Yeah, life. It’s a thing, ain’t it? You’re rolling along, way too busy, doing too much of what you don’t really want to do and not enough of what you do.
Then, one day, you find out you’re going to be a grandparent, for the third time.
Well, that’s the way it happened to me, anyway.
In the great tradition of our family birthdays being either in mid-summer or in December, my daughter Jillian is due to give birth around December 11th (Jill–it’s Jill now, not Jillian–was born on the 27th). I’ve known for awhile, although shockingly not as long as Jill did. She posted the news on Facebook in June, but I think a lot of people missed that.
I assume that if it’s a boy, the first name will be Mark, and if it’s a girl the first name will be the feminine version, which is Marka. But I suppose I should actually talk that over with Jill and Doug, and be satisfied if they merely gave him/her the middle name of Mark or, um, Markma. Or, okay, they could use my middle name Richard, which has the feminine version of Ricarda. Or she could name him Hunter, but then he’d have a cousin also named Hunter, and I’d have two grandkids named Hunter, and you’d never know for sure who’s being yelled at. Probably me.
So anyway, Jill’s life is essentially over–and she’s started a new one. Way different, but in its own way just as fun, more exciting, and crazy expensive. The next generation is well on its way.
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| Jill practices her baby cuddling skills with the closest nephew, who survived and just turned nine. |
or even Marc or Marcia. With this ruse, they won’t suspect a thing.
I can only hope they’ll fall for it.
Congratulations on the impending arrival of Grandbaby No. 3.
I suggest the name Marcella. It’s close enough to the name Mark and it’s a girl’s name. They will probably end up calling her Marcie, which is fairly common. If you want them to be different, you can insist that they call her Markie. This will cause her confusion for her entire childhood because everyone will expect her to be a boy until they find out she’s a girl, but she’ll have a lot of good stories to tell when she grows up. 😉
Well, my wife has an aunt Marcella called Marcie, and it seems to have worked out well for her. Still, I like Markie … there was an actress named Markie Post, and what’s good enough for “Night Court” is good enough for me.