The Name Game
I have previously mentioned that Alexis has A LOT of Grandparents. To be more specific, she has three grandfathers, two grandmothers, four great-grandfathers, and four great-grandmothers still kicking butt and making me feel like a loser for whining about my aching knee. In an attempt to make it easier to differentiate themselves for the grandkids, some of them have given themselves titles other than "Grandma" and "Grandpa." I personally do not think the grandkids would every have any trouble differentiating between all the grandparents. After all, there's the Crazy One, the Chatty One, the Shopper, the One with the Funny Accent, and The Really Bad Driver and right now they are all trying to figure out who is who and I'M NOT TELLING because then I couldn't talk about y'all in code.
Anyway.
Alexis is pretty far down the line of grandkids, so the titles are well-ingrained at this point. This past weekend it was Mammaw and Pappaw who came to visit.
While we were all out enjoying a nice meal as one big happy family, The Toddler decided to give her own special twist to the whole Grandparents and Their Own Special Names thing. We were all sitting around the table chowing down on some grub when Pappaw excused himself to run to the restroom. A few minutes later, Alexis looked up and realized that her Grandpa was gone.
"Where's Peepaw?" she asked.
Interestingly enough, that's EXACTLY what he was doing.
(Is that one of those "you had to be there" stories? If so, sorry. We certainly thought it was funny at the time!)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Reader Comments (33)
Nah . . . don't need to be there. She just gets it, doesn't she.
And that three-way hug. Awesome.
J has no great grandparents and only three grandparents left. It makes me sad. I'm going to the old folks home to adopt him some more old people.
what amazing insight your wee one has!!! and i love her sweet little dress!
so cute. a such a way with words ;-)
Could be the time of night but I personally thought it was funny!!
By the way, my kids know about being way down the line. Just from Jon's parents alone, there are close to 80 people in his family.
NO need to be there, so very precious!
Darling, just darling!
Does that mean if he was doing #2, he would be POOPAW??
Hallie :)
Bwahahaha! Kids, the things they come up with, you know? Poor guy can't even take a tinkle without forever being branded by it.
So cute.
The Kid has a ton of grandparents too... I think I've posted that before. We go by first names ...ie Grandma Nancy, Grandpa Dave, Grandma Bella, etc. But he is the first grandkid (and only until his brother comes) on both sides, so he gets to do what he wants! LOL!
Ha!
My mom always wanted my kids to come up with her name and that's kind of how it happened. She started out as Mammie and ended up being MeMe.
Love that picture! I finally had to insist on names being decided on for the grandparents because I would tell Dylan "Grandma and Grandpa are coming" and when the other ones showed up he would cry in disappointment! My parents are Mee-Mee and Bubba, and Jim's are Mee-Maw and Pap-Pap.
I used to design cemetery memorials and can't tell you how many people put "MeeMaw and PeePaw" on their headstones.
Funny! Yeah...in our household we have the Polish side grandparents and the non-Polish side. We have Grandpa, Papa, Grandma and Busia. Works out kinda nice. They also all pee...lots.
Maybe she is psychic!
Holy crap! That is a ton of grandparents! How confusing.
That is funny. We THOUGHT the names were set. But then Bean came along and well they changed. Mimi became MeNana and Poppy became Papa.
Bud's parents are boring. Grandma and Grandaddy.
I like Peepaw! She should rename him!
My mother's father was Pop to all the kids. Except to me, for whom he was PeePop.
He LOVED it.
I feel an even bigger affinity with your child now.
How cute. My son called my mom, Gugga ??? Don't know where that came from. Not eve sure how to spell it.
Were you at Bar Louie's, mmmm dollar burger and chocolate cake, yummy! Sorry, got side tracked, funny story :) chocolate cake!
PeePaw!! That's hilarious! LOL
That's funny and we didn't have to be there to laugh!
My husbands mom decided to name herself for the kids too. I thought it was like the first grandkids birth right to establish the name the other kids would call each grandparent. Well she decided she should go by Mimi. My husband hates it because all he could think about was mimi from the Drew Carey show. How would you like that for a grandma? More blue eyeshadow please!!
LOL! Already with so much woman intuition :)
Our daughter has 2 grandma's. One DEMANDS to be called- Grammy. I call her- the crazy one.
LOL. The Howler's grandparents are pretty boring that way...but she has an "aunt teesee" and an "unkajooce".
Haha! It's not one of those stories. At least not for me, I found it hilarious. She's a smart one!
My kids are the first grandkids on my side and my parents wanted to pick their names, but my DH wanted the kids to choose them. We ended up with Grandma-Grandma and PaPa. Oh well!
Looks like she got over the initial hesitation & shy?
Dang that girl is smart!
We have quite a few grandparents to keep track of too, so I can relate!
I have sooo many people in my family that got their family names like that.
Out of the mouths of babes....
So, will he be PEEPAW forever now? :-)
She is very lucky to have so many grandparents. My kids only have my husbands parents, but they call them Nanny Joan and Grampie Ray. I have no idea how that started, but it works. LOL
No.... you don't have to be there. I am laughing out loud.
So cute. What a lucky girl!
so sweet. looks like it must be your dad!
I giggled. A little.
I have a Memaw and a Papaw. As an adult (or a human past the age of 7) I cringe every time I have to say it out loud.
Jamie, your "Memaw is on the phone." Why can't they just be like Sue and Frank, or something easy to say without puking a little? (Okay, maybe because their names are not Sue and Frank. But I vote for the change.)
Gavin called all our parents (all six) MeeMaw and PeePaw up until a few months ago. Broke my heart to hear him say "grammaw" and "grappaw"...the other titles were so cute.
My kids are totally out of great-grands...if they all hadn't kicked-off my boys would have 10. But in 2-years time, we lost the last four. Glad that Alexis has a chance to maybe meet and know all of hers.
My mom is Memaw and my step father was Pepaw. I hate both of those names but my 16-year old niece picked them when she was 1 and it stuck.