Still No Grandchildren....

Day Two -- NaBloPoMo

But that's ok. I get my grandbaby fix at the hospital.  

Eler Beth doesn't need to get pregnant with her health issues; not right now anyway. And neither of the kids has been married that long. I honestly don't pressure them, but they know I'm ready to be a grandma.  (Facebook told me this picture was my Most Liked Picture of 2017, so I thought I'd add it. That is my little mommy (94 at the time) and Eler Beth and Anthony when they were engaged.)  

It's kind of funny that the boys are the ones who really, really want babies right now. Andrew is ready to be a dad, but Alexandria is nervous about the whole pregnancy/labor/delivery thing. So I don't know.  Anthony and Eler Beth both definitely want babies, and Anthony would have been happy if they'd come back from their honeymoon pregnant. As it turns out, it is a good thing they didn't, since right after the honeymoon is when Eler Beth's health issues began (and more on that in a later post). But I think she is starting to get baby fever. 

  

I call myself "grandma" to all the animals (well, the kids' animals, not mine and Thomas'), but I will probably be "Mamaw" to my actual grandchildren. I don't mind Grandma, Mamaw, or even Granny, but I know I am NOT a Nana or a Nonni or a MiMi or anything like that, unless the baby itself names me as such.  There is nothing wrong with those, they just aren't me.  I asked Eler Beth what she thought she'd want her kids to call me, and she very decidedly said, "Mamaw." (All the grandmothers in my family are "mamaws, and the grandfathers are "papaws.")  

She also said that Thomas would be "Papaw," but he once told me that there is only ONE "Papaw," and that was my dad. He thought a lot of my dad. But I think he'll come around to it when the time comes. (This pic was taken in August. Look how much weight she has lost from her illness. She has lost over 50 lbs. since her wedding in 2018. But she now weighs what she did when she and Anthony first started dating, or just a smidgen less. She had gained a lot before they got married, and we have no idea why unless it was a combination of birth control pills and a job that was less physical.)  

I recently found out that there is (or was, it might possibly be archaic) a Gaelic word that means grandmother that sounds like "mamaw," so maybe that came from my Gaelic and Celtic roots. I can't remember the word offhand. My niece was telling me about it. I'll have to look it up.  

Thomas' father was Granddad to the grandchildren. He called his own grandfathers Papa Aaron and Papa Willie, and he never knew his grandmothers, but one step-grandmother was Mother Roxie and the other step-grandmother was Cousin Cula because she was actually a cousin on the other side of his family. BOTH of his grandfathers had three wives!!   

On Anthony's side his dad's parents were and are Papa and Baba (Italian and Polish), and his mom's mother was Nana. I don't think he knew his mom's father.    

This is not what I was originally going to write about today, so if anyone is still reading this boring post, if you're a grandparent, what do your grandchildren call you? What do or did you call your grandparents? I was actually going to write about my brother and his death and funeral, but maybe that post is still percolating in my brain and not ready to be written yet.   

Weird isn't it how I started a new blog because I thought I needed a change, and here I am still focused mostly on my now-married-and-out-of-the-house kids!   

More tomorrow. Ta for now!  

~~ Lori  

Addendum: I have tried and tried, and I cannot get this post to stop screwing around with the font size of some of these paragraphs. I don't know what's going on!!