When my granddaughter was little, I used to call her “cutie pie” sometimes. She liked it. But then when she got a little older, like in her early teens, she seemed a little awkward about it. She never actually said anything, just acted kinda funny, so I quit using it.
So, has the meaning of the term of endearment changed, or was she simply becoming a young woman and felt differently about being grampa’s “cutie pie”? She still loves me, and I sometimes call her “punkin” and the like, so all is well. 
I’m just curious as to whether the term has taken on a new mwaning.
Peace,
mangeorge
All kids are different on that kind of thing. I call my niece Sugarbabe. She seems ok with it. She’s almost 13. Kids…whaddya gonna do.
I have referred to the Bus Kid as poopypants since she was a month old. She doesn’t mind a bit.
I might chalk some of your granddaughter’s awkwardness up to oversensitivity to the bombardment kids get about inapropriate touching or comments from oldre people, especially men. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to teach kids about that, or certainly not that she has to worry about that with you - just that it’s such a pervasive attitude in some places. Maybe someone somewhere made a comment around her that a term of endearment like that is wrong in one context and she isn’t ready yet to separate the context of hearing it from a stranger, and hearing it from grampa?
I’d say if she’s her old self around you aotherwise, and it’s just that phrase that starts the awkward happening, you’re on good ground.
I’ll just ask her.
I will call my 4 y.o. boy cutie pie when I want to tease him. He hates it and will insist that he isn’t cute but handsome, at which point I will agree, albeit grudgingly.
BTW, my dad still calls me punkin and I’m 34.
Maybe the term is just to “little kid” sounding and she is going for more of a “young woman” or adult image. I know I came to a point where I absolutely loathed anyone using the “shortened/cutsie” form of my name. Even today only my SO and mom are allowed to use it, everyone else is frostily corrected.
My daughter is “baby girl”. She’s 9 now and eats it up when I call her that. But I’m the only one she likes to hear her call her that.
My son is “little man”. He’s 6. He likes it. But he’d also like it if I called him Superman so I doubt the nick will stick with him as he grows. He just doesn’t seem like a nickname sort of kid.
My father’s name for me was Chickie, but someone overheard it when I was in junior high, and I got a full day of “Heeeere…chickie, chickie, chickie” and various clucking sounds. I asked him not to call me that anymore and his feelings were hurt. By the time I had kids of my own, he’d occasionally let the name slip, and I’d want to beg him to call me that once again. There was so much love in the way he’d say it, and I wish I’d never asked him to stop.
My grandmother always called me poppet and when I got to be 18 she said I was too old for her to call me that any more. Sniff. Grandkids don’t know how good they have it! (or something.)
I called my son Babycakes until he was 6. I picked him up from school, he hopped in the front seat and I said “Hi, babycakes” to which he snottily replied “Mom. I am *not *your babycakes.” We drove in silence, me thinking he’d finally outgrown the name when he said in the same snotty voice “Cake, Mom. I’m your babyCAKE, there’s only one of me.”
Brat.
Personally, early teens was when I was figuring out sex and boys. Some pretty mundane things squicked me out, like grampa patting my butt as I gave him a hug goodbye. Perhaps cutiepie was your grandaughter’s button.
Sounds like a good idea to me.
My Grandpa used to call me Poopsie McGee. I loved it. I miss it now … 
I’m 30 years old and my dad still calls me “Peep.” He’s called me that for as long as I can remember. I never really notice he does it til someone overhears him call me that, and they us a ‘wtf?’ look.
Happy
This caused the corners of my mouth to turn slightly upward, and my teeth to be exposed.
My mom calls me “dear” to this day. I am 25. I am just so used to it that I didn’t even notice until one of my friends commented on how cute it was. It’s not a very specific pet name, but it’s mine damnit!
My mom used to call me “pussycat” - i think it’s because when I was 3 or so I would pretend to be a kitty and do things I was told our passed kitty would do. Sit in her favorite corner, greet Dad at the dor when he came home, curl up on mom’s lap, etc.
Years later watching “the Golden Girls” I heard Sophia call Dorothy ‘pussycat’. It brought back nice memories
My wife calls me Cutie Pie.
My mother still calls me “duck”.
My 40 year old husband is still called “Boo” by his father. It’s short for Baby Boo.
My 7 year old continues to be Poodle Pants.
I dunno, I could see “cutie pie” maybe being a term that teens use among themselves – like, “that Mark, he’s such a cutie pie!” Maybe not in complete 1950s sincerity, but still. If that’s the case, I could see your granddaughter feeling a little awkward hearing herself called that by her grandfather.
My mom used to call me “Niffer” (from my first name, Jennifer), but when I was in high school she couldn’t remember to not say it around my friends so I had to ask her to stop saying it entirely. I know it hurt her a little, but I lost track of how many times I asked her not to say it when my friends were there. I’ve never particularly liked that nickname, but it’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t mind if she could remember to only say it when no one else is around.
My father has called me “Googs” (from “googly goo”) for as long as I can remember. We never had the “not in front of my friends” problem, because he and Mom divorced when I was in high school and he was never around my friends. So now I’m 34 and he still calls me that sometimes.
Unfortunately, except for when I was a baby I never lived less than 200 miles from both sets of grandparents, so I never got nicknames from any of them. That might have been cool.
Hmm, my Dad got “Feffer” out of the same name, for me. He claims that’s what I called myself before I could pronounce it properly. I made him stop using it as soon as I started school, because, you know, people might hear him.
I’ve no recollection of my brother, 10 years older than me, calling me anything other thn my name, but dad always called him “butch”. Maybe he got it from Father Knows Best (which would have made my sister “princess” and me “kitten”, but we weren’t)
My sister, 15 years my senior, called me “kidlet”. I liked it so much, I insisted she call me that right up into adulthood, until she left us in 1981 from a brain tumor