the surprise removed because their is such a history of twins in Jessica’s family. The current due date is January 19th, 2006. Reason will be almost 25 months old at that time. I hope it comes early so we can get another sweet tax break! (Reason was born December 27th, 2003, so we were able to claim him for the whole year! He made us a couple grand, but he has since eaten it.)
Assuming it is to be a girl, let me tell you her name before her heart has even started beating: Elanor Laes Murphy. Last time, people all wanted to tell us their opinion of our name ideas, and we were so green and scared that eventually we just quit telling people our thoughts. We considered Rueben for a long time, but always had Reason on the back burner. Anyway, we’re not going to be dissuaded by people nay-saying this time, so here’s her name. Eleanor is an old name from my family, but that’s not the spelling we chose. Our way is from Tolkien and means “Sun-star.” Sam Gamges (Sean Astin from the Peter Jackson “Lord of the Rings” films) named his first daughter Elanor after the golden flower he encountered in Lothlorien. Sean’s real-life daughter Alexandra played Sam’s daughter Elanor in “The Return of the King.” This of course will not work as a name for our daughter if she is not at least mostly blond. Laes is Jessica maiden name and sounds a great deal like the Hawaiian wreaths of flowers. All these flower ideas backup the notion that Hobbits name their daughters after flowers, and Jessica says I am a Hobbit. (I am only 5 foot 9 and am very hairy!)
