Ellie's 6 Month Checkup

She turned 6 months about a week and a half ago, but Ellie just had her well child visit yesterday. She is in the 32nd percentile for weight and the 72nd percentile for height so she is long and skinny. I still can't get over how different this is from Noah's at that age, where he was in the 25th percentile or below for height and between 25 and 50th for weight. At 6 months, Noah was still wearing 0-3 month clothes. Ellie is in 6-9 or 12 months (depending on brand.) I guess it just proves (again!) that all kids are different.

He said she is perfect and he can't find anything wrong with her. He also said she could stand to take a couple months off for a break since she is advanced developmentally. He asked if she rolled from stomach to back and I told him she goes all the way across the floor and around the room. He asked if she could sit up for about 30 seconds and I told him it was more like 30 minutes and then I told him she is also trying to inchworm around - not always, but often. He was pretty impressed and said that most babies don't start diong those things until around 8 months or so. Tim said he knew she was doing things sooner than Noah, but when I checked Noah's baby book he was actually doing these things at the same ages. I think the only thing she is doing that he wasn't at this point is chattering non-stop. He made screeching noises and happy sounds, but she is doing the "da-da", "ba-ba" stuff, which he didn't do until around 7 1/2 months. I'm not looking at his baby book to compare them to each other, just because I can't remember when to expect certain things! It is amazing how much you forget even after just a couple years.

So there is our Eleanor update. She is a joy to our home and family. Her personality is one of extremes - she's usually either very happy or very cranky. There's not really an inbetween with her.

Tim and I were watching "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" the other night and it was about a boy named Job who spent 6 years in and out of hospitals for leukemia, a double lung transplant and I can't even remember what else - and he's only 10 years old now! As soon as we heard the name, I said, "Well, what in the world did they expect by naming him Job?!" A minute later they were doing the little interview part with the mom and she was talking about how they had gotten grief from family members when they chose to name him Job because everyone kept pointing out Job in the Bible and that his name means "suffering." She said they lean on the latter part of Job's life where he was more blessed during the second half of his life than the first. Tim and I started talking about names and what our's mean and our kids'. We personally, checked the meaning of the names for our children after finding ones we liked. We wanted to know out of curiousity, but also because Biblically people were named for significant reasons and we wanted to honor that as well.

Noah means "calm, peace." He was very much like this as a baby although he is quite the preschooler now. However, I still find him to be peaceful and calm often. He is content to play on his own for awhile, he travels well in the car for looong periods of time, and he is not one to pick a fight and only fights back when defending himself against physical harm. He also brought us a sense of peace when we found out he was a healthy pregnancy after going through our miscarriage. Tim and I discussed how the Biblical Noah went through ridicule while building the ark but he still went through with following God. We pray that our Noah is the same way, even if he is made fun of throughout school for his beliefs (if he so chooses to follow the Lord.) Edwin means "rich friend." We'll see about that rich part and if it means monetary. That name actually came from my grandfather.

Eleanor means "light." Though she is named after Tim's grandmother, we are praying she is a light in the world. Lee means "meadow." I like meadows, but that middle name was also my grandma's middle name.

Timothy means "to honor God." I would say he fits it pretty well. Andrea means "womanly" which is a joke to me because since becoming a mom I don't feel very womanly. I guess if you look at it in the sense of being a wife and mother, however, I have that one covered.

What about your name? What does it mean? What do the names of your children mean? Did you take name meaning into consideration when naming your children? Do you think it's important?