As my regular readers know, I recently became a grandmother. I promised myself that I would not become one of those women who talked constantly about their new grandchild, pausing only long enough to thrust photos of the baby into the hands of everyone I met. I absolutely wasn’t going to keep blathering on about my new grandson in my blog, because I’ve always tried to write about a variety of topics so my readers don’t get too bored. I was going to exercise self-restraint and common sense as I stepped into this new role of mine and only mention the new addition to our family when he did something truly newsworthy, like winning a Nobel Prize or discovering a cure for cancer.
Yeah, right….. I have always written about what happens to be on my mind at the time I’m creating a new blog post. And these days, what is on my mind is my new grandson. All my good intentions lasted for less than a day.
Which brings me (finally) to the point of this post. Ever since news got around that I not only look old enough to be a grandmother but that I’ve actually become one, people have been asking me what I’m going to be called. When I was a child, we all just called our grandmothers “grandma,” but nowadays we get to choose how our grandchildren we refer to us. I know people who have come decided to go by Mimi, Nana, Me-ma, etc. Those are good names, but none of them sound quite right for me. And as long as I get to pick a name, why not pick something that I’d really like to be called?
Maybe I could get my grandson to refer to me as the “Wise One,” since age is supposed to bring wisdom and I’m not exactly young anymore. Or, as long as I’m picking names that have no grounding in reality, I could be called “Goddess of Beauty and Youth.” That has a nice ring to it, I think. Or I could just go for the gold and have him call me “Wonder Woman.” That sort of covers everything I aspire to.
Sadly, I have a feeling that by the time my grandson is old enough to pronounce any of the names I’d really like to be called, he’s also going to be old enough to roll his eyes while he’s saying them. So I think I’ll just stick with tradition and go with “Grandma.” It’s short, easy to remember and pronounce, and face it: it’s what I am now. But mostly it’s a title that I’m more than happy to claim.