procrastinator...

Cleaning is highly overrated.. right? you do it, it looks great, smell great, only to look at it the next day and see that it looks like it did the day before you did it. Maybe I should invite someone over and it may get me motivated to get it done..lol, At least with having all my family living so far I will not get a surprise visit and be embarrassed at the condition I have let the house get!!! I would be locking the door and pretending I wasn't home if someone was to unexpectedly show up! Steve you wanna come home for a surprise visit? Maybe you can even help me clean!!! I miss you my cleaning partner!

I was talking with a friend of mine this morning and was asked about how we are planning to do the transition in Chantaline's name to Tamaya... If it would confuse her that we are all of a sudden calling her by a different name. I don't know if I have wrote this in the blog before, but I thought I would enlighten you all on how and what we are planning.
First off we will call her Tamaya-Chantaline and eventually only call her Tamaya once she responds to it. Now here is where it gets interesting ;-)

I have a lot of respect and honor of my children's birth names. Their Haitian mothers have chosen these names for them out of love and it is forever part of them and their Haitian roots. I will NEVER deny them the freedom of being proud Haitian-Canadian's. Steve and I also found it important to chose a name for our children as it has been an important part of our process as parents. We also wanted to give our children something we chose specific for them as did their Haitian parents.

I had been torn that I had denied Ty his birth name of Mackenson and couldn't shake the feeling that I had taken his birth name from him. I could never fill out the name change form and make it officially Tyrone.

After some deep soul searching, I have found a way for us to have the best of both worlds. I have chosen to keep their Haitian names as their legal names. Both of my children will be called by their birth names in school, Dr.'s office, documents ect..! (Ty is actually called Mackenson at nursery school) When they are old enough and they have had time to "find themselves" they will be able to chose to change their names if they chose to, if at some point either one prefer us calling them by their birth names I will certainly embrace that and honor their request. I honor their roots, and their identity. We are calling them Ty & Tamaya at home as nicknames. They will have heard both names regularly throughout their lives and neither will be foreign to them, when the time is right they can make a informed decision and I will be more than willing to support them which ever they decide.

I have had conversations with Ty about his 2 names and how great it is that he had 2 names chosen for him. He knows his Haitian mom chose the beautiful Haitian name Mackenson and we chose Ty.. He also knows that Tamaya's beautiful Haitian name is Chantaline and we chose her name Tamaya. He thinks it's pretty cool ;-) So do I actually! a nice happy medium and I no longer feel guilty for taking something away from them... instead I have found a way to embrace both of their names and make them equally important!