Sadly, it's been so long that anyone has actually asked me that, it took quite a while for my mind not to be a complete blank. And then? Well, the images that flew in front of my eyes were really, really pathetic. They included:
- Curious George.
- Bath time.
- Grover Monster.
- The fish in our fish pond.
- The Great Muppet Caper.
- Playgrounds with really long slides.
And I had to stop myself, because, dammit, that's what my kid is into. Not me! My kid! And my inner feminist started raring, "You are more than the mother of your child! Think, think hard, woman, about what you -- YOU! -- are into! Certain there is something!"
And I came up with:
- My son (obviously).
- The new Harry Potter book.
- My newly fixed washing machine.
- My brand new Dirt Devil Centrino sweeper which has me totally hypnotized with its cool cyclone-like suction power that is surely able to, pardon the expression, suck a golf ball through a 60 foot garden hose.
- Bed time.
- Chianti.
I was too embarrassed to utter any of those things aloud. Because all of them (save bed time and Chianti which will retain their sheen through the rest of my life while my son lives at home) will lose their lustre along with their newness. So I couldn't actually say one of them without totally feeling like a hoser. Instead, you know, to make myself seem even more fabulous, I asked for clarification. "What do you mean, what am I into?"
"Like, how about what kind of music you are into?"
The choices once again were not all that exciting. The Sesame Street Platinum Collection, anyone? That "Umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh" song that I only heard for the first time AFTER it fell off the #1 spot on the pop charts? All the Phish that my husband, the dirty hippie, subjects me to? Or the songs of my youth that I play to remind myself of when I was all cool and cutting edge? When I knew all the new underground music? When I had the super-fabulous haircut? When I remembered to put on eye make-up in the morning? When I went to plays and independent movies and read things like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" for kicks? You know, YEARS before now.
It seemed most prudent to remain silent.
What can I say? I'm a Mom now. Maybe I'm not so cool anymore. But you know what? Munchkin loves my frumpy self anyway. Perhaps even more so since I can rock out so convincingly to the "Lambaa-baa."
7 comments:
I was told by a friend of mine who is 8 years younger than me that once you turn 30 you're not cool anymore. He has two kids and so I told him once you have kids you're automatically older than me.
I think my mom is the coolest frood ever.
I've always thought so.
Well, maybe not during high school when I knew everything. But still.
I was going to recommend the Radiohead lullabies from Rockabye Baby, but then realized that Radiohead hasn't been cutting edge in, oh, 15 years. So I'm uncool and I'm not even a mom!
Awesome post and so very true! Once you’re a mom your life is all about your kids…and that’s a good thing. :-)
I think you're cool. But then, I've never been cool so that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
I probably wasn't ever cool, which is why it was so easy to make this move over to Mommyhood.
But thanks, guys! You all rock, too. =)
I am 39 and not a mom. And I used to be cool. Or so I thought, anyway.
I went to a Pixies show a couple of years ago and had a good look at the 30-something crowd - the "I swear I used to be cool crowd" - and I concluded that we had all graduated into the much more interesting "mildly successful ex-hipster" crowd.
It's all about perception, though - some of the younger people in the crowd seemed to be checking us out and deciding that we were washed up dorks. ;-)
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