Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts

Friday, October 07, 2011

A Grandma by Any Other Name

I'm not sure why I started thinking about this. Maybe it was when Tucker, the 15-year-old, started talking about getting a P tattooed on his shoulder in honor of his great-grandmother Pauline, and I choked on my coffee. But I started wondering about names that kids call their grandparents. The grandparents I knew were Nana and Granddad. Because my mom's parents died, I don't even know what the 25 other grandkids called them before I came along.
My parents decided to avoid the grandma and grandpa tradition. My dad became Gran and my mom became Nena. I'm not sure if Nena is an offshoot of Nana, but it works.
Then my dad's sister became Nonni. I have no idea where that came from.

Earl's sister has a grandbaby who will be two this week, and she calls her grandparents Memaw and Pop. I don't think I'd want to be Memaw.
Hopefully, this is a question I will, personally, not have to deal with for a long time, but what weird grandparent names have you heard of? What did you call your grandparents?

Monday, August 30, 2010

Simple Pleasures

I'm not sure if everyone would consider it much of a vacation to stay holed up and work on a novel for three days straight, but that is what I have done. My only break has been to walk downtown to get coffee every morning.
It's about a mile to our little downtown strip and we have three excellent coffee shops.
The day was already promising to be hot when I set out around 9:30 a.m.
I'd turned onto the main east/west street when I saw a little girl in front of her brick house. She was standing by a stroller and her mom disappeared inside the door. The little girl had two braids that nearly reached her shoulders. She was three or four years old and focused very hard on the stroller next to her.
I thought she said something, so I smiled and waved.
Then she looked at me and blurted out, "Grandma's coming!"
"What fun!" I responded.
Her mother came out then and, so I wouldn't be thought of as a potential child snatcher, I repeated the brief exchange for her mother.
"Not until after lunch though," the little girl added.
"That's a long time to wait," I sympathized.
I just loved the little girl's enthusiasm. The best thing that could have happened in her life was grandma coming to visit.
Ah, the simple pleasures of childhood.
Here are my kids, about 12 years ago, enjoying a visit with their grandparents.

The Olympic Cauldron

 Many people visit Paris in August, but mostly they run into other tourists. This year, there seem to be fewer tourists throughout the city ...