More Progeny

Hey, two years ago I blogged about my first child Ciarán being born. Now I find myself with another son. Skye Ryuto Pratley was born June 13 at 6:06pm. He was 7lb 11oz (3474g) at birth (only 22g less than his brother), 20in (505mm) long, with brown-black hair and brown-blue eyes, which I assume will be only brown before long. Mom and baby are doing well.

He's a quiet one at this age (of 6 days!) compared to his older bother at that time, but he has his own special superpower - drinking only half what he should per feeding, which means we're up every hour rather than every 2 hours. So once again I am on parental leave. Once again I find my brain fried so that I get about one useful thing done per day. Remarkable, I'm loving every minute of it! His two-year-old brother Ciarán kissed him and hugged him when he first met him, and now is very concerned about his welfare. He even offered to breast feed him in place of mommy!

Skye is a name we liked immediately - it just popped into our heads the moment we considered boys names. There is the Isle of Skye in Scotland, and that means "Misty Isle" or many other things depending on who you believe. Although we didn't take the name from there I am happy he shares a name with what looks like a very beautiful place.

Since my wife is Japanese we went with a Japanese middle name. The first character of Ryuto (竜斗) is "ryu" which means Dragon and the second character is literally a "sake ladle" but is used for celestial objects such as the Big Dipper (北斗七星 - northern ladle seven stars) so you could say his name means Celestial Dragon.

Putting together those names makes him sound like a creature of myth: "Celestial Dragon of the Misty Isle". We shall see to what extent he lives up to his name. I expect he'll be his own legend.