A Rose By Any Other Name

Unrelated to today's post, but how cute is this?
It's the other grandmother's gift to a whale-themed nursery.

We know there is only one, we know it will be born sometime in the next four weeks (probably within the next three weeks), we know the nursery theme is nautical (Ahoy, Matey!), we know the sex is now determined (although not revealed), so there are really only two big issues remaining as we tap our toes waiting for Baby Wonderful to make an appearance:

1. What will this child be writing on insert-name-here forms, and

2. What will this child yell when he/she wants immediate and non-judgmental attention?

Let's take those issues one at a time.

The answer to the first one, the parents have told us, is down to two short lists, one for each gender, with a final decision to be made at game time. Oddly, the grandparents were not asked to weigh in on the issue, but maybe that's because (as with most issues) the female grandparent on the paternal side has DEFINITE OPINIONS.

My years working in the newspaper business, may it rest in peace, convinced me that naming a child should be regulated by law and that violations of this law should be felony offenses. Names should be names, not concepts or inventions. They should be phonetically pronounceable with common spellings used. No substitutions of "y" for any other vowel normally used, and vice versa. (I'm looking at you, Tyfanee and Jaesyn.) No use of names of current soap opera characters, lest the child find six others in his/her first-grade classroom all raising their hands when his/her name is called.

What names have been flitting around in my head as I imaging cooing lullabies?  For some reason, the girl names are all three-syllable throwbacks to a century ago. Josephine. Lydia. Meredith. Johanna. The boy names are tending toward the Great Depression years as well, but leaning more Biblical. Samuel. Henry. David. (I know Henry is not Biblical; just keeping you on your toes.)

But of course, we have no say in this matter, because Boy#1 and Lovely Girl#1 are brilliant and know that it is the worst thing ever to reveal a child's name before it is born. If you do this, everyone has an opinion, and that opinion will likely fly right in the face of the name you know is inextricably linked with your child's soul. After One was born, for example, my beloved Much Older Sister asked what he would have been named if he had been a girl.

"Faith Elizabeth," I told her happily, secure in the knowledge that this was a lovely, meaningful moniker.

"Huh," she remarked. "Good thing he was a boy."

Yes, I still love her and possibly have forgiven her but obviously I have not forgotten. This experience cemented my additional Definite Opinion that names should be kept private until the birth of the child. I mean, who is going to say out loud that a name choice is a mistake?

So in spite of my opinions, naming the child is not within my purview of responsibilities. But the second issue listed above? What will Baby Wonderful yell out for immediate attention that is more likely to result in a cookie than a carrot? One and LG have told Husband and me we're responsible for that decision.

When I was growing up it was a no-brainer to decide what the parents of a child's parents were to be called. They were Grandma and Grandpa. Oh, there were minor variations (in my childhood it was Grandma LastName and Grandma OtherLastName, but my own mother preferred Grandma FirstName and Grandma OtherFirstName). Today, though, among my personal circle of friends, which is lovely but not overly enormous, I know a Grandma FirstName, a Nana, a Grangie, a Nanny, a Granny, a Grammy, a Gigi, a...well, you get the idea.

I've tried them all out in my brain.

"Hey, Grandma FirstName!"

"Hey, Granny!"

"Hey, GrandmaQueenBee!"

We will probably end up being Grandma and Grandpa, although some of my more experienced grandmotherly friends tell me that the child usually decides in the end. "It was what he could pronounce when he started to talk and it just stuck," one said.

And you know what? That's fine with me. It doesn't matter what name goes on Baby Wonderful's birth certificate, or what his grandparents are called. I'm ready to answer.

"Is that you, little Popcorn Worlde Peace Angst? Gramimimimi's here!"