Grandma? Nannie? Bubba?

My baby is having a baby.  

She's gone from "looking like I ate too much for dinner this weekend" to having a small protrusion in the middle of her body.  Growing in size from a lentil to a grape to a plum to a kumquat, the baby is making its presence known.

Everything smells weird.  Her pants don't fit anymore - "not even close." She's over the super-exhaustion that accompanied the start of the adventure - "It's not that I wanted to sleep; I needed to sleep." Her 36 hours of nausea abated, and she's stopped wondering how anyone could be that sick for more than a day or so.  I try to keep quiet about the three or four months I spent hurling and napping while she was establishing herself in my body; she's already apologized.

SIR is proud and happy.  TBG and I are still searching for the words to describe our joy.  We find ourselves looking from one end of the couch to the other, grins plastered on our faces, grins having no relationship to the novel I'm reading or the game he is watching.  We nod, we grin harder, we go back to what we were doing.  Our hearts are full.

I've been signing letters as GMU - Grand Maternal Unit.  Grammu works for me as a name, but TBG is having issues with being Grandpooooooo.  I can't really blame him, though the rest of us are laughing pretty hard whenever we think about it.  I'd always thought I'd want to be Nannie, like TBG's grandmother, a shining star in the heaven that was his childhood, the name his mother chose for herself.

But, when I tried to sign it on a card to the newly enlarging family, my fingers wouldn't form the word. It feels like someone else.  It's not me.  

Bubba, Yiddish for grandmother and what I called G'ma's mother, has no relevance to my life today.  I loved her, but I don't need to rename myself in her honor.  And, unfortunately, the same thing goes for my own Grandma.  She was a woman who loved me, but she had an odd way of showing it.  There 

were strings attached to everything, even the hugs and kisses.  She and my mother had a contentious relationship held together by a fragile truce.  It's not the kind of scenario I'm envisioning for my future with Flapjack.

Yes, Flapjack.  Apparently, the cocoon encasing him requires regular infusions of Aunt Jemima and syrup.  SIR has offered to make them at home, pancakes being one of the food stuffs he creates with style, but Little Cuter prefers the restaurant variety.  TBG, upon hearing of her craving, cried out "Flapjack" and the name stuck.  

And now we wait and watch and wonder.  Her body is no longer her own.  She worries about another human who has no power to protect itself, who relies only on her for sustenance and care.  Her shape shifts and her moods swing and she worries.

Yesterday, sharing the picture at the top with us, she was delighted with the smile and the touchdown arms of her soon-to-be-born.  Is that fetus dancing? Smiling?  Waving hello?  Imitating the Grateful Dead head? I think it's all of the above.  That's a package of love and joy and potential, of wonderfulness and happiness and the completion of a cycle, of expectations and happiness and the continuation of the species and it's all happening right inside my little girl.  Ain't life grand?