Summer evenings in Washington tend to be pretty awesome in every way.  Perfect temperature, light breezes, daylight until 9 pm.  Perfection!

Wes and I make the most of these by taking a walk after dinner every evening that we can.  We strap Aidan into his Baby Bjorn (which he loves) and perambulating we go, three Mitchells taking in a summer evening.  I’m absolutely certain that these walks in no way atone for the amount of cheese we gleefully consume in our household, but it gets us some much-needed Vitamin D.  Surely the Vitamin D cancels out the cholesterol, no?

Anyway.  We walk in the evenings, and during the course of these walks we meet a good many people from around our neighborhood.  We passed a mother of two elementary school-aged kids, and she stopped to coo over Aidan, exclaiming, “I remember the Bjorn stage!”

She then asked us what his name was, and when we replied that his name is Aidan, she laughed and pointed to her son, telling us that his name was Aidan too.  We all laughed over the shared name, and she said that she has a neighbor whose child is named Aidan, and that she was pretty sure there was another Aidan in the neighborhood too.

As we walked away, I chided Wes, saying, “This is why you don’t name your child with the #1 most popular boy name in America!”  He shrugged and said he didn’t really care, while I equivocated that at least this meant our son wouldn’t get mocked by schoolmates for having a strange name.

The thing with Aidan’s name is that, when we picked it, it wasn’t the most popular name in America.  Aidan’s name has been picked out since 2002, when Wes and I first started dating.  We were on the phone late one night, talking about whether either of us wanted to have kids.

I told Wes I couldn’t see myself having kids, as I had no experience with little ones and was pretty certain I’d be a shoddy mother.  He said he fully intended to have kids someday, and that he’d want them to have cool Irish names (Wes is part Irish, and loves his Irish heritage).

I asked him if he had any names in mind, and he said the only one he was certain of was the name of his first son, whom he wanted to name Aidan.  When I asked if he had a middle name picked out, he said he’d probably want to name his first son after his father and use his father’s first name as Aidan’s middle name.

And so it was.  Aidan’s name, spelled out and well-loved well before his parents got their act together enough to get hitched.  Of course, we have other names picked out and ready to go.  Whether the next baby is a boy or girl, his or her name is ready to go, with a name from my side of the family ready to serve as a middle name.

While we waited to have babies, the rest of the country fell in love with the name Aidan and now there are Aidans everywhere.  The nice thing is, at least we won’t have to worry about no one knowing how to spell our son’s name…

…If you had a helper this cute!  I’m pleading crushing sleepiness following a monster-busy week with shoddy sleep, and so shall leave you with this cute picture and nothing substantive at all to speak of.  Have a great weekend everyone!