At the Women's march

At the Women's march
All Lives Matter

Never Again

Never Again
We Won't Go Back

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

New title, same Oma Sally!

I have just changed the title of my blog, to reflect the title of my book, SUPER GRANNY: COOL PROJECTS, ACTIVITIES, AND OTHER GREAT STUFF TO DO WITH YOUR GRANDKIDS, which will be published by Sterling Publishing Company early in 2009. It will still be a communication from me about grandmothers and grandchildren, and I still eagerly welcome any and all messages from other modern grannies and grandkids.

This reminds me of a sign I saw a few years ago in a grocery store that had just computerized its operations. The sign read: PLEASE BE PATIENT. NEW COMPUTERS, SAME OLD LADIES.

Looking forward to hearing from young, old, and inbetween,

Oma Sally

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

grandmother names

As I have been interviewing grandmothers for my book, SUPER GRANNY, I have loved hearing all the different names that their grandchildren call them by. There’s Granny, of course, and Grandma, and Nana. And then a host of others.

I am Oma to all my grandchildren. This started because Jennifer, the mother of Stefan, my first grandchild, was married to a German man, and Oma is the German name for Grandma. There’s also Grossmutter – but that’s a bit more formal. When Stefan and his sisters visit us here in the U.S., I am just Oma. But when we visit them in Germany, I am Oma Sally, to distinguish me from Oma Mitzi, their other grandmother. When our two U.S.-based grandchildren came along, it seemed easier for all of them to call me by the same name. I don’t know how my mother remembered who she was to all her grandchildren! My children called her Granny, my brother Buddy’s children (who had lived in Italy) called her Nonna, and my brother Carl’s children called her Bubby, the Yiddish word for grandmother. They called my grandmother, who was their great-grandmother, Bubby-Bubby. She had always been Grandmom to me.

Some grandmother names reflect a child’s first learning to talk – like Bam and Gamma and GamGam. Pally reflects one grandmother’s habitual greeting, “Hey, Pal!” There’s Ammamma (Indian), Savta (Israeli), Meema (I think this means Mom in Hebrew), and Babu (Nepali). Some grandmothers go by their first names, easy for little ones to say and special to the grandchildren, not the grown children, who still say “Mom.”

I’d love to hear more grandmother names!