{Almost} famous?

Last year I started following a blog written by a guy who calls himself the Normal Mormon Husband. The first post I read on the NMH blog, entitled "Pregnancy Brain," had me laughing out loud, so I became a fan. I enjoy the author's dry humor and the way he highlights issues common to a lot of parents raising families in the LDS faith. Little did I know that a bit of my personal life would one day be a subject put before his readers.

Last week NMH issued a call for people who needed mediation on something silly and inconsequential. As a joke, I submitted a comment, explaining that Garry and I have had a long-standing debate regarding the name of our first-born girl. Since we've been married almost eleven years without producing a female offspring, this has been a lengthy debate indeed, but we now find ourselves faced with the need to resolve our little dispute. Seriously, I asked for mediation to give myself (and Garry) a laugh. The truth is that I really don't care what other people think; Garry and I are grown-ups and can decide on our own what to name our child, thankyouverymuch.

And then NMH responded. He wanted to do a mediation post on our great name debate. Garry and I thought this was hilarious (and so did my mom and sister, who follow the blog and saw my comment). And so NMH and I exchanged a few emails and Garry and I had a few laughs. We were honestly interested in what the public thought of our "great dilemma," and a baby name poll on the NMH blog seemed like a fun way to get a bunch of opinions.

This morning the post appeared (and yes, this was the "delightful blog post" to which I alluded earlier this week). It was funny. It generated lots of comments. In addition to many of the NMH's opinions and witticisms, it included a side-bar voting widget with five name options we picked for the purpose of his post.

Here's the problem: in my zeal to avoid tainting the public by exposing The Name in Question, I gave the NMH a liberty he shouldn't have had -- the power to skew our poll. He unilaterally axed the name Garry and I have been arguring about and didn't allow it to be voted upon! Lest you think we feel a great injustice and hold malice toward the NMH, let me be clear: we still think the whole thing is pretty silly and inconsequential (see the end of paragraph two), not to mention quite amusing. The blog comments alone have made for some very entertaining reading!

I fully intended to let the issue die with that post, since the poll is meaningless without The Name in Question. We had our chuckles, and we know that sometime before May we'll figure out what to name our little girl. However, I have already gotten several emails from friends (and one even posted about our "star sighting" on her blog), so I figured I'd better offer a direct link -- and the background story -- to my dear readers and see what you have to say!

Are you ready? Check it out: Normal Mormon Mediation: Name That Baby! Be sure to leave a comment here to let me know you did.

So NMH, if you're reading this, thanks for our 15 minutes of Normal Mormon fame! It will be fun to see what the poll results are in a week. But if you want to know what the REAL results turn out to be, you'll just have to follow my blog. Because we can name our baby girl ourselves, thankyouverymuch.