Harry and Henry

A couple of nights ago, I finished the Harry Potter series. You might have heard of it - it's about this boy who finds out he is a wizard and goes off to a school called Hogwarts and discovers he's actually quite a famous person in the wizarding world. I was never one of those against the Harry Potter series, and when they came out, I just wasn't interested in reading them. But as it goes when you have friends who read YA fiction (ahem, Twilight?), sometimes you can be convinced to read something you might not otherwise have picked up.

THESE BOOKS ARE INCREDIBLE. Just had to get that out. I wish I could go into lots of spoiler-alert details about how amazing J.K. Rowling is at sustaining a plot from Book One all the way to Book Seven, but I don't want to ruin the ending of Book Seven for anyone, especially my good friend LeeAnn who is just at the beginning of it. I am convinced that these books, like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia, will be classics in the libraries of literature. Characters like Dumbledore, Snape, Voldemort, and Harry should all be studied in contemporary literature classes. And don't get me started on the biblical and historical allusions, besides the sheer merit of the battle of good vs. evil. I can't think of the last time I've read a 700-page book and, upon finishing, wanted to start it right back over again.

So that's how I spent the last week - reading book seven of the Harry Potter series while my husband was out of town. I worked and slept here and there, occasionally remembered to feed and bathe my kids, but on the whole I read Harry Potter.

Though it is hard to migrate away from the Harry Potter post, it has been several weeks, and I have so far failed to announce that we're having a baby boy in May. Named Harry. Just kidding. Brandon and I are pretty certain we've settled on the name Henry. It came up while we were in Nashville the weekend before Christmas, walking through the Hank Williams exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. We're likely to call him Hank for short, especially if he likes baseball. Or country music ;)

I don't think that we've been the ones to name our kids, really. Their names surface out of dreams and coincidences, as if selected by God and deposited in some ridiculous way, like I've just seen the face of Mary in my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Henry will be no different - it just, fits. I only know the little man based on the kicks and nudges he's giving me right now, but something in me says, this guy is going to be Henry. Little Hank. Hank the Tank?

Oh, by the way, in case you missed it, it's a new year. Tomorrow is 1/11/11. What will YOU do at 11:11 a.m. on 1/11/11? I'll probably be checking my mailbox. Maybe tomorrow's the day my poetry manuscript will be accepted for publication! By Norton! Unsolicited! Woo!