Turkey Lurkey

November is the forgotten month in my opinion.  Things are dead (turkeys included!) things are cold but not yet pleasantly covered with fresh layers of snow.  I can even remember not saying November when reciting the months of the year in Kindergarten and being reminded by the teacher not to forget November.

The primary association with November is Thanksgiving, I suppose if I hunted or fished I might also mention those activities.  This year we decided to celebrate family and friends in Riverside, PA with Rayleigh’s Mimi and Pop Pop.  I negotiated a deal a few months ago where in the royal we (Kevin and I) would cook Thanksgiving Dinner and they would babysit.  We love to cook and they love to coo at the babe so the arrangement worked out well.

Our mostly farmer’s market and/or organic meal turned out great.  We purchased the 19 lb fresh turkey from a local farm which we picked up on our way to Pennsylvania. Additionally, we had corn we’d frozen over the summer.  Miss Rayleigh celebrated her first Thanksgiving with a turkey on her butt.

On another note, some of you have asked where our dear daughter’s first name came from.  I’m happy to share but we have to back up a bit and I’ll start off with a little story about Kevin and I. Every once in awhile we would get asked if we had wanted children, I would always respond I think we were on our second date when I asked Kevin what his car seat preferences were. While this is a bit of an exaggeration, the sentiment holds true- we have always wanted to have a family.  I can even tell you where we were when we first had the car seat conversation (Rt. 11 driving past the big Bloomsburg Fair sign), why he didn’t go running for the hills or at least a girl who had graduated high school at that point I’ll never know.  But we stayed together, visiting each other at college, where we watched too many episodes of One Piece to count.  Jump ahead a few years, Kevin and I are on one of many roadtrips to Ohiopyle, PA for a weekend of river running and we are discussing baby names- it may be important to note that we were not yet married.  Kevin says he doesn’t have any strong feelings for a boy name but really likes the name Rayleigh for a girl.  I not realizing how strong these feelings were and still assuming I had some say in this unborn child’s name ask where he had heard it, as I never had.  He tells me he read it somewhere and I am satisfied (glad it is not an ex-girlfriend’s name).  Fast forward-we are happily married with a house and are expecting a baby, we’ve had many baby name discussions over the years- almost all around baby boy names or appropriate middle names for a baby girl (I quickly realized years earlier Rayleigh was going to be our daughter’s first name- it was pretty and unique and he loved it so we were set there.  Nine or so months later I give birth to our daughter, Rayleigh Ann Elizabeth Forrester.  Kevin did a blog post in August Two Big K’s, One Little R that explained a little about her names (middle and last) but left out any explanation about her first.  It is appropriate that I write this blog since what I am about to tell you is newly revealed information.  Rayleigh is a character from One Piece (see I told you we had to back up the story).   The character is actually Silvers Rayleigh, a male character, but that Kevin got it from Anime is really the important part.  In his “confession” to me he said well there is also a Lord Rayleigh.  I, desperate for another explanation for our daughter’s name quickly wikipedia’d Lord Rayleigh.  This- like all good internet searches quickly lead me down the rabbit hole.  Lord Rayleigh is the person who predicted the existence of Rayleigh Waves and discovered the Rayleigh Scattering phenomenon.  The Rayleigh Scattering phenomenon is what explains why the sky is  blue and why we see the sun as yellow.  That seems like the perfect explanation for the story behind our daughter’s name.

So, the answer to “Where did you come up with her name?”, depends on which parent you ask.  There you have it.