Today I'm hosting my very first guest post on Grandma's Briefs. My new bloggy buddy Ridgely and I have teamed up to try out guest posting as part of a "tribe building" activity on SITS. Ridgely usually waxes humorous about midlife; I, as you know, write primarily about grandma-related topics. Today we take turns trying out each other's niches. Read Ridgely's sweet story below, then head over to her place to see my take on midlife in my guest post on her site.

Dear readers, I'm honored to present to you Ridgely:

Becoming Grand Aunt by Ridgely of Savor the Ride

The phone rings. Recognizing the number, I see it's D, my best friend as well as a fellow middle-aged crony. I grab a Diet Coke, looking forward to a phone call packed full of giggles and squeals of hysteria.

I say hello and the screaming begins. D is ecstatic about something. I’m sure of this. Why? That, I have not established yet.

Possibilities flash through my mind. She got a raise? No, she doesn’t work. She got engaged? No, she just celebrated her 30th wedding anniversary. One of the twins is getting married? No, S got married last summer, and L is in med school.

I can't think of anything else, unless she has the winning Powerball lottery ticket.

She pauses to breathe. I tell her to slow down, quit yelling and explain what is going on. I cannot understand one word she is saying. Pulling back on her throttle of words, she declares, “I‘m going to be a grandmother.”

Grandmother, I exclaim to myself. She’s only fifty-one. I ask, “Don’t you have to be 65, sport gray hair and wear hushpuppies to be a grandmother?”

She laughs, and then quickly tells me she is on her way to my house. She has a full day of baby shopping laid out for us. We’re going to begin at Koo Koo Bear Baby & Kids’ Store, work our way through BabiesRUs, Baby Gap and end up at Gymboree.

I get off the phone, dazed. Shopping for the baby? Don’t we have nine months? What do I know, I am only the … D’s children have called me Aunt R since they were born.

What do I wear to go shopping for baby stuff? I settle on my pink corduroy pants with a tailored pink shirt with ruffles. I mean, she is going to have a girl, right? I would be clueless around a little boy. I have no brothers or no boy cousins.

Hearing her screaming my name, I grab my pink Vera bag and run to meet her in my kitchen. She runs up, hugs me repeatedly crying, “I’m going to be a grandmother!”

Suddenly, the information sinks in, D is going to be a grandmother; S is pregnant. I helped potty train S. I have been Aunt R since she was born. I realize I’m going to be a Grand Aunt. I burst into tears of joy.

Here we are in my kitchen: two best friends sobbing over the greatest news a mother can receive; she is going to be a grandmother.

My excitement grows. Visions of birthday parties, cookies for Santa, dance recitals and skinned knees fill my thoughts. I understand clearly how grandmothers love their grandchildren unconditionally before they are even born.

Grand Aunts do, too.

We better get going.

We don’t have much time before the baby gets here.

Photo credits: baby, crib

Today's question:

What new title has most recently been bestowed upon you? Grandma? Grand aunt? Mom? A new job title?

Grandmas are bonkers for their grandkids ... usually. I know there are some grandmas who are of the sort to offer little more than a "meh" when it comes to their grandchildren. I've seen them, met them, talked to them. But I think those are the exception, the women who had the same "meh" response to their own children.

The moms whose kids were -- and likely still are -- a priority, though, those who put raising their children at the tippy top of the list of Important Things To Do in This Life, well, those are the ones who grow up to be grandmas whose hearts glow and gushings flow when it comes to their grandkids. Those are the ones deliriously bonkers for their grandbabies.

I admit I'm pretty much of the bonkers variety. Lately, though, I've worried that all the mushy-gushy love-love stuff I've got going on for Bubby makes my daughters a little jealous, a little worrisome that I love my grandson more than I love them. Deep inside we all still want to be mom's favorite, no matter how old we get, and I have a feeling my girls see my bonkered state for Bubby as proof that he's No. 1 in my eyes, in my heart. Not that they've said anything, would even consider saying anything, for they all love Bubby to bits (especially his mama, Megan, of course). Let's just call it mother's intuition.

Maybe. Maybe it's not mother's intuition at all. It very well could be my own overzealous and usually unfounded guilty conscience kicking in because of all the verbal backflips and whoop-dee-doos I perform when it comes to talking about my grandson. And because I don't want my girls to think they figure any less prominently in my heart since Bubby came along.

The thing is, when it comes to grandkids -- and any grandma knows this, so I'm pretty much talking to the non-grandmas here -- it's such a fresh, new, overwhelming love that it's hard to not gush and glow over it. New mothers feel the very same world-shaking love for their newborn, for their little ones as they grow, for the one, two or eighteen lights of their lives.

The difference, though, is what happens in the years between a baby's birth and that newborn's entry into young adulthood. For those years from newborn to adulthood are filled not only with knee-weakening love and adoration, but struggles and strife and, if we're all honest here, a lot of screaming and crying and heartbreak as the child tugs this way and mom tugs that way, all in the name of growth, independence, maturity and just plain ol' life.

Sadly, those struggles lessen a mom's enthusiasm a tad, diminish the mushing and the gushing. But they never, ever, ever lessen the love and adoration mom has for a child. At least not for this mom; probably not for most moms. Despite -- or maybe because of -- the battles, a mother's love for her child matures as the child matures. It grows into a more quiet love, one no longer eliciting butterflies and balloons and all-out blasting of horns to announce the bliss.

But it once did. With every child. And grandchildren bring all that back -- the butterflies, the bliss and more. Which is why grandmas act so goofy, so obsessed, so gosh-darn twitterpated. Much to their delight, they're getting a second opportunity to relish the fully-enveloping motherly love for a child.

And relish it we do.

Just like we did when our first child was born. And the second. And the third. And more.

Just like we did and do and will with each and every grandchild to come along.

It doesn't mean we love our original little ones any less. It just means we're keeping the enthusiasm in check. For the adult child's sake, of course. Because we understand how much the mushy-gushy PDAs from mom embarrass the oh-so grown-up kids, whether they're 13 or 30.

And we know kisses on the lips and big ol' noogies on the head no longer make children-turned-adults giggle in delight. So we bestow them on our grandkids and eat up the giggles they gurgle out as if they were Godiva chocolates.

But any adult child of mine is more than welcome to a noogie, a liplock, a great big bear hug any time they ask for it. Sometimes even if they don't ask for it.

Because although I don't say it nearly enough, the love, the bliss, the being bonkers for my babies is still there, still burning hot in my head, in my heart.

And cuss the numbers, the ranking systems, the logic; mothers and grandmothers don't believe in such things. What we do believe in, though, illogical as it may seem, is that each and every one of our babies, of our grandbabies, is truly No. 1 in our eyes, truly No. 1 in our hearts.

Today's question:

Other than relationships, in what would you most like to be considered No. 1?

My answer: I'd like to be ranked No. 1 on the bestseller list ... for children's books.