I recognize that introducing a blog post with a statement
like that will have everyone wondering who died, which one of us lost their job
or what new town we are moving to.
I will forewarn you; to the average person, this unexpected change of
plans may seem trivial, but to my mother it was nothing of the sort.
My mother reacted to the news of my first pregnancy with a
similar amount of enthusiasm as she reacted to that of my engagement; it was a
slow clap. To put it lightly. This is not to say she wasn’t excited;
lets just she just needed some extra processing time before unleashing the
fervent mania of her own excitement.
By the time dinner was finished (after telling her the news
of pregnancy #1) mom was CLEARLY going to be OK with it and had ALMOST put
aside all implications the news had made on her advancing age. Not long after acceptance, the
discussion soon shifted to more practical concerns:
WHAT was the baby going to call her?
What ensued was a run down of every POSSIBLE name “the baby”
could conceive of calling her and why each and every one was COMPLETELY
unacceptable ad utterly appalling.
At the end we narrowed it down to the one and ONLY name my
mother would ever HEAR of being called: Grandma Lynda.
And then, a mere 7.5 months later, after laying eyes for the
first time on her grandson, that
stoic-bear-with-me-while-I-get-myself-adjusted-to-change woman who was
previously so controlled and precise about her feelings turned into a giant
ball of Grandma-Lynda mushiness.
We watched the sappy version of my mother unfold as the
days, weeks, and months went by.
Slowly we began to get used to the excited, childlike clapping of her
pristinely manicured hands as she entered her house, and the biweekly phone
calls that regaled us with her passionate longings for her oh-so-missed
grandson.
But the true test came when Toby himself learned to talk and
respond to my mother with his own sentiments of love. As you may remember with your own kids, their first
expression of love is in the sweetness of the words, MAMA and DADA . In Toby’s world only one word could
possibly come next and believe it or not, it wasn’t “Grandma Lynda” but a
slightly slurred although entirely consistent, GAGA.
Still baffled by the dreamy state of
grandmotherly-intoxication that had overtaken my practical mother, we were yet
further dumbfounded by the ease at which she took this. Not only did my mother accept her new
nickname (which would have fallen under the ENTIRELY UNACCEPTABLE category 2
years previously) but she proudly flaunted it and asked him to repeat it at
every opportunity. And Gaga she
was.
Proving her insanity clairvoyant, she one day called me at
work to tell me she had just heard on the news that there was a SINGER named
LADY Gaga. Could I BELIEVE
IT? Yes, I told her, I did know
that, but might I suggest that she NOT go and Google it?
And then Mia came along.
Mia, as well all know, has a mind of her own. She has developed a few words but
doesn’t use them consistently as she prefers her usual “point and hiss” or “point
and shriek” which, on the whole, works quite well when it comes to getting-exactly-what-you-want-when-you-want-it.
And so it came as no surprise to all of us when Mia suddenly
proclaimed (in a way that only Mia could do) that Grandma Lynda would now go by
“Nana”.
If we had ranked the various choices for unacceptable
“Grandma” names, I think that NANA would have fallen dead last. But, as only her grandchildren have EVER
been able to do, my now softened mother accepted this entirely prejudiced nickname
with grace and joy and is now proudly sporting the name Nana in all its glory.
The other day, feeling rather brave, I pointed this out to
my mother and reminded her of the strict criteria she had once imposed on the
correct taxonomy of her prestigious position.
She laughed and sighed before saying, “Well…at least I’m not
GRANNY.”
We have no plans for a 3rd child, but I somehow suspect if a mistake were ever to happen, that I know just what baby #3 would call her…
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