I was in Austin to meet the new boy baby and provide emotional assistance and technical backup to the new parents. In between Derby duty (that’s his name…Derby), making up nonsense lullabies, studying the breast pump manual and stomping on Texas-sized cockroaches, I was reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises for our book club.

Derby is good and strong and lean and can drink long into the night and next day. But he won’t have to grow up to be a Hemingway he-man. And isn’t he a lucky fellow?

His tiny clothes are covered with trucks and tigers but he can also wear polka dots with panache. His favorite pacifier is pink. He’s a beautiful boy whose looks change daily, but I’m pretty sure he has my ex-husband’s nose.

He will likely one day read Hemingway because he comes from a family of readers.  The Hemingway stories may inspire him to go to Paris and sit in cafes and write at least one simple declarative sentence. Or he may read Hemingway and think, “Huh, what an interesting anthropological peek into the evolution of the American male.” Maybe he’ll ask his grandfathers, “Did you ever want to shoot a water buffalo to prove you had the stuff?”

Hemingway’s Lost Generation was a messed up macho one, scarred by war, distrusting, always wanting to pick a fight. Worried about losing face, being called a coward. Too tough to show feelings.  Wary and resentful of women.

I always liked the places in his stories a lot more than the people. In re-reading Hemingway I’m still unclear how, for being so worried about the rent, they still managed to spend all winter skiing.

Our new baby boy was born into a world where fathers sleep in the labor room and carry their own diaper bags. Who are more into swaddling than swagger. And while some may still wish for a return to the days when the measure of a man is the size of his gun collection, today’s boys get to grow up with more than macho to choose from.

Hemingway helped create the man of his times. The man’s man – aggressive, tough,   proud, stoic, pugnacious, domineering, loutish even. The woman of the times, of course, had her own rigorous standards. We’ve been working on these stereotypes since Derby’s grandmother became a feminist and Derby’s mother was a little girl with a toolbox and pink overalls. And we all sang It’s All Right to Cry and William Has a Doll.

We imagined this daughter having a girl baby. She did, too, although for a long time she said she didn’t want to have children. The first surprise was she was pregnant. The second was she was having a boy.

I knew she had been thinking girl and started a campaign to convince her that mothers and sons make great combos. I gave her examples of all the wonderful women I know whose boys were their sweet little buddies. And once they got past the teenage years, which are just as painful with daughters as sons (as she well knows) they grew up to be thoughtful adults who remember their mothers’ birthdays and bring home cool women to become daughters.

She said I could lay off the propaganda. She had already decided it would be fun to have a boy.

Derby blasted into life as storm clouds gathered over Austin, which caused the sky to rumble and flash and finally deliver rain to Texas after months of drought. Then came a full moon and cool breezes and those who lived in Derby’s house could finally turn off the air conditioner and listen to the night.

And it was right and it was fine and this baby didn’t have to prove another darn thing.

The working mother who squats in the field, gives birth, bundles the baby to her breast and goes back to the job might envy the high-tech working mother who enjoys such luxuries as a portable hands-free electric breast pump. Perfect for the career woman’s busy lifestyle, it allows her to pump while on her computer, putting on makeup, blow drying her hair, making dinner and doing laundry. There is also a car adapter in case the pump battery fizzles while on the road.

Oh, the wonders of modern maternity I thought while sitting in a circle of professional women at a baby shower. It was for my daughter, a full time writer and first time expectant mother seeking advice from her experienced multi-tasking peers. That’s where I first heard of the no-hands pump from a mother of twins who employs it during conference calls and while dashing in a cab across Manhattan to a meeting.

There were no games, as decreed by the mom-to-be, no women putting clothespins between their knees and dropping them in milk bottles. No spinning pencils on a string across the belly to determine the baby’s gender. Of course today’s expectant couples can discover  early on if they’re having a boy or girl.  What’s top secret, I learned, is the name. It is not okay to share potential names and even grandparents-in-waiting will not know until the baby pops out and the parents rip open the envelope and declare, “And the winner is Ezekiel.”

Parents not wishing to burden their child with too common a name can go to a handy website and track the most popular baby names. So far, for 2011, the top four baby boy names are Jacob, Ethan, Michael and Jayden, just in case you wondered. In the early 1970s when I gave birth we had to wait until the last push and the nurse to proclaim “it’s a girl.” But we started blabbing name choices as soon as we found out we were pregnant.

Maternity trends evolve. When I was a working mother I didn’t have a breast pump that you could charge with your car battery.  That didn’t matter because I didn’t nurse. Breast feeding was an alternative but not as routinely expected as it is today.   Natural childbirth was newly in favor and that’s as earthy as I got. My pregnant daughter just now realized that she was a bottle baby. Poor kid thought I was an all-organic mom.

Among her shower gifts was a diaper bag with special compartment for iPod and smart phone. And a stylish nursing cover to layer between her and the public while feeding baby, which everyone in the room but me seemed to know as a hooter hider.

She got a lot of good advice. Someone told her about an app she can get to tell her which breast the baby last fed from. Someone talked about hiring a night nanny, who comes in for occasional night duty to relieve sleep deprived parents. Another mother offered the name of her baby sleep consultant.

But the best advice she got is not much different from what mothers of every generation have told each other. Enjoy it all. Don’t panic. Trust your instincts. Babies don’t break very easily. Take a nap when the baby sleeps. Meditate when the baby sleeps. Slip off for a 30 minute hot bath at the end of the day.

I liked this one, too:  Figure out which restaurants and stores have diaper changing tables in the men’s room so daddy can share that chore.

And oh yes, buy wine in bulk.

I sympathize with the grandmotherly concerns of Blythe and Goldie who, according to a story in the New York Times, do not want to be called Grandma. Blythe Danner, mother of Gwyneth Paltrow, wanted to be called Woof. Her granddaughter has since changed that to Lalo. Goldie Hawn, mother of Kate Hudson, likes being called “Glam-Ma.”

I cannot pretend to know how it is to be a celebrity, particularly a movie star with a movie star daughter. Having your child follow in your footsteps would surely be gratifying but it might make you feel like you’re on the slippery side of your own career. And then in walks some little kid calling you grandma for all the world to hear.

However, many of us in the grandmother galaxy understand. As Goldie Hawn put it, grandma is a word with “many connotations of old age and decrepitude.” It’s like so many words that imply “creeping up there,” like retired, senior, elder. The words are correct but the images are all wrong – so last generation. At least we like to say.

I, too am a grandmother with a non-traditional moniker. I am Mutti which I became five years ago when our expectant daughter asked her father and me what we would like to be called. My husband said he didn’t care, so our daughter came up with grand-daddy. She has always called him “daddy” and her now two children would therefore call him “grand-daddy.” It has stuck.

I chose Mutti which is a German term for Mommy but can be used for grandmother. And that was it.

I also chose it to be different from the other grandmothers. Because we are a blended family with a number of divorces, there are lots of grandparents in this part of the family. The four grandmothers are Grammy, Mimmie, Grandma Jan and me, Mutti. The four grandfathers are Pops, Papa, Grandpa Mickey and Grand-daddy.

Now we are doing it again and looking forward to another grand-baby by another daughter. This daughter is a stepmother and her stepsons, who I didn’t know until they were in middle school, call me Susan. That’s easy. But now there’ll be another baby to call me Mutti. Again there won’t be any name confusion because the other grandmothers of this baby – there will be three of us – are already established as Grand-Mom and Momo.

As the New York Times reported, today’s grandparents don’t like being called the old terms because they don’t look or act like grandparents used to. I relate more to the hip grandmother on the Sid the Science Kid PBS cartoon than my wonderful grandmother who wore full aprons and brown stockings. But while we may not look like old fashioned grandmas, our body knows the truth.

You might be lucky to look like Blythe and Goldie. You can call yourself anything you want. But sometimes your bones and lower back feel very grandma-like. One day after nine hours of taking care of two little kids I showed up for a meeting with peanut butter on my shirt and blood on my neck. The peanut butter was from snack time and the blood came from my grandson who had taken a header into the patio table. I wanted a nap.

The kids aren’t fooled anymore than your body. Sometimes my granddaughter will holler out for me and say “Grammy. No, I mean Mimmie. No, I mean Mutti” and I’ll think, poor little kid.

But she knows. She made me a drawing for the refrigerator that says, “Mutti is my grandma.”