Jeff and I took forever to decide on a name for baby girl... we found out the sex around 24 weeks I think and then pretty much just didnt even talk about a name for a long time.
Coming home from Disney back in April we had briefly chatted about boy and girl names. We had, for the longest time, thought that if we had another child that boy OR girl the name would be Charlie after Jeff's grandfather. Middle name Brooks after my Mommie (that was her maiden name). Charlie Brooks for a girl and Charles Brooks for a boy, but called Charlie.
Well, then everyone in Jeff's family named their kid Charles ;-). Kidding! But only sort of!
Two of his cousins used the name in their kids names. Super sweet! But we felt like we'd sort of be over doing it. PLUS, a friend of ours had a little girl and named her Charleigh. So we were pretty much done with the name at that point, partially because Charlie (or some variation in spelling) is becoming pretty trendy. And we try to avoid trends in names :-)
So we were back at the drawing board.
On that long8 hour drive from Disney you'd THINK we could have decided on something for sure, but nope. One name got suggested by Jeff that we both kind of liked... Reulet. This was his grandmother's maiden name. She was a (Lord help me not get any details wrong!!) 4th generation immigrant from France. Meaning her family came here from france 3 generations before her. She was a really, really lovely lady who I just adored. His grandparents were all INCREDIBLE people! As were my mommie and daddy! So in our attempt to use family names, we struggled because we have been blessed with just fantastic role models!
I was pretty blessed to have more time to spend with Memere (pronounced meh-mare) than with Jeff's other grandparents. She actually lived 20 minutes away for a few years! So we had the chance to visit her more often than when she lived in Griffin. She was just a neat woman who was quite possibly one of the most positive women I've known, aside from my Mommie. Memere suffered a couple of strokes and worked so so hard to do physical therapy to recover. She was such a fighter! And every time we would visit, she would always be so positive about the rehab facility (despite the fact that it was old, etc) and complimentary of the care she was receiving. I just hope I have that same view in life!
I dont know what it is about the name Reulet that we both liked... but we did. So that was our starting point. (BTW, the name is pronounced "roo-lay").
Jeff also suggested Rebekah... my great grandmothers name (Daddy's mother). She was my Granny and her name was spelled Rebecca. I loved my Granny! She lived with us while I was little for a time and I have so many fond memories of us walking down to the "Briar patch" (A small orchard right down the road with apple trees, peach trees, blueberry bushes, etc) and buying peaches and then peeling and preparing them for freezing to have all winter long. We used to walk and she would sing "You are My Sunshine" to me (a song I've sang to Rhyan since the day she was born each night as I tuck her in). Sweet, sweet memories.
Heres the thing... My granny, unfortunately, got to be not quite so sweet when she got older. Dementia? I'm not sure. But she wasnt herself by the time I was a teenager. Which means that Jeff didnt get to know my Granny for the woman she was most of my life. He knew her as kind of a mean lady (although he has NEVER said that! And was super supportive of using her name if I wanted to!). But I just was bothered by the fact that he didnt know her that well and we really didnt want to use a family name just for the sake of it being a family name... we wanted to have both known and loved whoever we named her after! For it to really have meaning and for the name to bring back sweet memories of the person... of which Jeff had none of my Granny.
But for the longest time we just didnt talk about it! Jeff said "Rebekah Reulet" was good with him, but there was something about it that I just didnt love.
Jeff had said that if we named her Rebekah Reulet, he would want to call her Rue. Personally, i LOVE the name Rue. I think its precious! But I had two concerns...I didnt want people to think we were hunger games obsessed (Rue is the little girl who gives her life in the movie) and I didnt want to call her a nick name of her middle name. Its the same reason we named Mack "Mckinnon Andrew" vs Andrew Mckinnon. I knew we would call him Mack and didnt want to use a sur-name of his middle name. That makes for a nightmare in school, in my opinion.
So Jeff suggested we find a new middle name and just name her Reulet. Again, i LOVE the name, but not as a first name. I just felt like Reulet wouldnt flow with our family names. We all have simple names. Jeff, Kelly, Rhyan, Mack, Reulet?. It just didnt fit our family. But then, neither did Rebecca/kah to me!
Back to the drawing board.
What I kept coming back to was Reulet. I wanted to use it, period. So it was a matter of coming up with something to compliment it.
At my last OBGYN appointment when we decided to induce, I felt like the pressure was on. Yet it STILL took us until that following Tuesday to decide...
Anyone who knows me knows how close I am to my "aunt" Shlaine. I put aunt in quotations because she's more like a sister to me than an aunt. We are 14 years apart in age and so when I came home from the hospital with Mommie and Daddy, Shlaine was still at home. I remember so vividly that she used to wash my hair in the bath each night and make my hair into a "rooster" (straight up). When she started dating, she let me hang out with her and her boyfriend on dates. She was a big sister to me!
Then, when she went through her divorce and she and Ashley and Tyler came back to live with us for a little bit, it was just like old times again. She taught me how to shave (and helped me as it took like, 3 razors to shave my ridiculously hair legs for the first time). I used to steal her feminine products :-). And she was the one I talked to about Jeff when we started dating. She's, for all intents and purposes, my sister. We were, and still are, extremely close. We do black friday shopping together and have for going on 18 years now. She loves my babies and they love her.... as do I.
And, I am named after her. Shlaines name is Ronda Shlaine, I am Kelly Shlaine and I named Rhyan after me... Rhyan Shlaine. I'm sure people thought I named Rhyan after Shlaine, but really, we passed on Jeff's middle name (Ryan) and my middle name to get Rhyan Shlaine.
So I got to thinking that if we were doing family names and wanted to name the baby after someone who meant a lot to us, there was no one more appropriate to name my baby after than Shlaine :-)
From there came the name Lainey. When Shlaine was little, Daddy used to call her Lainey Bug. And my kiddos and myself call her Shlainey more times than not. So, I thought Lainey was a cute play off her name and way to pass on her name without passing on Shlaine (again).
Tuesday night before going in to be induced on Thursday I threw it out there for Jeff... "What about Lainey Reulet"?. He smiled and said he liked it and yes, lets go with it.
I was shocked. I've always loved the name! But didnt think they'd go with it.
By the way, while I had always loved the name, I always thought of it more as a nick name and not a "real" name... until I got into the dental profession and started taking my OSHA compliance class each year from a HILARIOUS speaker/lawyer named Laney Kay. Yes, we spelled it differently. But it made me think of the name as a legit name!
So, that is how Lainey Reulet came to be. We have several nick names for her already but the two most prominent are Lainey Rue (this is about all Mack calls her!) and Lainey Bug. Which has morphed into Lady Bug.
Just tonight while shopping, a lady stopped me and asked her name and when I told her she smiled a very polite smile and said "well, thats different!". And to that I'd like to say...
We didnt name our kid after any fruit or vegetable. Or a direction on a compass. Its really NOT all that different. Its easy to pronounce. But most of all, Jeff and I love it, and while we HOPE everyone else does too, we know that some people probably dont. And thats ok :-)
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