I know I've been doing alot of "2 posts in one day" lately, and it's totally because I am so bored at work.
I was just talking to my friends about having to teach my mom and her husband, Robert E Lee, how to use the computer. and it got me to thinking about Robert E Lee and a recent conversation we had about what bella was going to call him when she was old enough to speak. which is really weird for a few reasons: 1, I have trent already and trent calls him Robert. (sidenote: the man's name is really Robert E Lee, it's not some sort of funny nickname. and he insists on being called robert and not bob or rob or anything else.) 2, do people have discussions about this? I don't remember that about trent, trying to figure out what to call his grandparents. but then again, my sisters and brothers already had kids so my parent's names were already chosen, and trent's dad's parents weren't speaking much to me at the time, so that was a non issue too. (my mom is Mamom and my dad is Pop-Pop, but to distinguish him from trent's father's dad, who is also pop-pop, trent calls my dad Pop-Pop Guitar, since my dad has been known to strum a few songs for trent.)
at any rate, we sat around and tried to think up names for Robert E Lee. sean thought up an excellent one that everyone in the room liked but robert: Popbert. how adorable is that. but for some reason, robert didn't like it. later, after all of us trying to convince him how perfect it was, he agreed to Grand Popbert. (I will teach bella to say Popbert anyways.)
because my parents and sean's parents are all divorced, there are alot of grand-whatevers to be reckoned with, including Robert E Lee and my dad's wife Kathy, both of whom are step-grand-parents (grand step parents?) to trent, but for some reason it never came up and trent calls them robert and kathy. but anyway, so now they are all talking about what each of them is going to be called.
so.
what do you call your grandparents? if you have kids, what do they call your parents and in-laws?
4.21.2005
name game
whipped up at 2:13 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 validations:
On the maternal side: Goo-Goo (apparently, I came up with that one) and Pop-Pop. We call Goo-Goo "Googs" for short. On the paternal side: Grandma and Pops. I don't have contact with any of my step-grandparents, so that's a non-issue, and Mom2's parents want nothing to do with Mom1 or any of "that damn lesbian's" kids, so eff 'em.
If TT and I have kids, I think we'll probably ask the moms what they'd like to be called. Todd's parents are the most normal people alive, so I'm guessing they'll snag grandma and grandpa.
Isn't there a Mo-jam on Sean's side? Or did I just make that up?
yes, sean's grandmother (bella's great grandmother) is known to all as mojam, but sean calls her grandmom anyways for some reason.
on my mom's side it was grandmom and grandpop, and on my dad's, nana and pop-pop. grandmom is the only one still existing, and she is the craziest, like diagnosed schizophrenic chase-my-mother-around-the-house-with-a-broom, send-the-kids-to-live-with-the-aunts crazy. the rest seemed to pass away in order of degree of craziness, with the sanest (pop-pop) going first, when i was wee. funny how that works.
I favor letting the question sort itself out - just muddle through and see what the kids wind up calling the grands when they can talk. But I'm told that's out of the question - we must make decisions and then enforce them. (Good luck with that.)
I myself had only four grandparents, married til death (except for one still living), and they were/are Grandpa Eggerts, Grandma Eggerts, Grandpa McCormack, Grandma McCormack. But for Noah, the fun is much more fun. There's his grandmother, his grandfather, his other grandfather, his step-grandfather, his step-grandmother and five great-grandparents (and one great-great-grandparent) still living. (Should I throw in Grandpa Joe's three baby mommas?)
The test case seems to be Nicole's mom, who heard that Nicole jokingly referred to my grandmother as Mee-Maw (funny if you know my grandmother) and decided she wanted the name for herself. I'm having trouble, however, getting that one imprinted on my own brain, never mind Noah's, so I'm skeptical it will take hold.
Let it happen organically.
My Dad's mom was Nanny. I never knew his father; he died before I was born.
My mom's mom is Grandmom and my mom's dad was Pop-Pop. Grandmom and Pop-Pop.
Pop-Pop's mom lived to be 100, and was the most kick-ass woman I have ever know (aside from my own mother). Her real name was Mabel, but we called her Grandmom Judge. I didn't know why we called her Grandmom Judge until I was about 12 years old. I remember asking my mom, "Are we going to Grandmom Judge's house for Christmas?" My mom replied, "Don't call her that. It makes her sad now that Judge is dead."
I was like, WTF?? Turns out Judge was the name of her parrot.
Grandmom Judge had almost 200 great-grand children (of which I was one), and all those kids had myriad other grandparents, and Grandmom Judge was just the easiest thing to remember.
Grandmom Judge had lots of odd pets in her lifetime, before odd-pet-keeping was mostly outlawed. She had a monkey and alligator at one time. The bar owner down the street would sometimes come and borrow the alligator if a drunken patron was giving the owner a hard time. One look at the alligator would send the drunks scurying for home.
I also ADORE the name Bella. Because of blended family stuff, and being born to a 16 year old mom, my step son has one gajillion grandparents. At two years old, he came up with a way to sort them out. He named them after their dogs. We had "Grandma Cleo," "Grandma Duchess," "Grandpa Goldie," "Grandma Buddy," etc. Now, although most of the dogs are dead, many of the grandparents have been stuck with their dog names. My mom, who never liked the dog to begin with, will probably be Grandma Buddy until the end of time.
Post a Comment