A few weekends ago, Kennedy and I were in my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, for the Baeby Review - our take on a baby shower.

For the Baeby Review, we asked guests and those who could not attend, to share stories about Kennedy and me as babies and beyond. Think: Online product reviews meets a short story that teaches a lesson in parenting.

For those of you who attended Kennedy’s surprise 30th Birthday in San Francisco, you are already accustomed to this concept - having written satirical reviews for K’s birthday gift that year, kennedymcdaniel.com. This time, however, I did not pre-review the stories so it was a bit of a wild card. Needless to say the bet paid multiples with stories of cars and tractors believed to be stolen (I actually got them stuck in a lot of mud) and not one but two fishing stories where Kennedy caught a variety of animals who don’t have gills including a crawfish and a seagull. She really does love to 🎣 cast.

Before the event wrapped, I took the time to share some of the BAE philosophy on how to live (a follow-up to our Before Anyone Else letter) and the timely process of re-naming ourselves and to name a child.

Below is a portion of this speech reformatted and bedazzled a bit for you - my followers, friends, and readers.

To name a child,

I know a lot of you made an extra special effort to be here today including, Kennedy’s Sister (Mercedes), and her best friend (Marinda). For those who have shared stories with us today, I want to congratulate those who overcame stage fright or maybe unlocked a near forgotten memory - this is a special moment for you to relive and for us to imagine living.

Imagine living - kind of a weird thing to say I know but that’s what stories allow us to do - imagine. I’ve been thinking a lot about life these days and what it all means.

For those of you who have followed my journey to become a writer, you may also know I love thinking deeply about the perfect word for something. I can spend weeks or months on picking the perfect word for an idea. Continually questioning - how the word makes me and others feel or maybe better stated when they hear it - what they imagine?

Tonight I’d like to spend a little bit of time talking about how I think about words and names - our names and Baeby’s name.

Hi, I’m Lawson but I go by “L” these days. “Just the letter ‘L’” as I motion with my hand and watch the barista type “E-L”. F*ck. Part of the reason I changed my name was because of the Barista Dilemma. Carry on… I spent two months on my company’s name change - spelled R-A-R-A pronounced “rah rah”. The goal of RARA’s protocol is to give a voice to a world of curators cheering on the art of NFTs - our name in action.

To my right, is my wife, Kennedy but many may not realize that this is actually her middle name. Her family and closest friend here today knew her first as Faith - a recognition of who she was, is, and maybe even who she’s becoming.

There are a lot of ways to interpret Faith in the context of believing in a god or being spiritual enough to believe in things we can’t explain. But, I think the idea of faith is more interesting when looking at the idea of self. For Kennedy, Faith is the action of believing in herself.

PRESS ▸ PLAY while you continue reading…

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” is a quote from John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Speech in 1961. And, in 1962, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” Yes, Kennedy’s middle name comes from John F. Kennedy. Inspiring by a person who changed a bit of the world with his time here, I like to think of JFK as the beginning of something for American and the world to remember or maybe even begin to imagine living.

Today, Kennedy is head of community products at Opentrons. They build robots for biologists and Kennedy’s products help these biologists connect and share knowledge through open-source software and experiments - each imagining a better future for humankind.

Then, there’s me. My middle name is Reid (spelled R-E-I-D) which is what my mom wanted to call me - likely having its own back story. My first name - Lawson was my dad’s idea which I imagine sounded cool but - the story I’ve been told since I was young - is that it came with the added benefit of encouraging me to become a lawyer and the obvious fact that I am a son. Twenty-three years later I became a lawyer which was my father’s dream. The following year, however, I became an investment banker which was my dream. Investment banking was what I knew as my dad’s profession growing up. Each of these are not so delicate proof that words and, in this case, names matter but so our role models. Cheers dad. I love you.

Fifteen days from now on February 5th is the 10th anniversary of my late wife, Cynthia Carolina Caceres Baker, passing. There are a number of stories about all of her names but I’ll focus on her last name, Caceres-Baker.

Born in Peru, Cynthia was the great, great grandchild of Andrés Avelino Cáceres, the president of Peru who led their revolutionary war against the Chilean occupation in the War of the Pacific from 1879-1893. Her last name had heritage which I thought was important to keep. At one point, I even offered to change my last name to Cáceres. Cynthia, however, insisted on taking my family name on as in the tradition of marriage.

Then, there is Kennedy and my last names. For those of you who read our annual letter BAE means “before anyone else”. A week and half ago, we filed to change our last names to BAE. It was a bit of a weird process filing that paperwork because we technically already changed our last names in this weird ying-yang style mashup. K is Kennedy McDaniel-Baker. I’m Lawson Baker-McDaniel. I know - confusing. Bae - three letters is better for a lot of reasons which I encourage you to read more about in the annual letter if you haven’t already.

Then, there is Baeby (B-A-E-B-Y). Yes, we Bae everything. It’s just soooo easy. What should we call him or her?

I’m excited to announce…that we do have a name for Baeby. We imagined it sometime in November. While we won’t be revealing Baeby’s name today, we do have a logo.

Excited about LCB ☄️ ?

Mint a free COMING SOON poster available through April 30th, 2023.

References

All great creations have jumping off points.

First, there’s Elvis Presley’s ⚡ TCB logo. Shorthand for Taking Care of Business, Elvis created a number of TCB necklaces for others.

Then, while technically not part of the logo, it’s worth noting the our silhouette above COMING SOON in the poster originated from our 2020 Wedding Invite.

The silhouette was from a self-portrait in May 2020.