Because my baby's all growns up!

One of my favorite scenes from Swingers is the diner scene. After a night of swing dancing, Mikey (Jon Favreau) and Vince Vaughan (Trent) are celebrating Mikey finally meeting a girl. Trent jumps on the table and does this really bad pelvic dance (that I must admit I recall doing in a drunkin stupor sometime during the early 90's) and starts to yell that his "baby's all growns up, and he's growns up and he's growns up." Classic scene in my book.

Well, this phrase has been popping into my head a lot lately as I go to school and see my baby, my first born, walking down the 5th grade hall. I'm one of those moms who gets all vaklempt like "Coffee Talk"... "give me a moment, talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic...The Holy Roman Empire. It wasn’t holy, it wasn’t Roman, and it wasn’t an empire. Discuss!”

Last night was the big 5th grade performance. They march in... wow, when did all the boys get so tall? And when did some of the girls start wearing bras?! Thank God for friends. I was fortunate to find a friend to sit next to when I first arrived. Her daughter definitely didn't want to be there. It was a game of hide and seek the whole performance, hiding from the camera her mom had and peering out every once in awhile to see if mom was still seeking a picture of her. It had us in stitches and a possibly teary eyed moment was luckily averted. But how many times can I duck the tears? How many times can I duck that tug at my heart as my baby grows up.

And as if it wasn't bad enough to know that puberty is lurking around the corner, ready to jump out at any moment, I came to another realization last night. I'm becoming really "uncool" in my son's eyes. I'm not saying I'm this super cool chick or anything, but my husband and I have always kind of taken a slight pride in being fairly "cool" parents. We're into the video games. We've trained them on the classics like Aerosmith and Beastie Boys. We know who Hannah Montana's two best friends are and I know my Star Wars. But those days are quickly coming to an end. As I sat there in the front row last night, I saw my son looking around. Silly me, I thought he was looking for me, so I waved and called his name. Oh, the daggers of death that shot from those eyes. He mouthed the words "stop." Well, that was all the ammo I needed. I called a few more times just to embarrass him, I couldn't resist. Looking back, okay maybe that's why I'm not the cool mom anymore.

Probably the hardest evidence of my son's impending maturity was when Toy Story came out the other weekend. I asked him if he wanted to bring a friend along to see the movie. My daughter was still trying to pick one of her 5 best friends to invite. He looked at me and said, "I'm not inviting anyone, I have a rep to protect." A rep? In 5th grade? No Toy Story? No group of kids sitting in the theatre watching Disney magic happen... "run like the wind Bullseye." My heart sank. Sigh.

So there it is. My baby's growns up and I've grown uncool. But little does he know that mom doesn't really care about being uncool. I'm gonna cry when he does the 5th grade walk even if he turns 3 shades of red. I'm gonna still call out his name and wave at the Awards Ceremony at the end of the year. And I'm gonna still give him a big sloppy kiss on the cheek and hug in public anytime I can. If I'm going to do something, I'm gonna do it the best I can, so here's to the uncoolest mom ever. Because he may be growing up, but he will always be my baby.