"Not your grandparent's nicknames...."

One of the first questions I was asked this past weekend (in light of the good news) by the other grandmother-to-be, is what I would like to be called by this baby-to-come. This is a common question of us Baby Boomers since we are of grandparent age now, yet aren't quite willing to become the stereotype that was our grandparents. Our generation is still trying to be 'cool' and wanting hip sounding names. For instance, my older sister decided on 'Marmi' which was the mother in "Little Women." My own parents became grandparents in their late 40's and weren't quite ready for that. When we asked them, they said the grandkids could call them by their first names, but that didn't seem quite right. Finally, the first grand daughter called my mother, Mimi, and my father, Papa, and that stuck. I'm hearing fun names like Big Daddy, Big Mama, G Daddy, or maybe what other countries call grandparents, such as Oma & Opa (commonly heard in my German town) or Yia Yia which is Greek. Since my ex-husband's name starts with P, I suggested P Daddy (get it?) which he shot down. And for years we've called him BoomPa after the Jimmy Stewart movie, "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation," which he hasn't been too crazy about either. Being very traditional, he kind of likes Grandpa but I'm not ready to go there. I'm kind of thinking about LuLu, as I'm kind of eccentric and it sort of fits. Sometimes you've just got to let your freak flag fly and just be yourself, whatever that is. It's kind of freeing when you stop trying to be like everybody else. People just have to accept you for who you are.

LuLu it is...