How April Got Her Name

For April 23rd, 2009



Once upon a time, there was a woman who was going to have a baby in June. The woman thought about many names for her baby but she couldn’t seem to settle on just the perfect name for her first child. After all, they hadn’t officially met each other yet.

On the first warm day in spring several months before the baby was due this woman went to the park with her husband and had a picnic with their friends. After they finished eating, everybody played catch with a Frisbee. The husband leaped in the air to catch the disk, but when it came time for the woman to jump, she couldn’t. The husband and the friends laughed at the woman. She told them to stop laughing.

That night the woman woke up and rushed to the bathroom. She told her husband she couldn’t quit leaking so he rushed her to the hospital. When they got to the hospital emergency room, the nurses rushed the husband to the admission office. Then they took the wife into a room. A nurse started asking lots and lots of questions.

“Could I lie down?” the woman asked.
After the woman was on the bed, the nurse checked her then screamed, “Don’t push!” then rushed from the room.
A sleepy doctor rushed into the room, checked her then yelled, “Don’t push!”
The woman was confused . . . she didn’t feel like pushing anything.
Then the husband rushed into the room wearing a hospital gown that made him resemble a space alien. Just then the doctor rushed toward the woman and caught a tiny five pound baby who was rushing into the world.
“It’s a girl,” the doctor said.

The woman was tired of so much rushing so when the nurse put the baby girl in her arms, she took a deep breath and sighed. Then she looked at her infant daughter for the first time. At that exact moment, her heart sang for joy. A heavenly choir was singing the Halleluiah Chorus inside her. She wondered if the doctor and nurse could hear it. Then her baby looked up at her for the first time and smiled. A sudden explosion of sunshine burst inside the new mother. She wanted to get up and dance on the bed because she was so happy but the doctor said he had to sew her up first.

After the sewing was done the mother, father and baby snuggled together for the first time. The father said his daughter’s skin was so soft he couldn’t feel it through his callused fingers. The mother said she’d found the pot of gold at the end of her rainbow; her new baby was a golden treasure and dream come true.

When the mother brought her new baby daughter home from the hospital, she saw red tulips and yellow daffodils by her front porch. That’s when an angel touched the mother’s heart and said, “Your daughter is springtime - light, hope, warmth and joy.” That was the moment the mother knew the perfect name for her newborn daughter because an angel whispered it in her ear . . . April.

Now the baby girl has grown up and she has golden treasure babies of her own. Where ever April goes she spreads sunshine, happiness, love and joy because she is springtime just like her name. Now the woman who leaked on the way to the hospital is a grandma and she knows for sure she picked the perfect name for her baby girl.
Happy Birthday April. I love you.
MOM