Well, the news is officially out! Kelsie and I are expecting our first baby at the end of April. We found out at the beginning of December that she will be a little baby girl. Her name will be Calliope (kuh-LIE-OH-pee) Jo Smith. I imagine she’ll go by Calli or Calli Jo.

In Greek Mythology, Calliope is the muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry. Derived from Ancient Greek, her name means “beautiful-voiced” … She is often referred to as the “chief of all muses.” She is wise and assertive.

A calliope is also a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam, through large whistles. Typically, a calliope is very loud — likely a sign of things to come for me and Kelsie — and there is no way to vary tone or loudness. The only expression possible is the timing and duration of notes.

When Kelsie and I began talking about names, we agreed that we wanted something unique, but not too weird. We actually discovered the name Calliope through the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. There is a character in the show named Calli Torres, but her full name is Calliope. From there, we did some research into the name’s origin, we both loved it, and that was decided very early on. There has been no wavering on the female name from the very beginning, and we feel like her name already fits her personality very well.

She is a very wiggly baby. During ultrasounds, she is very active, moving around nonstop. At home, now that she is big enough that you can feel her kick and move around, she loves to dance. Any time we turn music on or sing to her, she just starts moving. We imagine that, although we can’t actually hear her yet, she’s probably singing along with us.

If Calliope does have a natural interest in or love for music, I hope that she doesn’t wind up with my ability to carry a tune or keep a beat. I enjoy music very much, but I certainly don’t have much to offer in the way of musical ability.

Her middle name, Jo, is also Kelsie’s middle name. This was something that Kelsie had wanted to do anyway, and we both agreed that it paired very nicely with Calliope and made for a very suitable middle name.

We are expecting Calli to join us around April 24th, 2016. This will be about 3 weeks before my 30th birthday, a perfect present for me. We are truly thrilled and slightly terrified by the prospect of bringing another life into this world, and cannot wait to meet our beautiful baby girl.

Kelsie will be having a baby shower at some point in the not-so-distant future. As of now, there aren’t many details for that, but I will try to get this blog updated once we know more. I have updated the registry section of this site with links to our baby registries. We are registered at Babies R Us, Target, and Amazon. There are a few overlapping items on the registries, but there are also some things that are only available at one or two of the three stores.

Thank you so much for your continued love, support, and interest in our lives. Our first few years of marriage have been a wonderful whirlwind, and it just keeps getting better!