When does ‘Mommy’ become uncool?

I swear, I wasn’t supposed to be writing this blog post for at LEAST another three years. I figured the ‘cool’ factor wouldn’t be an issue with me and my kids until at least second grade … and then my kid started going to elementary school.

And lets be clear people, the Mouse is FOUR … he’s in pre-k, so if I get a little worked up or dramatic in this blog post I apologize in advance. And also, as a disclaimer, I am well aware that I am the most uncool person that has ever walked this Earth. The point is my kid had absolutely no idea that that’s the case – until last week.

So here’s the background – when the Mouse was a baby and learned how to say, ‘Mommy’ his great-grandmother would make a huge deal out of how when I picked him up at the end of the day he would yell my name. Because of all that praise and attention for doing it, whenever I picked him up {whether it be from her house, or later on daycare} after work, the first thing I would hear is, ‘MOOOOOOMMMMMMY!’and he would run into my legs and give me a huge hug.

It was an amazing beginning of the end of my day.

He did it every day, every time I picked him up I would hear, ‘MOMMY!’ in an excited high pitched scream. This continued all way up until last week … when my heart pretty much broke into a million pieces. On Tuesday afternoon, I walked into the extended day room at the Mouse’s school, got his attention, and heard that familiar happy scream for me. Immediately after, I heard from a little girl who was standing next to him, ‘Why are you always screaming for your Mommy when she picks you up, you sound like my baby brother’.

As soon as she said it, I knew in my heart what would happen. The Mouse didn’t say anything about it, and neither did I, but the next afternoon? There was no excited scream ‘hello’ to his mommy. I got a nice, mild-mannered hug with a smile and ‘hi mommy’ … but it wasn’t the same. And it hasn’t been the same for the past week now.

I can only hope that the Mouse will forget about the comment in the next week or so, and that we can go back to crazy-excited-Mouse again for his afternoon pick-ups from mommy. I know I can’t keep him tiny forever, I know that at some point I won’t be his sun and moon anymore. I know that one day, he won’t want me to sing to him before bedtime, he won’t want to play Star Wars in the back yard, and he won’t want to crawl in bed with me early on Saturday mornings.

But I would have at least liked to have made it through kindergarten.