I never knew my grandparents, and when Doug and I learned we were going to become grandparents, I wondered and worried that I didn’t know what grandparents do. I’d heard the jokes about how a grandparent’s job is to spoil their grandchildren and that being a grandparent is more fun than being a parent, but what did any of that mean? So, I did what I usually do when I don’t know the answer to a question, I Googled, ​“What to know when becoming a grandparent for the first time.” The answer was to remember and follow three simple rules: One, it’s their child. Two, it’s their child. Three, it’s their child.

My next question was ​“What do I want to be called?” I couldn’t see myself being called ​“Grandma” or ​“Bubbe” or ​“Granny.” For months, I pondered and waited for my name-defining moment. My mother had been ​“Grandma Bea” to my nephews and nieces, but that was as exotic as it got in our family. 

Ben and Kaitlin’s daughter Remy was born and named after her maternal grandfather, Rick Remenaric. He was then battling a glioblastoma, but made the eight-hour drive from Wooster, Ohio, to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to hold his namesake baby. That was something special.

In Remy’s first few months, I would hold her and sing, ​“Keep Your Sunnyside Up” and ​“Row, Row, Row, Your Boat.” Months later, as Remy sat up, cruised along and started to talk, I finally, got my name. She called me ​“Ro-Ro,” after ​“Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and she called Doug ​“Fuzzy” because of his beard. Goodbye worries about our what Remy would call us. She took care of it and has continued to prove that naming people and even toy’s through their unique characteristics and behaviors is one of her skills.

Doug, who was a puppeteer when he was in school, made a sock puppet for Remy. When he asked her what we should call this puppet, she answered, ​“Puppet.” Okay, not what we expected, but Puppet got a name. Doug loves putting on puppet shows for Remy, and I love watching him play with her. He lightens up, is fanciful, a little silly and playful. On one eight-hour drive back from visiting Ben, Kaitlin and Remy, I said to Doug, ​“I have to tell you something.” He got nervous and asked if everything was okay. I answered, ​“Yes, everything fine, but I have a crush on Puppet.”