Parker came home from school on Friday, handed me the laptop and asked me to find “What Does the Fox Say?”. I had heard rumors about this piece of music(?) but had managed to keep my head buried in the snow far enough to muffle the ear-bleeding sounds. We found a Kidz Bop version which led to ten more Kidz Bop versions of other songs he knew and I had vaguely heard of.
I remember swinging my knee-socked legs in the back seat of one of the many really long cars we had growing up and rolling my eyes to the back of my head as my mom started the engine with Cool and the Gang singing through the speakers. She would change the station to “my music” before we picked up the rest of the neighborhood carpool so I wouldn’t hyperventilate from embarrassment.
In my pensive, moody, too cool attitude brought on by a plaid uniform and permed bangs, I would wonder how my mom could not know who was playing on my radio station. Seriously? Who could not know the street Jordan from New Kids On the Block grew up on? Where had she been?
On Friday night and Saturday morning we watched endless four-foot tall concerts to songs I didn’t know. My suggestion of Five Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed went ignored. Sunday night I flipped on the Grammys for a half a second and there were people in space suits getting an award. I promise I will google “Who wore a space suit and won a Grammy?” but for right now I’m watching Grammy recaps and counting on one hand who I actually know out of these people on the screen.
So here I am, the mom in the car with the music poised to embarrass my children as soon as they are old enough to be embarrassed because I have lost my clue about what is cool and also? What is cool hurts my ears. I’ve got one year, maybe two, to catch up on these space suit-wearing, mass wedding delivering singers, and there’s too much laundry to do to keep up.
I had big plans to be the cool mom but I think I might have shrunk them in the dryer and I can’t read print that small anymore. But! My jeans that were also in that shrunken load are back in style because now they are “skinny.” Or am I supposed to be wearing a space suit?
Watch out kids, some day you might be as cool as I was.
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Clearly, I’m the cool mom because I actually *LOVE* What Does The Fox Say.
I’m also decidedly uncool, too, because I listen to olden day music like “Bohemian Rhapsody” which is EMBARRASSING because I play it – GASP – when they have friends in the car.
I really need to learn to appreciate quality musicians like Bieber and One Direction. Like, DUH.
Loved this post! (I think I had the exact same shorts…. circa 1988)
WOWZERS! Not sure if I am more jealous of your daybed (I ALWAYS wanted one!) or your fabulous shorts!
In my book, you are ALWAYS a super-cool mom. And with a picture like that for the albums? PROOF-POSITIVE that you are rocking it.
I’m so with you on this on, Jess. I really thought I was going to defy laws of philosophy and physics and stay relevant. I thought I was going to be “that mom” everyone came to for advice and that I would always know which way was up. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
Me too, ladies. Me too. Now, not only do I not know the people singing at the Grammys, I’m horrified by what I see them doing and by what they’re singing – and then I quickly turn the station to watch reruns of Friends. I. Am. Old.
Not sure I’ll ever be the “cool” mom – I’m okay with that. That last picture is awesome. I remember the plastered NKOTB wall.
Now that Jack and Karly are 14 and 16, we’ve come full circle and they like some of the same music I do. I’m almost positive this means I’m cool.
Or…that they aren’t. Ha!
But when you do sing “their” songs, they still get embarrassed and say “Mom. STOP.” You can’t win!