But Then What Happened?

From Part 1 - regarding the family's move to a new town The Sunday following the family discussion about moving, as we were sitting in church, it was obvious that Alaina was emotional and deep in thought. I had learned to let her process in privacy whenever she was in this particular frame of mind. On occasion, I would glance at her until our eyes met. This was my way of letting her know that "I am here," without outwardly prying. On one of those occasions, when our eyes met... her eyes full of tears, she whispered, "We can move." Knowing not to jump on that decision without some serious discussion, I told her that we could talk about it after church. And we did. I was not going to proceed forward with a move if Alaina was assenting just to please her parents. I was adamant about my willingness to make that drive for a few more years. I did not want my baby girl miserable for her final years of high school. Alaina stood firm. She had taken several days to proces...

We had three, did we really want to have four? I'm speaking about children... girls, to be more specific. This had been an ongoing discussion between the wife and I as the calendar turned into the decade of the 1990s. Do we want a fourth child? Do we want to try one more time for that elusive child with the XY chromosomes?  Ready or not, we received our answer in February of 1990. I don't recall exactly how she delivered it... but Jeana had given me a card in an envelope. It wasn't my birthday; it wasn't Father's Day; maybe it was for Valentine's Day? I don't recall but I do remember something bulging inside the envelope, which utterly confused me. I tore open the envelope and before I could actually read the card... out dropped a baby pacifier. My initial confusion immediately gave way to the wonderful realization that Munson baby #4 was in the oven and would arrive on the scene that fall. Alaina Jae Munson was born on October 2nd, 1990 in Los Alamitos, Cal...

The deadline was drawing near and we were feeling the pressure. Our third child was due within weeks and we had not come up with a name, should our newborn be our third girl. We had already cranked out the names of our first two daughters... Maelynne Jean was a combination of the middle names of my mom (Mae) my sister (Lynne) and my mother-in-law (Jean). Tara Beth, our second daughter, was named after the plantation in the movie “Gone with the Wind” with her middle name just sounding like it fit with her first. Tara Beth Munson... it just had a nice rhythm to it. Complicating our task was that we didn’t want to use a super common name. We wanted the names of our children to be somewhat unique but not weird. I mean we weren’t going to name her Mountain or Sunshine... but we also weren’t going to name her Heather or Michelle (not that those are bad names... just very common). So, I was at work one day. Our office had that subtle, soft music that was pumped in throughout the building. Ele...