rolled around each day, this boe-paw was ready for a nap. There were a slew of us 60- and 70-somethings walking hand in hand with our 4-, 6- and 8-year-old grandchildren.Īnd the kids looked no worse for the wear.
I saw tons of excited children with their moe-maws and boe-paws.
Oma grandparent movie#
There we - Baby Boomers - were in droves last week, prowling the malls with our progeny in tow visiting Santa seeing a movie scarfing burgers and fries at Ruby’s and stopping by the frozen yogurt shop, multiple times. What to do with their youngsters while working? The additional three “vacation” days that Orange County school districts allot youngsters at Thanksgiving presents parents with a conundrum. The phenomenon that Hedy and I witnessed last week I’ve taken to calling: “School’s Out But Parents Still Must Work.” No more “Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home.” We’ve lost something. And we glide from Halloween directly into Christmas.
Black Friday - and I’m not exactly sure what that is - is now the “big dog” this time of year. This year, the holiday was barely acknowledged. When I was growing up in Newport-Mesa, Thanksgiving was the Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing the bounty of a beneficent land turkey and dressing (not stuffing) heaped on an overflowing dining room table giblet gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and Nebraska battling Oklahoma in college football (sadly, they don’t even play each other anymore!). Seems like Thanksgiving - a great holiday! - has become lost in a chaotic vortex. That, by the way, brings up a pet peeve of mine. Now, it’s not even referenced as the Thanksgiving holiday, and it runs Saturday through the following Sunday. Remember when the annual Thanksgiving school holiday was Thursday and Friday? Period. The purpose of this convoluted introduction is to describe what Hedy and I experienced last week. Hence, to Judah, we’re moe-maw and boe-paw. The only exception to that is Judah who, at 3, has fashioned his own dialect. Our West Coasters speak English with a surfer-dude lilt. They speak a hybrid of the King’s English mixed with a Southern drawl (think Helena Bonham Carter meets Alison Krauss). We were in the Tar Heel State a couple of weeks back to celebrate an early Thanksgiving with them. Hedy and I (malleable by nature) are captive to an endearing lisp.įour of our grandchildren live in Orange County, the other four in North Carolina. Our youngest grandchild, Judah, couldn’t properly pronounce oma and opa when he was a year old, so he called us “moe-maw” and “boe-paw.” The names stuck. I wanted my kids to have that same special experience.”
“Those titles made them unique in my eyes. “I’ve always felt it special to call my grandparents oma and opa,” Jade told me recently. Our middle daughter, Jade (Ethan’s mother), wanted things that way. That practice began 17 years ago with our first grandchild, Ethan. Our daughters’ children now refer to Hedy and me by the same taxonomy. That’s also the convention in Germany and parts of Belgium. Our three daughters - since they were wee little ones - have referred to Hedy’s mother and father by the accepted Dutch grandparent nomenclature: oma and opa. To be honest, the girls, with their obvious intellect and charm, take charge of “Big Cuz” and “Li’l Cuz,” and hold the reins of power in our family. The six girls occupy the vast middle, but take a backseat to no one. The ones at either end of the spectrum are boys. My wife, Hedy, and I have eight grandchildren. Thanksgiving week, frankly, resembled a buffalo charge. The “moe-maws” and “boe-paws” of our community were out in force last week.
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