Neighborhood Cool Mom

I always foolishly assumed I would grow up, and I planned that when I did, I would be the neighborhood cool mom.  Though I failed to grow up, I still make every effort to be the best Mama ever.
I try to have an immediate solution for any problem.  Lefty: "Have you seen my water bottle?"  Me: "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"  Lefty: "Uh..."
Pixie: "The Precious smacked my left ear."  Me: "I'll smack the right one and they'll be even."  Pixie, "Never mind, I'm good."
It's difficult to gauge my cool mom status from my children's responses, because, as they are teenagers, it isn't always easy to read their ultra-cool random hormonal standoffish-hood.
When I was a teenager back in the late nineteen hundreds, my parents were incessantly griping that my music was too loud.  I couldn't wait to grow up and move out, so I could do whatever I wanted.  Someday I would hatch my own begottens and let them play their music too loud.
Now I do have teenagers of my own, who are incessantly griping that my music is too loud.  I still can't wait to move out so I can do whatever I want.  (No, the children moving out won't be good enough.  Hunneypunkin will still be here, incessantly griping that my music is too loud.  Unless he goes deaf in his other ear too.)
Balancing parental coolness with child safety grows increasingly challenging as the begottens' talents grow increasingly diverse.  "Pixie, if you can see Great Grandma's house, you're too high up the tree.  Easy with the power tools, Angel Doll.  The Precious, be careful parkouring, and wash your shoeprints off the ceiling.  Also Daddy says to fill in that nine-foot deep four-foot diameter hole you dug in the backyard before you really do trap a coyote or a small cougar in there.  Or a neighbor.  Lefty, take that live bat back outside.  No, don't bring any dead ones in either."
I encourage my begottens toward activities that interest them, and I try to get involved with them. I learned oil painting with Pixie last month and knitting this week with Angel Doll.  For The Precious, it's movies, as well as everything and everyone involved in their making.  I now know a lot of fascinating facts about Tom Cruise, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner.  I have yet to venture into Halo 4 with Lefty.