I am the Yaya

When my first grand was born I decided that I did not want to be "Grandma". I wanted something that would be easy to say and easy to remember and would describe me in a less generic way, therefor I am the Yaya instead of the grandma.
I tease my boys by telling them that the reason I chose Yaya is because it would be one of the first things that their sons would be able to say when they learn to speak. The truth is that I have read the book The Divine Yaya Sisterhood and felt an affinity towards the term Yaya. The irony is that I found out later that Yaya is a Greek term for Grandmother. It seems that life lead me to be the me that I need to be for my grands and that me is Yaya.
I have always felt that I would hold a special place in my grands life, much like my grandmothers held in my life. I have always wanted to be available to help my children through some of the harder times of raising their children by providing insight from my experiences raising them. It is not that over-bearing sort of pushy parenting as a grand-parent that I want to give them. I want to be the "I am here if you need me" parent/Yaya. I will do my best not to tell them how to raise their children because if I did my job right the first time, then I should not have to try to do it again with my grands.