Announcing... PRCM' What does it mean?

Wha??? you may ask.

Well, since you did~
Gabriel's father is Pablo. And G really wanted to name our boy in honor of his father.
I had a couple of qualms with it, not with the honoring his father part, but:
1. I am/we are HUGE on meaning. The most important thing to me is that we speak only blessing over our children their whole lives. And Pablo means "small". hmmm. This was our starting point.
2. Pablo is really hard to say in the English dialect.
3. All I can think of is the Blue little penguin on the Backyardigans, or Picasso.



BUT, I lOVE that G felt so strongly about honoring his father, and I agreed with that. So~
on to Phase 2:

"How can I learn to love "Pablo"?"

I somehow came across other versions and found the Italian/Brazilian one "PAolo" which, for some reason to me, is so much sexier! However, numbers 1 and 2 (above) withstanding. But at least I am not picturing a tight, stressed-out, singing cartoon character with an ear cut off.

So then I start thinking, what things are GOOD if they are small? (So as to pair it with his middle name to strengthen the meaning to us.) and thus came up with a bunch of diff't options like Paolo Lucius. "Little Light" as in "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." Gabe vetoed Lucius right away stating that Lucius, in Spanish, is the same as Lucifer. :) Which still means "angel of light" or something like that, but who would name their kid Lucifer? Another was Paolo Liam "Little Warrior"- but my good friend Joy who is also preg. with a boy laid claim to it the second she found out the sex of their baby. Plus the whole "Tori and Dean" thing makes me puke in my mouth a little...

As I was thinking, and praying about all of this over the course of several weeks, a scripture came to my mind from Ezekiel. The writer is painting a picture of a river starting from the altar of God from inside the temple. The river starts out small, but as it flows, it becomes deeper and deeper and deeper, bringing life and healing everywhere it flowed in the desert. And I quote " "So where the river flows, everything will live." And I immediately got goosebumps and knew that I knew that I knew, this was his destiny! READ THE WHOLE TEXT HERE "RIO" or River in both Spanish and Portugese. Little RIVER- Also, as a side-note, my husband learned Portugese this year at work (since he works with so many Brazilians), while I was busy at home growing PRCM, Yes I said he learned Portugese. This is my husband- he's one of those. Another RIO connection.
When I first mentioned it to G, I thought for sure he would never go for it, I was almost ready to not even say it for fear of it being instantly shot down. But a few days later, he asks me how I came up with it- (which means he's been really thinking about it), and before I could tell him, he mentioned the SAME scripture in Ezekiel, and that's what he thought of with that name! (can you say soul-mate?) SCORE! ,
Remember that phrase "So where the river flows, everything will live." because it leads us to our next and final point:

"CHAIM"- [pronounced K+long I+um, Kai-um] - as in "L'chaim!" our equivalent of "Cheers" or "Salut!"- glass held high! Chaim means "Life" in Hebrew-
Neither of which Gabe or I are or speak~ but we love the thought of it as a name, and we also love the rich Hebrew heritage we share as followers of Jesus the Jew! It was a name we had come up with back when we didn't know if Vivia was a boy or a girl yet. We held on to it. And now we see it goes perfectly! ALSO,

: We claimed a "life verse" for our family when we were first married, back in 2000.
John 10:10b "He came that they might have life, life to the full." It is a verse that anchors us as a family, and describes our goal as a family, and our family mission. Thus, a very strong theme to us and so why not name our children accordingly?

Vivia Victoria means "A Full Life of Victory"
Paolo Rio Chaim means "Little River of Life"
Seeing the pattern?
Vivia Victoria has an awesome story behind her name too- will post that at another time.

So add all that into a big pot stir it up, and out comes: "Paolo Rio Chaim Martinez"
"Little River of Life"

Now, seeing as Paolo is so hard to say in English, we will either call him Chaim or Rio.
I am having a hard time deciding between the two because they are both so cool and sexy and strong!

Gabe votes Chaim, I vote Rio. Vivia- Chaim. I am outnumbered at the moment.
Paolo or Rio when we are in Venezuela or other Spanish speaking countries, and Chaim in the USA?

I guess we will know for sure when we set eyes upon him any day now. Now he can come, he has a name!