Cool It!

Are being a mom (or a dad) and being cool mutually exclusive?  There are a lot of uncool things about being a parent says, well, everyone.  There are mom jeans.  There is mom dancing.  There is making your child sit in a car safety seat until they are 14 years old.  There is Will Smith singing “Parents Just Don’t Understand.”  But when I found myself in Orlando last week for our family vacation, initially I felt a little resistant to join in on the wonder and magic.  I was too cool to be excited about Disney and Universal. Afterall, both establishments have teams of people figuring out ways for families like mine to feel good about spending outrageous amounts of money in their respective resorts.  The night before we were planning to go to Univeral, we were sitting in our hotel’s hot tub overhearing a loud twenty-something girl speak emphatically after a couple of drinks about how she was a Ravenclaw (This is one of the four houses at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter series of fictional books) because she was SO unique. She got out of the hot tub, dried off and put on her wizard robe and I judgingly whispered, “Nerd alert!” to my husband.  The next morning, my husband and I both made cynical reference to Holden Caufield and a snarky Fight Club quote when faced with the conceirge at our Hotel recommending we purchace the $45 wand for some extra special-ness at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  Really, we’re already spending a small fortune to get into the park, then we’re going to tack on $45 for a wand?  Right.

Well, as it turns out the wand was too awesome to pass up.  We watched some kids using their wands to make a frog magically squirt water into a fountain and knew we had to have one.  So we ate a little crow about how we’re too cool and found our way into Ollivander’s Shop for our own wand, er, a wand for our kid.

Wizarding Wand

Then, we followed the map enclosed in our wand box to perform magic tricks in Diagon Alley all afternoon.  We are definitely not too cool for Hogwarts School.

Searching for a Timeshare in Diagon Alley

Do you embrace the magic and wonder right away or are you too cool for witchcraft and wizardry school?

Putting Yourself First

As I was flying on a plane with my kids this Mother’s Day and reading the safety card in the seat pocket in front of me, I was reminded: You have to put yourself first so you can be the best mom you can be for your kids.  Have you heard this saying in the mom circles and parenting magazines?  Then, the corollary with a crashing plane and the masks that fall from the ceiling is inevitably unfurled with this theory.

“Please secure your own mask before helping others around you.”  This musing is supposed to lead me to believe that I should put myself first.  I am having trouble extrapolating this metaphor to my own life.  I’m fairly certain it’s a trick.  I read into it, “Put your mask on first because you have to stay alive so you can save those around you.”  Even when pressure in the cabin is lost, we moms are expected to go to work.  Am I to understand that putting myself first is merely not passing out while I care for those close to me?

This mom was so stressed, she got busted smoking on the plane.  I don’t think a metaphor this dramatic is really going to fly with my family.  How about we just call some things a treat and keep our crashing family plane out of it? On the other hand, if my family does buy the importance of me getting my mask on first, my sharp talons that I call toe nails could really use a pedicure to make sure our family plane stays in the air! Happy Mother’s Day, now go make your mom happy!