Announcing the arrival of . . .

Mr Foot Down, on behalf of the beautiful, amazing Mrs Thumb Up, is pleased to announce that Eliot Charles made his appearance this morning at 10:25. Weighing in at 8 lbs. 2 oz., he ranks as the biggest of the Andersons yet. The delivery went smoothly, for which we are profoundly grateful.

The name draws on a lot of strands. First, I've always had rather strict criteria for baby names in that the name had to be significant in some way (family, Bible, someone influential in our lives). The idea that we 'liked' the name was not sufficient. But given Mrs. Thumb Up's extraordinary abilities as a mother of three, and now her bearing gracefully yet again another one, I told her I was prepared for her to have more latitude on this one. She registered a long time ago that she liked Eliot, but I wasn't as keen. But it's stayed on the radar, not least because somehow Jack got wind of it and proclaimed that it was his favourite.

We've really been wrestling with what name to choose, still uncertain this past weekend. When Eliot came back up, I had had a change of heart and was happy with it. Even better -- it actually does have significance as well. It's Erin's paternal grandfather J.W. (from whom our Jack gets some of his initials), his mother's name (in other words, Erin's great-grandmother's maiden name). The slightly unusual spelling is a tribute to the poet T. S. Eliot, who has long been a favorite for me. That also makes it more natural to abbreviate to Eli, which means 'my God' in Hebrew. So it's a win all around. Now the only problem is that Jack is going to take credit for the name.

One other funny note on the name. Some of you will remember that we've been informally referring to the baby as Jinx (see the previous post on this). Evidently, this morning, Theo was with some of our friends, and was telling them that he was really hoping we were going to name the baby Jinx. Sorry to disappoint you, my man, but you can still use it as an additional nickname.

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes. We look forward to introducing Eliot to you.