Lucy's Blessing, May 8, 2011

We were grateful to have Grandma and Grandpa Duersch and the Sego family come to visit for Lucy's blessing day.  It was a cold spring day, but we loved having the company.

I made Lucy's blessing outfit the day before (note to self: quit procrastinating), using the basic idea behind this dress, and the pattern for these bloomers.  (Love the bloomers.  Need to figure out making them in bigger sizes.)

A little about why we named her Lucy...

I was seriously worried that she would be born and not be named for weeks.  I could not think of a name that felt right to me, let alone one that felt right to both of us, that we both liked. But a month before she as born we started talking about Lucy, a name that I'm sure crossed my mind previously, but for some reason was dismissed.

Paul may have his own take on this, but in my mind there were several reasons for choosing Lucy for our daughter's name, none of which was more weighty than the others.  For starters, we wanted a family name, either for her first or middle name (or both).  That's just something we like to do.  Lucy is a family name, although not one that is very meaningful to us since we don't know much, if anything, about the Lucys in our ancestry.  Paul's great-great grandmother (on his mother's side) was Lucy Grover, born in Farmington, UT, 7 January 1849.  Her father was Thomas Grover, born 22 July 1807, in Whitehall, NY.  Thomas Grover operated a freight boat and was working on Lake Eerie when he met Joseph Smith, Jr., and Sidney Rigdon and was taught the gospel and converted to the Church.  On my side of the family, Lucy is the English name that was given to my great-great-great grandmother, who was a member of the Seminole tribe in Oklahoma, born sometime around 1823.  I don't think much is known about her (more is known about her children), but I've always thought it pretty cool to be 1/32 Seminole.

Besides being a name found on the family tree, we just plain liked it.  Lucy is simple and sweet.  Sure, it comes with endless rhyming nicknames, some of which we have already put to use, but we have never met (or heard of) of Lucy we didn't like.  Also, it is a name that everyone has heard of, but that isn't over-used.  And it's not weird.  We don't do weird names.

Finally, a little story.  When I visited Honduras when I was 18, there was a little girl in the community I stayed in named Luz, which is Spanish for light.  I loved that.  I wished that I could name one of my kids Luz but knew I never would because, to English speakers, that would be weird.  And no one would pronounce it right.  The Spanish phrase for "to give birth" is "dar a luz," which, when I learned it years ago, also struck me as very beautiful.  What could be more true about bringing a baby into the world than giving light?  (My more fluent friends must forgive me if I'm botching translations, but I don't think I am.)  So Lucy was a fitting substitute for Luz.

Lucy certainly has been a light to our family.  Her brothers adore her, as do Paul and I.  She is happy nearly all the time.  Our easiest baby by far.  (Can we get a round of applause for sleeping through the night at two months??)  She fills our hearts with joy and love daily.  More current information about Lucy to come.  (Blog catch-up is such a pain!)