mummy cool

The other evening I got the girls into the bath, slipped away and reappeared in bright red lipstick. They were entranced.
I then launched into a shockingly awful rendition of Shirley Bassey's 'Big Spender', complete with the old hairbrush-as-a-mike prop and suggestive hip waggles.
Can you see their eyes, wide with admiration, magic, adoration, fascination?

In De Waal Park some months ago a horrible witch of a lady with a troupe of mismatched dogs and an extremely bad attitude started shouting at Friday and her buddy for chasing the pigeons. Now I don't condone bird-abuse, but no one (else) shouts at my kids without a really good reason so I gave her a piece of my mind.
The girls stared at me with awe and love.

I think they like me, they really really like me. They think I'm cool. In fact, they think I'm so cool that one of the most damning things I can say to them at the moment is, 'That's not cool' and they immediately start to look sheepish.

And it's breaking my heart.

'Cos I know that one day, all too soon, I'm going to be the uncoolest person on the planet to them. That sticking up for them in public or singing out loud or wearing too bright lipstick or probably even just breathing is going to relegate me into eyeball rolling deep sighing territory.
One day one of them is going to turn to me and say 'Mum, that's just not cool'.

I can only hope by then I'm too cool to care.