Granny blues: Anything goes for‘grandma’

I have big news. Gird your loins, grab the smelling salts, because… wait for it… I am going to be a granny! Me! A granny!

There aren’t enough exclamation marks in the world. Yes, I know the photo on this column makes me look like a 35-year-old (mostly because I was when it was taken 18 years ago) but my oldest manchild – who is somehow now 33, with a wife, a home, and a dog all his own – is set to become a daddy come March, all things going well.

And while we wait for the arrival of this tiny person who will obviously be the most amazing, advanced, intelligent, beautiful, witty, warm, magical grandchild in all the world, there is some very important work to do: we need to decide what uber-baby will call me.

I can’t be granny because that’s my mom, and I’m not old enough to be granny anyway, even though my best friend who is much older than me (13 months) has been known as “granny” for the last 10 years.

Sure, she put up a fight to be called Bonbon, which was what other people’s kids called her so she assumed this sweetest of names would be a shoo-in, but no – despite her best efforts, her granddaughter calls her granny.

I can’t be grandma/granma either, because that’s already the other granny’s name. “What about the German, oma?” suggests someone at my Dublin book club, to a chorus of oohs. I choke on my quiche.

“It’s also Afrikaans,” I tell them, “and ouma literally means old mother.” Ah, they say, dejected, until someone suggests Mhamó which is the Irish language nickname for grandmother. I like it. I look it up online. It’s also Swahili for “get out!”

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Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself that glam-ma/glamma would be nice, and a bit glamorous, quirky and fun, like my ideal self. However, it’s also what Goldie Hawn is called, glamorous Goldie who’s long-since cornered the quirky, fun market too.

The Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner is Lovey, Caitlyn Jenner is Boom-Boom, and Whoopi Goldberg is Oopi. Seems I could be anything.

Ultimately though, I suspect I might end up as Jen because that’s what my sons call me nowadays. Or Jennie. Or, since grandchildren tend to decide for you, Jelly. Or Fatty

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