A Tale of Two Grannies

We're down seeing the relatives, all is fairly smooth so far.

Widget is the eldest grandchild on my side but about the 8th on DH's, so there were negotiations about what to call everyone. Unfortunately my Mum has always been very clear that she will be Granny, because she has bad memories of her Nanna, but DH's older sons already call his mother Granny.

For a while there it didn't matter because Poppy was the only name she could handle and she had a lot of contact with my parents, so my Mum and Dad were both Poppy and the ILs weren't anything. Gradually my Mum became Poppy Mummy, then she managed Ganny. She talks on the phone to my Mum and gets little cards regularly so all was going swimmingly, she knew who Ganny was.

But then the ILs started sending things to her, which of course is nice, but confusing because she had no idea who they were. I couldn't say they were from Granny, because she thought that was my Mum. So my Mum said she should be Granny Darling. This is an old family joke, when we were kids we used to say "Please Mummy Darling," and that's what we called her a lot of the time, so Granny Darling was an obvious name.

So now she can say Ganny and Gampa and Poppy and Ganny Darling and she knows who they all are. Great, no problem, right?

"And how did she get to be Granny Darling?"

Well you've had 8 grandkids, if you didn't get yourself organised earlier that's your problem. I need a banging head emoticon.