Worry, worry, worry! 14/02/2011

It’s a cliché of course, but it doesn’t matter how old your children are, you always worry about them. When they’re six you worry about them forgetting their PE kits and reading books, at sixteen, you worry about GCSEs and them getting their hearts broken and at twenty six it’s will they get a good job and a foot on the property ladder.

Of course, you never understood why your own parents worried,  you always knew you were OK.  I couldn’t see why my mother was worried if I was quarter of an hour late for tea, (this was pre mobile phone days of course).  It usually meant me and my friend had to investigate what we thought was a  dead body in a farm outbuilding – and turned out to be a bag of cement.

I didn’t understand why, when getting lifts in boy’s cars to and from country pubs, that my parents worried.  This was despite the fact that having ‘one for the road’ was considered normal and seatbelts weren’t compulsory and my best friend was scarred for life  after going through the windscreen of an Alfa Romeo.

They just seemed to be making a fuss about nothing when aged 19, after three months of going out with my boyfriend, we announced we wanted to get married and did seven months after that. By our first anniversary we had our first child.

Now, three more children later, and with three grandsons and a grand-daughter on the way, they still worry.  Just goes to show however old your children are, they’re still your babies!

What’s in a name? 24/05/2010

It’s not really until your children have their own children that this becomes  an issue.  Until then you’ve just been ‘Mummy’, or ‘Mum’, when they’re older. Occasionally ‘Mother!’ when they’re feeling frustrated with you and sometimes ‘Ma’ when they’re being patronising.

Not long after the announcement that our eldest son’s wife was expecting our first grandchild came the question, ‘what are you going to be called?’ Gran, Granny, Grandma, Nanny?  None of them seemed appealling, all conjured up pictures of little old ladies in cardigans with glasses and a bun! We all know that grandmothers aren’t like that any more don’t we?  Take me, I run marathons, take part in cycling challenges, do the  decorating, gardening, voluntary work… I don’t have time to sit and knit.  And although I cook and bake, I like to think I’m more Nigella than Mrs Overall!

So to alternatives, what about ‘Nonna’?  A bit more romantic sounding in a foreign language, or as my husband is Welsh, what about ‘Mamgu’ for me and ‘Dadcu’ for him? Or ‘Yaya’ which is Greek, I don’t fancy ‘Gamma’, ‘Mom mom’ or ‘Gangan’ either.  The problem was compounded by the fact there were 4 great grandparents too, so we needed names for them as well.  I didn’t want to claim the ‘Glam-ma’ title, as used by Joan Collins and stolen by L’Oreal and Jane Fonda for their latest ad, it seemed a bit too pretentious for me.  I did toy with ‘GrandShar’ but in the end it will probably be what the children call us when they can talk.  My mother in law is called ‘Mussey’ by most of her grandchildren as the eldest couldn’t pronounce ‘Grandma’ and all the rest followed suit.  It seems as if it really is out of the mouths of babes!