Evening - What's In a Name?

Evening is resting up well. Her scar is healing quite well and she's shaking off the hospital on her. She has been extremely vocal - and is showing signs of colic - though Ruth and I keep saying - well she did just have heart surgery. She is more adorable each day - and I cherish this time in helping nurse her back to her normal self.

So, her name, Evening Rian. Everyone seems to want to hear why her name is Evening. We've gotten a number of comments thus far from "Wow, that is the most beautiful girl's name I've ever heard" to "Is that a boy or a girl's name" to "That's different" to "What are you going to call her?". It's really quite simple - we've always loved the Evening. When we first moved to Oregon my first job there was doing trail work through Americorps. There was a native Oregonian I worked with there - named Evening. Ruth and I always loved that name. Evening (of Oregon) was one of a pair of twins of hipster parents who named their twins Evening Star and Morning Star. Based on the fact that this was the first time we had heard of this great name - this is where it originated. Now, post birth and official naming we were informed that she was born on the birthday of the Blessed Mother, Mary. In the New testament, Mary is considered the modern Eve. So there you go. Wish we could take credit for being quite that deep and insightful. But I love the fact that she shares that special birthday. In terms of the middle name Rian - we have always loved Rian as a women's name especially with the Gaelic/Celtic spelling. When you do in fact meet her - her name is proudly Evening - though if she warms up to you - you can call her Eve or Evie.

We are still in Rochester and doing well watching Evening rebound and the fall unfold. I have been very impressed with her progress - after all it was just a little over a week ago that she was taken off the respirator - now she's howling at the moon and smiling in between.