Having Grandchildren is surprisingly easy. And, unsurprisingly, The Viking is a stellar baby cuddler/entertainer. He’s a Viking on the outside and a marshmallow on the inside. Don’t tell anyone though, because we don’t want to encourage our enemies. Okay. We only have one enemy, but others could crop up over time.
While I plop down on the floor with Luna, the two-year-old, to play with Picasso Tiles, The Viking makes faces and plays peek-a-boo with Molly, the 6-month-old baby. We’ve mastered the Tag Team method of child herding, changing diapers, and mixing formula powder. Overall, we make a pretty good team.
Izzie has turned out to be extremely surprising. We were a little anxious about how she would react to babies and toddlers given her previous behavior interacting with adults, but she follows Luna around constantly, jumping onto her cat tree if Luna gets a little touchy. She’s brilliant. Which is surprising. We thought Teddy Bear would be the Baby Whisperer, but he prefers a less loud environment and heads for the cat door.
There is a small challenge though. The girls have 3 sets of Grandparents and we all need different titles so the girls know who is who when Mim talks about us. Two of the Grandparent sets took the traditional titles which left The Viking and I to decide how we want to be addressed. Easy Peasy! We’ll use Danish terms.
A short lesson in the Danish language: In Danish, Mor is the word for mother, and Far is the word for father. But then it gets tricky. When you talk about the mother of the child’s mother you say, Mor Mor – mom’s mom. The father of the mother is Mor Far – mom’s dad. There is a whole different set of combinations when you talk about the child’s father’s parents, but it’s not relevant right now. So, since I am the mother of Luna’s mom, I am Mor Mor. The Viking is the stepfather of Luna’s mom so he is Mor Far.
The last time Mim brought the girls for a visit, she confided that Luna decided this whole Danish word jumble is too messy and too much so she calls us…….
………
………
The MoFos.
I HAVE NEVER LOVED ANYTHING MORE!!
From this day forward……we are the MoFos! I never want her to stop calling us that. She can tell her friends that she loves her MoFos, that she’s going to visit her MoFos. Her MoFos can come to her school pageants and concerts. She can tell her other grandparents all about her MoFos. She can introduce us as The MoFos to her teachers, Doctors, friends’ parents, employers, boyfriends/husband(s)……whatever! And I certainly hope that Molly does the same thing when she starts talking.
Besides, if someone is shocked beyond words, the girls can just shrug and say, “It’s Danish!” What are people going to do? You can’t punish a kid for being bi-lingual.
