How I Became A Nannybird

First off, this is NOT me, of course, I am not Asian, so you might have known that already, but just in case you had any questions about it, I am making it clear, that THIS IS NOT ME!!

Mystery solved, enough said? No?... you want details?
Hurmph... of course you do, it's not enough for me to reveal the humiliation of the background of this nickname I just couldn't live down as a child is it?

Well, there shouldn't be too many details that need much elaboration, but you know me, I'm gonna make a story out of it anyway, and tell you just the same. Everyone already called me "Nanny" in my family, short for Nanette. I was named after one of my mothers favorite actresses, Nanette Fabray, my name is Nanette Rae, sounds alike, correct?

So as children our full names were only used when we were in trouble, you knew you did something wrong if you were called by your full first name, and as I grew up, the nickname of Nanny was shortened to Nan by most, except as an endearment by family members, most of the time I was still called Nanny, but this is beside the point, of course this has NOTHING to do with the Nannybird title of which I am explaining.

When that nickname came into existence, I was young, 9 years old. The first bird bombing that happened to me that summer of the nicknames creation was while my sister Beth and I were sent to stay with our Grandparents while my Dad and new step mother went on their honeymoon.

My Grandpa took Beth and me for a walk to the store so he could buy us some M&M's, plain for me, peanut for Beth, and as we were walking down the sidewalk, we must have startled a bird and it took off from the branch it had been perched on, and in it's flight, it must have decided it was necessary to lighten the load for a faster retreat, and it bombed me on my head. I was so disgusted, Grandpa tried to clean some of it out of my hair with some leaves he picked off the tree. It was better, but I was so grossed out about it, and of course Beth and Grandpa didn't see any reason to go back to his apartment, after all, he 'cleaned me up' and Beth wanted her M&M's [Sorry sissy, I'm probably making you out to sound like a bad guy! LOL]

Grandpa wanted to go visit some of his old man friends and sit outside in folding chairs and talk old man stories and reminisce about when things were so much better and how they had to walk barefoot in the snow to school for, oh.. about 20 miles each day and it was uphill both ways, you know, that kind of talk, how we youngun's now days were so spoiled and didn't appreciate how good we had it.

OK, I admit, I'm probably elaborating a bit there, but when you are 9, and you have bird poop in your hair, and you have to sit on a bench in the back yard of some old guys house and listen [because kids were seen and not heard] about the war in Vietnam and how it wasn't anything like the big war they fought in [World War I] or the more recent wars their sons fought in [World War II or Korea], well, you tend to just be grumpy and want to go home. I remember sitting there trying to enjoy my M&M's, but having a very hard time of it, what with the poop drying, and turning into cement, and causing my head to start itching and I was NOT about to try to scratch it!!

The topic of discussion turned to the 2 little girls sitting there being such good little girls and one of the old men said to my grandfather "Are they twins?" We got asked that a lot, never mind that Bethie being 13 months older then me was a good few inches taller then me and had a lot lighter hair then I did, we were always asked if we were twins!! LOL, anyway, Grandpa told them no and then one of the old guys points out the obvious, that we look a lot alike, and the other one said something to the effect of remembering our father when he was a boy and thinking we looked a lot like him. Here is something I will never forget my grandpa saying, it kind of stuck with me as some thing "Infamous" and important.

My Grandpa looks over at us sitting there, eating our M&M's, me, plain ones, Beth, peanut [sucking the coating off and then the chocolate to get to the peanut and then chewing on that, all to make it last longer, while I let mine just melt in my mouth,after all that was what the commercial said, they melt in your mouth, not in your hand you know?] So he speaks these word that stuck with me and make me smile even to this day. He said, "No, I think Bethie looks like Bethie and Nanny looks like Nanny." Wow!!! I looked like only myself for once, not like my sisters, brother, father or mother, just solely myself!!

I find myself saying that same thing to my kids or other children too, it's easy to fall into that trap of comparing who a child looks like, and when I became a grandma, it was way too easy to see the similarity of each of the children to their parents, but I try to think of them as their own person like my grandpa did so many years ago, because that little comment made me feel good, because I was ME and not some rerun, smaller version of an older person.

OK, detour is over, back to that nickname, it came time to head back to grandpa's apartment, walking down the side walk, and being very careful to avoid disturbing any birds in that tree again, but as luck would have it that summer I was bombed twice more at different times, once was on my shoulder and another time it landed on my chest and ran down my shirt front. To be pooped on 3 times in one summer was a great topic of discussion on one occasion and I believe it was my Dad that started calling me Nannybird that summer of 1970, and it stuck, like dried on cemented bird poop, ever since.