Fugato

Stóri Litli-Ívar, nýfæddur systursonur minn, umluktur verndarhöndum foreldra sinna

Hann „Litli-Ívar“ systursonur minn fæddist í nótt.

Vinnuheitið reynist vera rangnefni; hann er hreint ekkert lítill.

Hann er eins og svosem tveggja mánaða barn, en meira hærður.

57 sentimetrar og rúmar 18 merkur, og tók andvirði nokkurra maraþonhlaupa í klukkustundum og kaloríum. Dóra er hetja.

Móður og barni heilsast vel. Sogklukkuáhrif eru strax að rjátlast af honum, og hann hefur sýnt af sér rósemi og jákvætt lundarfar það sem af er ævinni.

Hann hefur sama hökuskjálftahæfileikann og Ari Sigurður frændi hans, og undurljúfan kjökurtón sem einmitt hljómaði þegar þessi mynd var tekin. Heimsóknarnefndin hafði haft af honum lúrinn.

Móðuramman gat þess að það væri „ekki hægt að spilla þessu barni.“

Stiff goldenrod (oligoneuron rigidum)

Nicknames (other than “Gulli”) that have been used for me at one time or another:

Daujau and Dauþóbin

My own pronunciations of “Gunnlaugur” and “Gunnlaugur Þór Briem,” respectively, in my early days of speaking. Picked up by others and still used now and then.

Kristján

Used by my mother off and on through my entire life. I have no idea why. It is a fairly common Icelandic name, and has no special significance in the family. It means “Christian,” of course; not the most apt descriptive term, but probably not intended as such anyway.

Proffi

Used by kids at school for years. Can’t imagine why.

Goldenrod

Used by several smart-alecs, including Kristján Valur at OZ, and Snæbjörn at Landsbankinn. It is a name of a plant, but also used by Han Solo for the robot C-3PO in the first Star Wars movie.

Gulldrengurinn

Used by several people, including the musical Gröndal family. Means literally “the golden boy.”

Brímarinn

Used by remote or recent acquaintances who want to use a teasy kind of name for me and can’t think of anything better.

“Gullu-thor, big bore”

Used by Ketu the chutki, invariably sung in a cheerful taunting tone.

Goolie, Gully

Used by English speakers in general. Not their fault: the ‘u’ sound in my name does not exist in English. Incidentally, “Goolie” is old British military slang for “testicle,” derived from the Hindi word “gooli” (small pellet). I trust that most English speakers are unaware of this. Finnish speakers, however, are fully aware that “Kulli” (where the K is pronounced like a G) means “penis.” I had introduced myself to dozens of them in a business setting before discovering this.

Several unacceptably and unpublishably corny nushymushy names

Used by my sister in outbursts of sororal affection. Sorry, I cannot post these publicly. My dignity does not allow it, and anyway I wouldn’t know how to write them.

The happy couple. Don’t mind the Clint-Eastwood-at-high-noon look. He just has the sun in his eyes. He is not at all planning to kick your ass.

This blog entry has less to do with Mauritius than with what my sister Dóra and her (then) boyfriend Jón Ívar did there a couple of weeks ago.

They went there for a conference and a holiday, and came back husband and wife.

Planned it for months, didn’t tell anyone, just went ahead and wed on the beach, and then got back and dealt us all a classic “oh, by the way…”

Cool!

They’ll do a ceremony and party here at home too, so that friends and relatives don’t miss out. But sneaking away to a romantic remote outpost and tying the proverbial knot before anyone knew — that agrees with me somehow :)

And Jón Ívar has my unreserved approval. The finest black-belt ob/gyn nice-guy I know. That’s some range, folks: he can kick people’s asses and deliver people’s babies. These two sets of people hopefully do not overlap much. And if either one (ass-kicking or childbirth) causes grievous bodily harm, he can patch it up afterwards with laparoscopic reconstructive pelvic surgery too. A man of action, but also a man who tidies up after himself. A man to my liking.

But of course he is. My sister ain’t no fool.

Finally got around to putting the first pictures up: the two kids soon to be responsible for tripling Gunni and Karen’s home workload — caught on camera!

I usually stink at making sense of ultrasound images (and that’s OK, it’s a skill that is not often called for), but at least this set of images establishes very clearly, even for me, a crucial feature of Karen’s current contents: the set cardinality! A.k.a. “hey, it’s crowded in here!”

It’s official now. My brother and sis-in-sorta-law, Gunni and Karen, are expecting another … and another!

He called this morning after the first sonogram session: “A bit of news. There’s two.”

Seems hardly fair: lots of couples have trouble conceiving, and then these two just barely need to even think about it and whizbang, the corn starts popping. Now they’re even rolling’em out in pairs.

That’s not their twins on the right. It is a sonogram of twins, just not their twins. Update: I’ve finally put up ultrasound images of the real dynamic duo!

Nice going G&K! Given the cuteness of your first-born Baldur Fróði, I’ll just say the more the merrier … and I pledge to be of more assistance. I suspect you’ll find use for that. :)