What's in a name?

Time for Frequently Asked Questions! We've gotten some friends-of-friends asking where the names "Yaya" and "Yoyo" came from - here's Yaya's answer!

Many have asked me where we got the names Yoyo and Yaya.  Well, here's the story. I just hope Joannie can "take it", since she'll be publishing it, because we still can't agree on all the details.  But this is my story and I'm sticking to it!

 

I always wanted to be called Abuela (grandma in Spanish, since I was born in Colombia, SA).  But when Abby, my first grandchild, was born 11 years ago, my plans got changed.  When she was just 14 months old, as I held her in my lap and looked into her eyes, she said, "yayayaya".  So I shouted "She's calling me Yaya!".  Joannie and I still have a "difference of opinion" over which she said first: Yaya or ball.  I remember telling Joannie that she had called me Yaya, and Joannie said, "Mom, she doesn't even talk yet".  At that moment, Abby looked at me and said "Yaya" again, in front of her Mom.  That was it; I was Yaya. 

 

Two weeks later, my husband Joe came up to me and said:  If you are a "Yaya", I guess that makes me a "Yoyo".  We all thought that was so funny, we all started teasing him by calling him Yoyo, and the name stuck.  Once when we took all of Joannie's kids to Lowe's for a kid's project workshop, the workshop teacher told me, "I don't know which is funnier, that they call him Yoyo, or that he answers them!"

 

So now we are the Yoyos!!!!  We found out later that, in fact, "Yiayia" is Greek for "grandma".  Little did we know that Abby was bi-lingual before age two! :-)

 

That's close enough so we'll leave it like that! :)