Baby's first quilt

Forgive me for this somewhat complex story, as it involves three storylines: grandparents, nursery themes and baby's first quilt.

A few weeks ago, my mom asked, out of the blue, what we wanted she and my dad to be called by the baby, in terms of "Grandma," "PopPop," etc. I know there are traditional and not-so-traditional nicknames for grandparents, but I really didn't have a preference, so I asked what she wanted to be called. She wasn't sure. (I also suggested "Crazy Lady," but she wasn't having any of that. Love you, Mom!)

I told her that Tim's parents are called Grandma and Grandpa by his nephews - sometimes "Grandma Barb" and "Grandpa Bob" - but figured that might help her narrow down what she wanted her title to be.

I thought it was cute and funny that she was asking so early in the pregnancy and had no idea why this had hit her.

I found out a few days later.

She e-mailed me the night of the "What should we be called" convo, suggesting "Grams" as her name of choice because it was kind of short for Grandma S. - S is the first letter of my maiden name. I liked that it was traditional AND meaningful and approved it. (I don't have control of much right now, so approving grandparental names is enough for me, OK?)

I talk to my mom on the phone almost every day, and either in the same "What should we be called?" conversation or one a few days later, I told my mom about some decorating ideas I had for the nursery. I'll go in to more detail about this when we know the gender, but to start with, the room we're converting to a nursery is painted brown. I love the color, and I hate painting, so we'll be working with brown. For a girl, I'd love to do something brown and pink - flowers, shapes, etc. For a boy, I'd like to do an aquarium/sealife theme, with browns, blues and greens.

A few days later, I got a package in the mail. Before we had the conversation about the nursery ideas, my mom had made this gender-neutral quilt with brightly colored fish. She's been an avid quilter for years, and she had a new tool she wanted to play with ... so tada! Baby quilt for Baby W.


I couldn't believe that she'd basically read my mind on the theme idea (and now wonder if my mom knows something and it's a boy), but I thought it was awesome. My mom has made quilts for SO many people over the years, including for the babies of many friends and family members, and she said it was a thrill to make a quilt for her own grandbaby.


And back to the "What should we be called?" thing: Mom attaches a label (above) to her quilts, with "Made with love by ..." and the date. She needed to know what she was going to be called so she could fill out the label. Which explains why she wanted to know, so early and so randomly, what to she should be called in the grandparent world.

Thanks, Mom/Grams! We love it, and we love that it was handmade by you for baby :)