If you commented on the Name Game blog entry, keep watch on Caitlin’s “Mabel Files” (www.blog.mabel.ca) where she will soon be posting the winner of the Camp Pack. Caitlin takes care of all the official stuff and I get to have the blogging fun. Heck, I’m on maternity leave so it seems fair that I run the contest and someone else worries about monitoring entries, wouldn’t you say?

Although I’m on mat leave, I have not fallen off the face of the earth entirely – still blogging, checking facebook, on twitter, etc. To simply disappear from social networks and ignore good online discussion is not something this chatty mama is cut out for. Cocooning for an extended period of time off-line with my kiddos wouldn’t really work for me. And last I checked, my inbox didn’t get the memo that I’m on maternity leave.

In the last few days I’ve had both a radio and magazine interview. We like Mabel to get some airtime so an interview request is not the time to pull maternity leave rank – save that for when you want to guiltlessly forward annoying sales messages to your colleagues.

All things considered, my maternity leave rocks – I do what I like and ditch what I don’t. Not a bad gig really. But everyone has a different idea of what works for them.

I know one woman who was enjoying a long and successful legal and academic career when she gave birth for the first time at 43-years-old. When I was at Law School I would occasionally come across her articles which were nearly impossible to read – she spoke an entirely different language and it certainly didn’t involve words like “lactation” and “play date”. The transition from working world to mama world was too great a leap for her – she only lasted two weeks before heading back into the traditional workforce.

I know other mamas in similar situations who take great pleasure in retiring their blackberries for the full maternity leave then reluctantly blow the dust off them when it’s time to head back.

There is no right answer to what consitutes the perfect maternity leave. I’m officially heading back to Mabel life in September. After having six kids under foot all summer, the return to work will likely be a nice break from my maternity leave!

photo #1 – yes, checking my blackberry from my hospital bed

photo #2 – on the Enterprise Toronto panel last week. Finian at three weeks old was the youngest entrepreneur in attendance. Can you see the little guy on my lap?

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From all of us at Mabel’s Labels, Happy Friday.

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I know a woman named Iona Dick. Go on – say it out loud. The kicker is she took her husband’s surname when she married so actually decided to become Mrs. Iona Dick.

I have a friend whose little boy is named Owen Vary. Nice name, lovely kid. Two weeks ago, Owen’s poor mama got hit with the realization that his first initial with last name makes the word “ovary”. We’re hoping his teenage years are tolerable.

It’s fair to say that we Mabel mamas are mildly obsessed with baby naming. It’s a bit of a sport around the office. We get irrationally excited by names and you can often hear squealing in the Mabel’s Labels production area when someone comes across a new or unique name.

My last pregnancy went very quickly and a fast pregnancy qualifies as a good one. The only drawback was that I kept thinking I had loads of time to come up with a fun and clever name. It’s tricky business to name a baby when you’re in the baby name business. It also doesn’t help when you’ve already named a handful of your own kiddos.

I was not confident that I’d come up with a sixth name that I liked as much as the others. It has now been four weeks since the arrival of our little boy and I’m pretty happy with what we settled on: “Finian Aloysius”.

Daddy-o and I fancy ourselves both funny and clever because wee Finian’s name shortens to become a very cool rapper name (think J.Lo or K.Fed). Confused? Well, take the first part of both names and you get “Fin Al”. Yep, you got it – FINAL, as in last one, done, no more babies! I figured with a rapper name like that I would be immune to any future temptation to go for baby #7. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.

Have you got a funny baby name story? How did you name your kid?

Post a story in the comments area and receive an entry for a Mabel’s Labels Camp Pack giveaway.

Want extra entries?
- subscribe to the Mabelhood blog
- follow Mabel on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/mabelhood)
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Want to stay current on the Mabel name trends AND get some free product? Just add the Popular Baby Names application to your Facebook profile: http://apps.facebook.com/popularbabynames
Invite your friends to add this application to their profiles and for every 5 friends who do, you will receive a coupon code entitling you to 15 free Classic Sticky Labels.

I’m looking forward to your stories! If you don’t have a funny story about naming your kid, tell us about that guy at high school named Mike Hunt. Contest wraps up June 1st, so get on it!

**Big thanks to Nicole for the awesome Finian image above that went on the cool cards she sent me. Check her stuff out: http://NSCcards.com

**Comments are now closed. Thanks for all the entries & Congratulation’s to Emma on winning the Camp Pack!**

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Mabel is in New York for a few days and decided to check out the Today show this morning. She went prepared with a giant banner and labels for all the Today hosts. Imagine our excitement when Mabel was live on air with Matt Lauer!

During a commercial break we had the opportunity to personally hand Meredith Vieira her very own Mabel’s Labels as well as labels for all the other hosts! She was wonderful and lovely! Big thanks to Today for making this day a great one for Mabel!

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Katrina Carefoot, Mabel BlogHer correspondent, from Fickle Feline, is guest blogging while Julie recovers from the birth of her 6th baby – welcome Finian Aloysius!  Julie will be back next week (talk about a whirlwind maternity leave!).

I probably shouldn’t admit this in such a public forum, but I have a thing for office supplies.  Meaning, I fancy really nice, top notch pens, rulers, paper, notepads, mechanical pencils, paper clips, scissors and staplers.  If my work doesn’t happen to supply my preferred brand of a specific office product, I will bring my own from home.  Yes, I’m that particular, specifically about my stapler.  But my stapler – it isn’t just any stapler.  It has a special history.  It is a burgundy, Swingline stapler.  And how do I say this nicely?  No, you CANNOT borrow my stapler.  Uhh…I mean, of course you can borrow my stapler, just please be sure to bring it back to me when you are finished.  And be gentle with it, it was a gift.  A Valentine’s Day gift.  Specifically, my first Valentine’s gift from my husband after we got married.  But, you know, no pressure.  However, be aware that if you scratch it, dent it, or ding it, I will never speak to you again.  Otherwise, we’re cool.  There is also the fact that it matches my Blackberry Curve perfectly.  I know…that’s just crazy talk, I mean, who accessorizes their office equipment?  Probably the same type of person who labels it…

The labelling thing, it started out as a way for me to keep the kids organized, to make sure their stuff came home from daycare at the end of the day.  Then, I realized, after leaving my notebook in a meeting room for the 3rd time in a week (I guess my brain is still in mommy mode), that I could use some labels too.  Hey, if it works for the kids, why wouldn’t I label my stuff too?  That way when I leave my stuff behind in meeting rooms, the local coffee shop, or my boss’s office, everyone will know who it belongs to and everything will find its way back to me.  Mommy brain problem solved, right?

So far my strategy has proven to be successful.  But I might have overdone it, just a bit.  You see, in an effort to ensure my highly prized office supplies (like my much loved Swingline) are always returned to me, I labelled every square inch of my desk.  I have a feeling my coworkers are now afraid to borrow anything from me, because I seem a bit “attached” to my stuff.  But maybe that’s not such a bad thing?  Maybe my label strategy is actually two pronged – it helps people return things to me when I have forgotten them, and encourages them to not borrow things in the first place, as they will inevitably look like a thief when my visibly labelled stapler sits, waiting to be returned to me, on their desk, my name label a beacon, calling out to me in the night “Katrina, Katrina, Come Save Me!!”.

Wow.  My stapler is talking to me.  And I thought Izzie was nuts.  I need to get more sleep.

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