Thanks again everyone for your kind wishes. Rob, Francesco and Antonella are lovely names. I have an aunt Antonella, we call her Toni, here in America. Also Uncle Francesco and several cousins!!!My Father was Paulo Mamma is Margarita, so the names go go go. Fignut, I will do this when teething. Good Idea and nutritious too!! Thanks. Big Al, have fun with the grandbaby!!! They are a blesssing so I was told. I will be up there hopefully when I become a " nonna" Your wishes were lovely Thanks everyone again for your kind words, with all the love I have received here, I feel very blessed and glad to have so many Wonderful wishes sent our way. Ciao Ciao, Maggie P.S. Ox, I received your email, I will get back to you soon off the forum. i didn't forget you.

My mother recently remarried. She started dating him after I had grown up and moved away. My husband and I are expecting our first child, within weeks actually, and I have had some disagreement with my mother over what our child will call her new husband, Reed. He is technically my step-father, but I am over 25, and my father is still alive. Without going into detail, no one in my mother's family agrees with her choice (due to how he treats her), but Reed is her husband, and wants to have a "grandparent-type" relationship with our child. Because our yet unborn child already has two "Grampas", and I don't have a close relationship with Reed (nor do I want to), my mother has decided that my husband's and my request that he be called "Reed", just as he is to us, no longer stands. It will hurt him, and it is also disrespectful, she says. I don't want him to have an intimate, loving title like "grandpa", if his relationship with our child is going to be as superficial as it is with us. I've read over a few comments on this page, and others that have said that children respond to genuine affection, and if so, it will not matter whether or not the first name is used. We are not telling the child not to love Reed (the step-grandfather) or treat him with the same respect as the other grandfathers. He is as welcomed as everyone else in the family, but there is a distinction between him and the biological grandfathers. I figure that by the time our baby can address Reed with a title, he/she will have chosen a name based on the affection and genuineness of the relationship between Reed and himself/herself. So, any ideas? Am I wrong in wanting our request to stand as it is for now, with the babe calling him "Reed"? Pressured in Canada

Hi addictedtoroses, Anyone with such an addiction ... can't be all bad. When I saw your intro, I thought, "Never too late to par-ti-ci-pate". So - welcome aboard. But - you were here before I was. Wife's Mom, a teacher, willing to be dragged into aged category only kicking and screaming - encouraged kids to call her "Grammy". When she visited us in Korea, not too many years after Korean war, Korean women, many of whom lived really tough lives, couldn't believe that she was Sue's mother - swore she was her sister. Now several years departed this life. I think their Mom's Dad, who died when they were under 10, was "Grandpa": mine was (their Grandpas were never together). I don't remember what they called my stepmother - "Grandma", I think. They were somewhat older: I was married at 30, son born two years later. Son, now past 40, born in Korea, never married - no children (to speak of). Daughter, nearing 40, married over 13 years ago (she proposed). After about 5 years, hubby came home, announced he'd met his "dream ___" - and it wasn't her. (Don't remember the other part of the word, at the moment). Over 8 years ago. I said that I was glad there were no children, she said, "The way things were for the last while, Dad - I wasn't about to have any". She found a friend, introduced by a high school buddy that she's stayed friends with over the years, with whom she seems to have been getting on well, about a year and a half ago. He in Toronto - she in AZ. We've seen some more of her in the past year or so. Smart, vivacious, multi-faceted, caring. A person to be proud of. And thankful for. Good wishes to you and yours for the coming days. joyful guy/Ed

Don't know what you ended up doing, but my vote is go for it. ( PS We had an (unstained) ikea beech counter for 10 yrs and I loved it.) Walnut and marble.