What's in a name (or this blog's name)?

Okay so this is my first blog post...no pressure! You know what does present a lot of pressure? Naming a blog.

Naming a blog is harder than naming your child.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had no idea whether she was a boy or a girl, so I had a few names picked for each sex. It wasn't easy, by any means, at least not for me. I would find a name I liked and after saying it for a few days, it annoyed me. Is that what I wanted to call my little boy or girl for the rest of his or her life? Big decision.

There are a million articles out there about how to successfully name your blog. They are similar to those articles like "The Most Hated Baby Names of 2012" or "Will Your Baby's Name Make Them Successful?" They leave you with more questions than answers and the fear that choosing the wrong name will doom your child/blog for all eternity.

Actually when trying to name my blog, I found myself asking a lot of the same questions I asked when I was choosing a name for my baby.

"How does it sound?"

"Will people know how to spell it?"

"Will I be tired of it a year from now?"

"Will it drive my daughter into a life of exotic dancing?" (Hello, Bambi!)

All difficult questions, but there is some good news. Once you find the perfect name for your little bundle of joy, it is yours. You don't have to register it and it doesn't have to be one of a kind. There were 28,980 Sophias born in 2011(pretty random). The same is not true for your domain name. Just when you think that you have come up with the perfect, most clever and original domain name- BAM!- you are hit with the reality that you are not really as genius as you thought. Someone already thought of that and so did several other people because, not only is your super catchy name taken, but so is every derivative, variation and alternate spelling. And it's back to the drawing board...again!

Ten or fifteen drawing boards later, I found myself throwing creativity out the window and just looking for anything that wasn't taken.  Not to mention my daughter's new found love for throwing things on the floor and turning her food upside down didn't provide much inspiration. I guess I could have called this "picking an entire bag of goldfish up off the floor."

So, I did what any reasonable person would do-- I gave up. It wasn't until I was having breakfast for dinner (I love breakfast food), that I was inspired. There were my delicious eggs, Sunny-side up (or "dippy eggs" as we call them at my house). The eggs were so delicate, unbroken and exposed....oh, who am I kidding? This blog could just as easily have been called "Side of Bacon" (if only I had thought of that first!). I was out of ideas and I needed a name. I went through names far more creative than this. I even posted on a blog someone hasn't used in 5 years and tried to get them to give me their domain name, but with little luck and even less patience, here we are with Mommy Side Up (at least it isn't a stripper name...oh no! is it?)

It actually makes some sense though. I will be telling you the "mommy side" of things, right? Yup, I am going with it. Done. I am here and I am committed. There is no turning back now. I am also super thankful that more than one baby can have the same name because if I had to go through all of this to name my child, you may have been reading the blog of someone who named her child after one of those delicious, flavored snow cones they gave me in the delivery room.