Missed the last bus to Coolsville....

Two weeks into the school holidays and I think that the husband and I have survived reasonable well considering. Yes, considering that our house is full to capacity with other people’s noisy children. How did this happen? I thought for sure that the guy who had a garden full of bright and colourful play equipment would have the full quota of street kids, including my own two. I go out of my way to make our house boring and dull. For the love of God why are they congregating here?
Apparently the joy and excitement at the expensive bright lights and colourful plastic that have been invested in by one of our neighbours has worn out. They are bored of all that and would prefer to come round our gaff, leave mucky footprints and sticky handprints everywhere and eat all our food.
Since I am off on what people laughingly refer to as maternity leave and am supposed to take it somewhat easy. I have looked the dictionary. Under ‘easy’ it does not explain that one must physically break up fights between seven year olds about which superhero group is the best – those nice Marvel lads or the dudes from X-men – or use the Heimlich manoeuvre on a five-year-old who is choking on half a worm dropped in his mouth by a well meaning pal.
I’d like to think that my kids are well mannered and are good ambassadors for the O’Neill family when in other people’s company. I’d like to think they’d refrain from insulting people, using bad language and physical violence when they are away from my watchful eye. Maybe it’s wishful thinking. But this week I have discovered that all 7-year-olds are brutally and painfully honest, to the point of inducing real tears in other people’s parents.
In the past week I have heard one of my boy’s friends make a slur on my weight. As in why is your ma fat? I felt like bursting in to the room, brandishing the vacuum cleaner in a menacing way and shouting “I’m pregnant, you scoundrel! I didn’t in fact eat all the pies. You see how the extra weight is confined to around my tummy area only? Do you realise the sacrifice and suffering I have endured to not eat chocolate cake for every meal? This time next week I’ll be back in my skinny jeans, you mark my words.” (At this point waving the vacuum pole in the air for dramatic effect) “Do you hear me boy? SKINNY JEANS!!”
I have also been called, and I quote, ‘stupid and boring’. This was because I was unfamiliar with some of the lyrics from High School Musical. The little girl in question was horrified that I, and here is where I hang my head in total and utter shame, have never watched a programme called Glee. Apparently there are cooler and hipper mums around who know all the words to these songs and quite happily sing and dance their way around their kitchens with their offspring. Am I a bad mother?
I may be wrong here, but the last time I looked singing rubbish eighties soft rock numbers into hairbrushes did not a cool person make. Perhaps they have changed the definition of coolness. I honestly thought that by refraining from wearing elasticated waisted ‘Mom jeans’ and liking Susan Boyle was all the effort needed to make me ‘cool’. Perhaps I should up my game. Perhaps I have been left lonely on the roadside as all the other mas speed past onboard the last bus to Coolsville, waving Enrique Inglasias posters out the windows and wearing Lady Gaga-style outfits. Oh, my coolness where art thou? When did you desert me?
I pondered this apparent lack of coolness for days. Hell I even looked up the lyrics to ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ on the net. Then I wised up.
I suppose everyone’s perception of coolness is worlds apart. As long as my boys at least think I’m borderline cool then that’s fine with me.
And I suppose it’s sweet that for a short time kids think that their mum and dad are the coolest people on the planet, casting a dark, uncool cloud over other parents. The idolising doesn’t last long, however. There comes a time when the coolness is replaced with total and utter parental embarrassment, a stage which I have been preparing for for a long time, an area where I am most skilled. Embarrassing my children is the sole reason I became a parent (alright, one of them anyway).
In the meantime I shall hunt out my Kiss records and Def Leppard t-shirts. I shall hook up the karaoke machine to the front porch and belt out a few tunes full throttle. These kids think their mas are cool? They aint seen nothing yet.