Last weekend, my wife confirmed for our children, that she is, in fact, the cool mom.
How did she do that? You ask?
She brought home nerf guns.
Let’s back up.
About two years ago, we were Christmas shopping, and she wanted to get the boys nerf guns. My disgust clear across my face, I factually pointed out that all the packages state for 8 years old or older, and that ours weren’t even 1/2 that age, so it would not be in our best interest to gift them to twins whose excitement matched with aggression on a holiday morning would simply mean any fragile decorations I’d put at a height they could not reach, would most definitely find peril.
That shopping trip, I won.
Last weekend, when Jack let Steph cut his hair and trim his nails, earning him a trim to the oh-so-wonderful-Walmart, he pridefully came up the basement stairs yelling “Mommy! Look what Mama let me get!”
She followed behind him grinning, ear to ear, excited to introduce our kids to the amazing battlefield of rush that styrofoam pellets aimed at you at a speed to fast for 5-year-olds should be.
Jack rushed to his siblings, making sure they each got their gun and stash of ammunition, and all three kids followed Mama eagerly to learn what to do.
She walked them through it, and I simply sipped my coffee in the kitchen quietly, watching their eyes follow her ever movement, hanging on her every word in amazement.
The only one to get injured that day was me.
The only one to pick up the hundreds of darts shot, was me.
I am the Mom who cleans up the mess.
I am the Mom who is the target.
I am not the cool Mom, when she puts the darts up high above the kitchen cabinets because she’s tired of cleaning them up.
I am also the mom that at 5am the next morning, when Jack was desperate to play with them again, said, “Mama will be so excited to play with you when she wakes up, so let’s wait for her.”
I could have tried to be cool at 5am. I had been up for an hour, and had a cup of cappuccino- cool was technically possible.
But that’s the thing.
There can’t be two cool moms.
So all week, when they wanted to introduce their friends to this amazing new world Mama gave them, I left it for her. I let her look like the coolest Mama there was.
Because she is pretty cool.
At one point I asked her, after I’d cleaned up the darts for what felt like the 100th time, why on earth she thought this was so cool. (Again, I’m not the cool mom.)
Before I could lecture her on how scary it is to teach our children about guns she stopped me.
“If we had a gun in the house, I’d never get these for them.” she said.
She then pulled the ultimate excuse, that’s impossible to fight. “I never got to have this stuff as a kid. I just want to have fun with them.”
Ugh.
This is why she is the cool mom.
We will continue to have conversations with our children about guns, and ensure they know to never touch a real one… but for now… the cool mom is enjoying teaching them about aiming at a target, and how to breath and relax their bodies to really focus in on what’s in front of them. She is filling our house with laughter and play, and giving the kids memories that are happy and filled with joy.
I’m not really sure I’ll ever be the cool Mom.
I’m the worrier.
The keeper of all information.
The one who knows every teacher, aid, nurse, school administrator, doctor, and adult who works with our children on a regular basis.
The one who knows which twin wants veggie sticks in his lunch, and which one wants cheezeits.
I’m the mom who makes sure the medicine gets taken every night and every morning.
I’m the mom who gets up early every morning for the snuggles on the couch, and holds Jack’s hand while reading him a story as he falls asleep at night.
Not a lot of room left to be cool.
But that’s ok.
Because the cool thing in our family is… they have two moms, so we don’t both have to be cool. I mean, we wouldn’t want to spoil them or anything.
To all the non-cool parents out there: I see you. Kudos on letting your partner bring the fun to the party. I’m with you on clean-up duty… because to us, happy kids and a clean house is cool enough, isn’t it? XO