A local friend of mine named her son Ivan, too. It's an up-and- coming name... Yoshie
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Well, I was joking of course. My son and daughter-in-law are going to have another baby (a boy) in February and names are a problem with a last name like Grimes. It's an ugly sort of English servant name and has no nice sounds in it at all. It takes on its American colorations when you add two first names like my cousins in the south: Billy Bob, Gerald Ray, and Martha Ann... which sound just fine with Charlie Alfred...(guess who?)
I used to tease my son when he was about nine that we almost named him Mikhail Alexandrovitch Grimes. He couldn't pronounce it or spell it---and that he had a unknown to him, twin brother (Mikhail of course) who lived with me half time, when he wasn't over here. This used to drive him crazy with doubts. He was just old enough to know it was bullshit, but not quite.
There is great joy in playing childish and silly games with your kids for some reason---in their chattering banter and foolishness. It's like being slightly drunk.
Miles adds, ``I slept with my kids until they were two or three. Especially if mom is breast feeding, this is just so much more convenient than putting an infant in a crib..''
I actually used do this too for the same reason...to give my ex a break so she could sleep. But I used it to ease M into a schedule---following Bryan Atinsky's advice (also Dr. Spock's). A few minutes after breast feeding of course M would poop, so I was there to clean up.
Unfortunately he liked to wake up after the two o'clock night feeding when it was dark and quiet. There was a sort of creature like sense to this behavior. He would come out of his little shell and peer around in the dim light and do his little swimming motions. It was about the only time I suspect he wasn't in sensory overload with background noise or bright light so he was free to open up to the world. I would play with him a little---fifteen minutes, then put him down. He didn't like it at first, but after a few night's crying sessions he got used to it. Sometime a few months later I would listen to him fiddling around in his crib after I had changed him and put him down. I also had to get some sleep since I was working.
A funny side note. We used a small bassinet at first because the crib was too big and used to put it on the floor. Our cat Quickly (Mistress Quickly) used to sleep right next to the bassinet and would follow me around at night watching all the goings on----like a grandmother. She was very good with M and put up with a lot of his yanking and tugging later on.
CG