On a recent weekend, we took a short trip to experience a change of scenery and enjoy a break from our normal routine. Unfortunately, our “normal routine” followed us.
Our expectations were that we would go out to have a good time, so we should seek out experiences we don’t get at home: shop at unique stores, eat out at restaurants we don’t have at home—you know, change things up a bit. As we searched for a “different type” of restaurant, we found ourselves a little stuck between two worlds, the first being the one my husband Ron and I think we live in, the one that remains lodged at the core of who we are as people. The other world is the one dictated by our situation as parents and, most importantly, by the whim of our kids.
So as I pointed at classy-looking gourmet cafes, my head would point out the minimalist décor, hip-looking couples, and lack of children flipping the salt and pepper shakers upside down; and then my heart would sink. Eventually, we resolved that we’d eat at a loud, bustling pizza place.
We pushed two tables together and seated everyone, ignoring the homeless guy who was talking to himself and staring at us from the booth across the way.
It’s moments like these when my husband and I like to take stock of our life situation. We stare at our kids across from us and think about how beautiful they are, how funny they are, and how lucky we are. At the same time, it’s hard to not acknowledge that we are also sitting in the middle of a noisy pizza place and trying to keep them from buzzing right out of their chairs.
Because that’s what kids do. They buzz. They buzz like an iPhone set to vibrate, and if you let them go, they’ll buzz until they fall off their chair and onto the floor—and they’ll keep buzzing. That’s exactly what Sebastian, my 4-year-old, did during pizza.
Before he started buzzing, though, Ron and I looked at our three boys chatting among each other, punctuated by a slap at one another, Three Stooges style, and then we’d look at each other. After 13 years of marriage, we can read each other’s minds. We both were wondering what happened to our cool—the people we still are, only hidden down deep beneath layers of embarrassing gaffes, dirty soccer socks, and countless “kids say the darnest things” moments.
In a way, we all build up this cool factor that can only be summed up during your 20s. All those amazing life moments—taking your team to the finals, making the cheer squad, graduating early, experiencing that once-in-a-lifetime internship, or whatever it is—those moments seem to add up, producing your 20-something cool factor. Then you have kids.
And they buzz, so you can only go places where other formerly cool couples go to take their buzzing kids, or else be ridiculed by the new crop of yet-to-lose-their-cool 20-somethings.
It’s OK. At least the pizza was going to be good at this place, we thought. And it was. So much so, that Sebastian took one bite and began buzzing harder than we’ve ever seen. In fact, he buzzed off his chair, spun circles up the aisle, and landed onto a bench four booths away. Then he continued to buzz, literally shaking and falling onto the floor where he continued to flail his arms and legs as if he were having a seizure.
With each flail, I could see our cool quotient diminishing. Suddenly the value of all those things in our lives that once contributed to our coolness began to fall as my son’s actions started people wondering if they should throw us out or call the medics.
The four of us just exchanged confused glances. The homeless guy stopped talking to himself and stared at my son incredulously. You know you are making a scene when a guy with wild hair takes a break from his intense conversation with himself to look at you like you’re crazy.
I dropped my pizza and knocked over my chair as I jumped up to grab Sebastian. “What are you doing?” I asked, thinking he was just throwing a fit because I was pretty sure the dramatic seizure wasn’t health related.
And do you know what he said? “There is a party in my tummy. That pizza is sooo good, the party in my tummy is too big. It’s going wild with pizza. Thank you, Mommy.”
Because he was still vibrating, I held him close to me and ducked my head in my shoulder, simultaneously trying not to laugh or cry. And I realized that the sum of my cool quotient doesn’t come from the factors that some hipsters in a café deem relevant, nor how some judgmental “perfect” parents judge my family.
In fact, my cool quotient is derived from the sum of the parts of our lives that those three boys remember as some of the best times in their lives. Sometimes that means being a little understanding when those moments are so exciting they cause them to buzz over with joy. Even if that joy comes from a bite of party-inducing pizza.
It’s not surprising that it took Arts Editor Shelly Cone so long to figure her cool quotient; she was always slow with her math. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 17-24, 2012.