I spent a few days recently with friends and family, rolling along our old summer hills, catching up with cousins who look like their teenaged selves only taller, seeing their kids who are even taller than I. We traded stories, took turns trading kids and helping out, and I realized we’d all become the Uncle Daddies and Aunt Mommies of our childhood.

The “rules”, such as they were, were pretty loose and basic. Crowded summers were filled with family of all shape and size coming from far and near points, hanging out at various intervals for long periods of time. Cousins were traded and lent out, Aunts and Uncles did extra kid duty, and as in large families, you could be younger than your own niece or nephew or older than your uncle or aunt. I don’t think anyone was their own grandfather.

So we simply didn’t bother keeping titles and relationships too straight. If you were underage or just over the age of majority, you were just Cousin whoever. If you were older than that to middle-aged, you were addressed as Aunt whoever or Uncle whoever. These were also considered reasonable referee substitutes for your own parents; if an Aunt or Uncle aged person said something was okay (like tossing unexploded Fourth of July ordinance on the burn pile - oops!) it was just about the same as a parent okaying the idea.

Anyone older than that was Grandma or Grandpa whomever.

And it worked. I assume the Aunts and Uncles worked out discipline and playing fair rules among themselves as I do with my peers on playdates now. In my immediate family, I was the third to have kids, but about the eighth or ninth when you include cousins, promoting me to “Aunt Mommy” status. I know it sounds weird, but it works. Everything else is just too cumbersome, even if I could keep all of the extended relations straight.

So when I started a mom-centric blog, the title and name seemed natural to me. I’m not just a mom, I’m an Aunt Mommy, part of our weird little parenting communities or villages online and off line. The Aunt Mommies for my generation preferred Kahlua, but I’ll stick to soda pop or Mike’s Lemonade.