Maggie's Farm

Don't tell the grandkids, but grandparents remember them by numbers, not names. At least they do in my family. My parents had three sons and a daughter, and six grandsons and no granddaughters - two of the sons had three sons each. For several years now, my mother, who's 84, has been mixing up the names of her 9 male descendants, but she only mixes up the three oldest boys (the oldest son, and the oldest of each set of grandsons) with each other, the three middle ones with each other, and the three youngest ones with each other. It's not that there's any resemblance in names, either. Obviously, her brain must have us all stored by number, so I (Michael) am Son 2, and she'll call me Jonathan (Grandson 2 by my older brother) or Craig (Grandson 5, my younger brother's 2nd son), and call them Michael, but she never calls the three of us by the names of any of the other six male descendants. (Actually, there are a couple of great-grandsons now, but she can remember them because they're still cute and cuddly and there's only two of them, not three.)