What's in a name?

First, thank you to Kimberly for setting up this blog for me. I am hoping to write my thoughts from time to time as memories resurface. 

I was talking with my older son, CJ, the other day about the arrival of his third child. As we were discussing names he mentioned that he might take my husband up on his offer of $5,000 to the first kid that names a daughter Whitney. I don't know if this because of his love for the name; a love of Whitney Houston, or an old girlfriend; but, Chad is determined to have a granddaughter named Whitney. 

None of the kids have jumped at the chance to have a Whitney and $5,000. Maybe this is because their mother continues to insist that dad doesn't have that kind of money or maybe it is a dislike for the name. So, needless to say I was surprised that CJ was even considering it. When asked why the change of heart, CJ stated that he wanted his daughter to have a "story" about her name. He has a "story" about his name and it has opened many doors/opportunities in his lifetime. It is a great conversation starter and a great way for people to remember him. Why not offer your daughter the same opportunities?

So my first memory to write about is...how CJ got his name:

When I was 6 years old my appendix ruptured, causing me to become quite ill. I ran a very high fever, making it impossible for surgery for a few days. It turns out that I had gang green, peritonitis, and I vividly remember a drain coming out of my right lower abdomen area. I remember the drainage had a horrible smell; but, that is TMI. It took sometime but I did finally recovered. 

Fast forward about 12 years.

Chad and I were married in 1979. We were young and naive but in love. We were both working full-time and enjoying life. We decided that we would love to start a family but after a couple of years we still had not been blessed with children. So we decided to buy "toys" instead. We had a CJ5 Jeep along with a couple of 3-wheelers, a camping trailer, etc. Life was fun but we still felt like we were missing something to complete our family.

It was at this time that I started to see doctors about why we had not been able to conceive. After a couple of surgeries they discovered that my ruptured appendix had caused adhesions to "stick" most of my internal organs together. I underwent a major abdominal surgery to have the adhesions removed. It was at this time that they discovered that one of my ovaries was completely damaged and the other one didn't look to promising. The doctor's gave us a 5% chance of ever having children. I will save the story of our 4 miracles for another blog update.

I went through more surgeries and treatments and in 1984 we were blessed with our first son. These treatments were quite expensive and Chad had just recently lost his job so money was tight. We were worried about how we were going to pay for this new addition. In fact, they insisted that we pay for him before we left the hospital. So we decided it was time to sell the "toys" and become mature parents.

We knew that we wanted to name him Charles Norman Krewson, III, after his father but had not decided on what to call him. We thought of Chucker - Chucker Krewson sounded like he could be a famous football player. We thought of Trey, for the third., but it didn't really fit. We even considered Norman but Cheers was pretty popular then and we didn't want people to holler "Norm" every time he came into the room. 

When CJ was born he weighed 8 lbs, 14 ounces and was only 18" long. He was kind of short and stocky. When the doctor handed him to me he said, "even his toes are fat", "he is built just like a jeep". That was it, we would call him CJ. After our CJ Jeep we had sold to "pay" for him. We would tell people it stood for Chad Junior but we knew the truth; he had become the new love of our life.

We have told CJ from time to time over the years that he could change his name if he wanted too but I think he likes it. We have since had another CJ5 and a CJ7 in our life. They have been fun and brought a lot of joy and memories, but the CJ we will eternally love, the one that came to live with us in 1984, the one that has given us two wonderful grandsons, the soon arrival of a granddaughter, and a beautiful addition to our family in his wife Alli; he is, by far, the best CJ of them all.

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