Cool Moms

I’ve been writing a lot lately about my children, and from reading my own blog, I sound like a stellar parent. I get comments to this effect. Why, just yesterday Jen commented that I sound like such a “cool mom.” This makes me feel good about myself, but let’s be honest: motherhood is a tough job, and the minute I start to feel smug about the job I’m doing, my children put me back in my place. Was it last week or two weeks ago that we were sick? I can’t remember, but somewhere in the middle of the cooped up chaos, my children built a pretend condo. (Couch-cushion forts right next door to each other, or, as they say, “each others.”) Having gotten somewhere between three and four hours of sleep the night before, I was just grateful nobody was asking anything of me. Never mind that I’d snapped at both of them over breakfast. (“No, you cannot have two eggs over-easy today. You can have a bowl of cereal.”) Anyway, they were happily pretending in their condo, and I heard this snippet of conversation:

Twin A: Let’s pretend our Mom dies.
Twin B: Yeah! Let’s pretend she’s living in heaven instead of this house!
Twin A: And we never have to clean up our forts because our Mom is dead!
Twin B: Yeah. And we never have to make our beds or get dressed either!

The conversation went on, but you get the idea. In their five-year old minds, having me gone would fix so many of their problems. Maybe you had to actually hear the conversation, but they sounded so cheerful about the prospect of me being out of the picture. Not exactly “cool mom” status, ay?