Penelope Pristine
Ever since I was a little girl i fantasized about two things:
-meeting my Romeo and marrying him
&
-naming my children
It may sound very cliche but I married my Romeo. Literally. I married a man named Romeo (you can check out his Facebook if you think I'm fibbing LOL) and that was not well deserved but instead a divine blessing. And we have one very sweet and adorable baby boy named Ace.
When i first came up with the name Ace I was working at Kitson Kids on Robertson and taking advantage of downtime by flipping through a popular name book. I obviously didn't make it past the "A's" when Ace came up. Simple right? Seemed to be. But that's only because my hubby agreed. Again, an accomplishment made almost too easy.
We are now expecting our second baby due October 16th. To our surprise, we are having a girl! I kept telling myself "its a boy" but I said that only because I didn't think I was lucky enough to have one boy and one girl. God really knows how to shed blessings on my growing family. After sobbing happily for five minutes and finally pulling it together, we left Cedars Sinai all smiles but secretly we were both contemplating names for our newest edition.
As a small girl in a family of five, I was shy and often teased for being so small and thin. I took to my stuffed toys and dolls to cheer me up. Looking back, Im pretty sure I was still playing barbies while other girls were playing with makeup. Aside from that, my parents ran a fairly strict home where I didn't feel free to make my own choices. Naming my childhood pals gave me a sense of control and a feeling of being more than just this awkward girl. I recall often fighting with my little sister about names and the one both loved was Penny. Penny was perfect. The name was short for Penelope. Sweet, innocent but outgoing and strong. She wasn't shy but she was beautiful. Her soul was part courage, part believer. This was what i found when first searching for the name and luckily after having two girls, my sister never used the name!
Penelope:
In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope (/pəˈnɛləpiː/ pə-NEL-ə-pee; Greek: Πηνελόπεια, Pēnelópeia, or Πηνελόπη, Pēnelópē) is the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope
Penelope has been associated with the faithful, long-suffering wife of Odysseus in Homers odyssey. It is Greek in origin and can sometimes mean "weaver" since she was famously known to sew for twenty years in waiting for her lover. Some also say its origin is known for being in relation to a duck since Penelope was meant to die as an infant but was instead fed and protected by a duck. Either way, it was this romantic story that helped me make my choice and not because KourtneyKardashian named her daughter Penelope.
Penelope is a classic name that's been leaping up the charts due to K Kardash and glamorous Spanish actress Penelope Cruz. Tina Fey and Anna Chlumsky also named their daughters this sweet name. It is now one of the fastest-rising names leaping to #56 in 2013. Whereas before Penelope was rarely used and landed somewhere in the 500's.
This research was not needed when it came to my husband's choice. In fact, I had completely left the name Penny in the past. Living in LA clouded my thoughts and pushed me to shopping around for more unique names. Names that were quickly turned down by my Romeo. It was him who actually told me that he liked the name Penelope.
Surprised at his honest opinion and the fact that he actually had a girl name picked out, I agreed that Penelope would be her name. After all, it had always been her name. Just like Ace's name. It was always Ace. It just took having the baby to apply it. Now as I look back to this naming process I realize that these things didn't happen by chance. God knew the true wishes of my heart. I feel like there are so many secret things I want but don't deserve. The truth is, I have all those things! Its so hard to even put in to words how I always wanted a daughter named Penny. And it took my husband to remind me that God wants us to have the wishes of our hearts. That after all we have done in our lives, all the mistakes we may have made, we can still have the little things... The true wishes of our hearts.
I hope this message can one day influence my daughter to go for her dreams and to not set herself short. To always know that in life there is forgiveness and our pasts just become stories we tell. Let those stories have happy endings. Let our hearts always wait patiently for our loved ones. Let the wants of our hearts be lifted in to the sky for God to sort out. And may we always feel un-afraid to get those answers we so secretly want. I hope that she lives up to the name Penelope or at least just likes it. :)