naming zelda

When I was pregnant with George, sometime prior to the 20 week ultrasound that revealed him to be a boy, I started having dreams starring Thomas Pynchon. Not being a huge fan of his, I had no idea what he looked like, so he mainly took the form of other people I knew or his likeness from the Simpsons: a guy with a paper bag over his head. Thomas Pynchon told me, quite insistently, to name my daughter Prairie. "Name your daughter Prairie!" he repeated to me, with no explanation, a few nights a week for a couple of months.

I could go on to tell you why I found this especially magical, why I was so inclined to do as he said, why it was such an uncanny thing to happen, recurring dream-style. But I'll spare you. George was a boy, and I irritatedly wrote dream-Pynchon off, seeing as how he was wrong about my baby's sex.

When I learned that I was (allegedly; I didn't believe it until I saw a real-life vulva) pregnant with a girl, I had a revelation: this was Prairie. Thomas Pynchon hadn't specified which baby I was to call Prairie. I'd been so silly, pissed at that dream-Pynchon for being wrong when he was actually so prescient. We made name lists and eventually narrowed the field to three or four choices. George had a favorite; Nathan had a favorite, and neither's favorite was Prairie. A short list came with us to the birth center, but in my heart of hearts, this baby was always Prairie. Until we saw her. And she just... wasn't a Prairie.

I know lots of people choose their child's name months in advance of his or her birth, and that seems to work out for them just fine. I don't know if they have regrets, or if they waffle upon seeing their baby and think, "wait; maybe this isn't Jayden/Michaela/Prudence." Even though I'd felt that this girl was my Prairie, I hadn't said as much out loud, we'd never announced her name, and I'd really only shared our frontrunners with my close friends. Seeing her changed my mind, and I was glad to be the name-after-birth sort of person rather than a vinyl-name-decal-on-the-nursery-wall-at-6-months-pregnant sort.

George was never on board with any name but Zelda, and when I read my horoscope in early December, seeing the Yiddish name Selig -- the feminization of which is Zelda -- felt providential in a way similar to paper bag-headed Thomas Pynchon informing my name choice. Zelda was in the top three on our list (I have an abiding love for Zelda Fitzgerald, to whom history -- and life, actually -- has not been kind. Nevertheless, she was an amazing talent and complicated woman: both traits I hope my daughter to have) but, more importantly, it was what George had been calling his sister all along. That was sweet, I thought. His first buy-in as a brother. We couldn't very well cast that aside, could we? So we tried it out. We talked about which name suited her best, and choosing any other name felt like usurping astrology and George at once. Plus, it fit. Zelda was it.

Marigold was always strictly a first name option. One Nathan had grown partial to in the final weeks of my pregnancy, when we forced ourselves to nail down three whole possible combinations. Zelda Marigold wasn't one of them, but something happened that hadn't occurred to me as a potentiality: she was both a Zelda and a Marigold.

Marigolds, signifiers of celebration. On the day of the dead, their blooms draw loved ones' souls back to their families. They drape the necks of brides and grooms, form wedding garlands. They treat illness. Their scent drives pests from the garden. They are protective and cheerful, adaptable. Pretty, but not ostentatious. Peppery. It helps, too, that our children's hair is golden. Not blonde, not really brown, but shiny halfway-between. I thought I'd have two dark-haired babes, but one, then two came with the same spun gold fuzz.

I don't know yet if she'll be a Zelda or a Goldie -- if the latter will be akin to honey, or chicken or buster as I call her brother, or if one will eventually feel truer. Either way, though, just as George is the George I knew he'd be the minute we settled on his name, I know we picked right for our girl. I hope she agrees. And maybe there's still a Prairie waiting in the wings.

it's a...

There are some people who can patiently wait until their baby is born to find out whether it's a boy or a girl. They enjoy the surprise, even. I've heard that it gives them motivation to get through labor, as though you need a motivator besides the small person who is, regardless, tunneling out of your womb. This, to me, is like finding a reason to keep peeing once you start. 

I am not one of those people. I want to be, sort of, and I even entertained the idea of forcing myself to be one of those people for the four or five months of pregnancy during which knowing the baby's sex is even possible. It seemed fun to announce to everyone that a little boy or a little girl had arrived -- a small bonus to the anticipated name and stats, as neither are we people who name a child prior to meeting him or her. There's also the matter of pre-defining someone's gender, which is a little bit fucked up, and the very real potential for having a baby of the opposite sex than is predicted through ultrasound, or an intersexed baby (of which the prevalence is somewhere between 1.7% and .018% depending on the conditions included). 

But. I am incapable of being that patient, enlightened person. Instead, I was itching to find out and get started sewing a few things (for a boy; for a girl, let's be frank: an entire wardrobe). What was I going to do? Make all this stuff and not show you? Please.

So, we found out a couple of weeks ago. I sent text messages to the most fervently enquiring minds while (I kid you not) using the restroom at the ultrasound place, midway through the procedure. That's how hilarious a proposition it was to keep the sex a secret. I couldn't even get out the door. 

So, here are a few things I've made in the past couple of days, using these tutorials, scaled down slightly so as to be worn sooner (have I mentioned that patience is not one of my virtues?). 

The fabrics are, top to bottom, Alexander Henry Farmdale Orchard and a kind of robin's egg blue cotton lawn; two prints from Lizzy House Castle Peeps (reeling in my psychosis about making matching outfits, I saved the scraps to put at the hem of some otherwise solid-colored pants for George); and two patterns from Anna Maria Horner's Little Folks voile, which I could swathe myself in 24/7. These tutorials were so easy to follow that I whipped the three dresses up in just one night, plus an hour for finishing. I asked George if he liked them, and he said, "Piddy!" Which either means they're pretty or he pities the next in line to wear the clothes I've made. Based on his jacket review, I'm guessing it's the latter. 

on tramps

This week, a male sports columnist -- a single father to a son -- wrote an opinion piece for CNN.com, a website I only visit when I'm directed there by others' outrage. He asked the parents of America to stop dressing their daughters "like tramps" and, in an undoubtedly purposefully creepy and inflammatory way, described a young girl as "the sexiest" person in the room. He posits that we can blame retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch if we want to, but the problem is really that parents don't set boundaries in favor of acting like their childrens' friends, allowing them to wear halter tops and Juicy Couture track suits, enabling perverty weirdos (who may or may not work for CNN) to leer at them. Lowering their self esteem via teensy padded bras. 

Well. 

I agree with him on one point: parents DON'T set boundaries, but it's nothing to do with buying size 6X thongs. Little girls live in the world with the rest of us. The world where famous women are simultaneously glorified and demonized for their bodies, their appearance, the lengths to which they go in order to stay relevant and beautiful. These little girls have mothers who diet, buy fashion magazines full of altered images of already nearly physically "flawless" women. Mothers who buy Spanx and padded bras and minimizer bras and ask apologetically before they leave the house if they look halfway decent. We present to them a framework of femininity that leaves no room for fat unless you're also hilarious (and sexless). No room for short. Or too tall. Or broad-shouldered or thin-lipped or round-assed lest you suffer the same fate as Jennifer Lopez who cannot be called beautiful without the qualifier of CURVY, even after carrying twins. 

And if you misstep? If you somehow fail to strike that perfect balance of demure but hot, available and eager but hard-to-get, if your skirt is half an inch too short and your expression reads less-than-interested? WHORE. You think you're too good for me, bitch? Fat slut. Ugly. You'd be kinda hot if you weren't such a bitch. These have all been said to me, without provocation, after polite refusals of come-ons. If you find that surprising, you haven't been in a bar recently. And by recently, I mean ever.

What LZ Granderson's article (which I will not link to, but is fully google-able) about child tramps failed to address is what got us here in the first place. What makes little girls want to dress scantily, suggestively. Why it's not their fault, or their mothers' fault for buying the stupid crap, but all of our fault for wondering aloud in the doctor's office while reading US Weekly if Jessica Alba is pregnant again because she looks a little... thick, if you know what I mean. We don't set boundaries, but failing to do so at the mall is the least of our problems. We need to identify the ways in which we propagate this poison. Start saying, in front of our daughters, I LOOK FUCKING GREAT TODAY, instead of, "Do these give me a muffintop?" Better yet, I AM A GOD DAMNED GENIUS WITH A CROCK POT or whatever other affirmations actually matter to their lives. Start setting an example of good. Of smart and interested and involved instead of not-really-pretty-but-trying. Yes, stop buying that glittery "girly" junk, those track suits and gross underthings, but if we imbue girls with worth beyond or instead of their looks, they won't want it anyway. 

There are ways to address the problem of sexualizing children without further marginalizing women, without insulting sex workers, without contributing to the very mindset that created all those horrific screen printed slogans. LZ Granderson just wasn't interested in going there. I am, though, and I'll keep rooting for girls, advocating for them instead of shaming them for participating in the cultural mess we made long before they got here. 

Sorry, Chelsea; it was just too perfect not to use. Love you/miss you.