As for the name, we take them seriously around here. There are hints here and there of lots of things. Stacia is no different. Some time ago while I was on the phone with mama and papa and we were discussing the upcoming birth of Sierra (whose name had not yet been determined), I mentioned that we wanted to keep with the mountain motif and, if possible, a mountain who's name began with the letter S because Mommy's and Sandia's names did. Sandia, at most a kindergartner at the time, interrupted me and said, quote, "that's not all, daddy. They also have six letters and end in the letter A." She almost floored Sondra and I because we hadn't carried out the parallels that far.

SOOOO. . . Third sister needed a six-letter mountain beginning with S and ending in A. It was a looooooooooooong search.

The First Four

We searched web pages, dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, and gazetteers from around the world. We even toyed with heresy (not Hershey): geographic names not necessarily mountains, such as Savana, Sonoma, and Sonora. We thought of geographic names that were not six letters, such as Seattle, or that didn't begin with an S, such as Dakota. We did find a couple of perfect names. Perfect for either mommy or daddy.

Daddy thought the search was over when we remembered from maps of our long vacation out west in 1998, a mountain in Washington state: Mt. Shasta. Well, Mom thought it was as flat as a bottle of soda opened three hours ago and left in the summer's sun. Shasta soda. As if that weren't enough to kill the name, I was told a neighbor's dog had already taken it.

Instead of shooting the dog, I continued the search. Tucked away in the Poconos (sense a hint of a Suzanne-named child there?) Mom found her name. Sophia Mountain. Ehhhhhhh?? Sez I? Sophia to me means black and white movies with big hats. Pretty woman, ok, but bigger hats.

Hello world!

It was getting close. We've never been so close without having both names ready. The boy's name was picked years ago. Ego-less dad simply employed his own initials GPA. It was easy for son number one who was born on daddy's birthday; he got neither his own birthday nor his own name. Son number two got two favorite uncles, you'll recall from the poem, and well, son number three was gonna get Grant Preston. Preston has a parallel to Stacia's middle name; some of you may get it.

Anyway big hats and soda were out so we were back to combing the tiny print of international and foreign national gazetteers and web sites for our mountain. I again thought I hit pay dirt when I found one of the names we came across and liked, but for which we could not find a corresponding geographic object. A warm tropical Island called St. Eustatious. When you go to her web page it greets you with a banner that reads: "Just call me Statia!"

Bingo! I thought. I even told Sondra we'd have to visit there sometime sans kids to, you know, check it out. Well, Sondra -- Sondra was verrrrry pregnant by this time and not much in the mood for giving a lot of leeway. She didn't like the second T. "Stay-sha should be spelled with a C instead of a second T," I was informed, "otherwise people will call here stat-ee-uh." This being the fifth child and our fifth pregnancy I knew better than to argue. (I also asked around and most people said C was better.) Now I only had to find a geographic Stacia.

After three weeks and with a bit of poetic license we did. There are several mountains in and around the former Soviet Union which translate into Stacija. And which, my Russian speaking friends tell me is pronounced as we pronounce it: Stay-sha. The origin is Annastacija. I thought no one in the English speaking world would miss the J in the middle of the name because we don't know what to do with Js in the middle of names. So we took out the J and we were left with Stacia.

All together now

Stacia's middle name was easier to agree upon and yet evokes several themes. One is to honor momma. We didn't want to take Joan in case someone else might want to use the name. We also wanted to somehow celebrate that our last baby was born during the millennium year (note the spelling, two Ls). The name of Mom's life long buddy, spelled with two Ls, (Camille) filled the bill. It also touched big brother Gavin because his first sweetheart, besides Mom, is this little rambunctious bundle of energy from mother's morning out named, Camille, of course.

Oh, yeah, can anyone tell me the connection between Camille and what would have been the boy's middle name, Preston? Dad and Mom can, I'm sure. Le Anne, Le Grande and Suzanne might........