madison? isn't that a little...gay?

I've been spending alot of time thinking about names. I have decided to give Calvin my maiden name (Owens) as a middle name. I would say WE decided on it, but I'm not sure if Nick is 100% sold on the idea. I never considered the pressure of choosing a name for a child until we started trying to get pregnant. And when we found out it's a boy, the pressure increased because this will be his name FOREVER. I've had girlfriends who were relieved to get maried because they wanted to get rid of their maiden names. I was the opposite. I went through a mini-mourning session when I finally, officially, changed my name from Owens to Fossey. I'm ridiculously close to my family and the idea of separating myself from them made me have a little identity crisis. And the whole idea made me a little indignant. I was just supposed to change the perfectly good name I've had for 26 years just because I was getting married? Not fair. I know I didn't have to change my name, but the women I've known who kept their maiden name get referred to as Mrs. HusbandsLastName anyway, and they're stuck correcting people constantly.

But I digress.

In case my in-laws are reading this, I want to assure them (and anyone else) that in the last SIX years since I have started dating and married and been knocked up by Nick, that I am just as much a Fossey as I am an Owens. I'm not sure when it happened, but it has. Maybe I realized it last weekend when I spent pretty much the whole weekend with my in-laws and without my husband, who was working. Or maybe when I prompted my father-in-law to tell a Fossey family legend and then realized I wasn't even in the family then, but I felt like I was.

I have no idea where all of this is coming from, but I know it is coming from a place of gratitude. Family dynamics are fragile. When my brother married Sandy, I realized how thankful I was that he married someone we all loved and not someone who would take him away from us, so to speak. It's the same way with my mom and Jonathan and Katherine and Todd. I hope that when Calvin gets older, I can find the balance of encouraging him to consider the family before choosing a wife, and keeping my nose out of his business. I'm not too worried about it though, considering he is half Fossey and half Owens. He'll grow up the same as me and Nick - at times taking his family for granted, but eventually realizing how lucky he is to be part of our tribe.