The greatest thing happened on Mother’s Day. No, Henry didn’t propose. But we were on our way to the cemetery and Chooch piped up from the backseat, “Put on ‘Strawberry Swisher Part 3’.”
THAT IS A DANCE GAVIN DANCE SONG IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW. And my kid was requesting it of his own volition. My heart swelled past the size of his mysterious bee sting. So of course I tweeted about it and said it was the best mother’s day present ever, and Dance Gavin Dance retweeted me! Like any other 16-year-old, I freaked out because OMG A BAND ACKNOWLEDGED ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Seriously, that’s the best thing ever about twitter and Instagram. I have a collection of screenshots for every time this happens because it excites me, OK? I’m just some dumb mom from Pittsburgh but then Craig Owens likes a picture I posted of him on Instagram and I feel special for 5 seconds. Let me have my moment.
Tiniest bit of donut icing on his lip. I have eight year’s worth of photos of Chooch’s dirty face. No sense in starting to wash it now.
But even better than that was that other people were retweeting it because DGD did and I wound up having a nice exchange with this teenaged girl who told me that I need to know I win the Mom of the Year award for the rest of eternity and that she wishes her mom was cool like me and she hopes she will be that kind of mom to her own kids someday and I was like, “BABE, DON’T LOSE YOUR LOVE OF MUSIC AND YOU’LL BE FINE.” Because really, I can’t imagine how stale my life would be without that.
I don’t really consider myself a “cool” mom because this is just me being myself.
I’m just an awkward girl determined to find balance between being a mom and staying true to who I am, and that meant not putting music in the background, but keeping it a prominent fixture in my life where Chooch can experience and love it too. He asked me to put Spotify on his phone and now he finds himself falling into those magical wormholes and it makes me so excited for him because we all have those songs that we vividly remember discovering for the first time. Anytime I hear songs that I loved when I was his age, it’s like I’m suddenly sitting in my mom’s old Pontiac Grand Am with the McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce stain on the backseat. I wonder if it will be like that for Chooch, too.
God knows our car has enough stains in it.
Music is even more fun when you get to share it with someone. And it’s even better when that someone is your kid. But you can swap that out with so many different things: sports, movies, art. I think it’s so important to have that one thing to bond over where your kid is seeing you not as a parent, but as a PERSON WITH INTERESTS.
We don’t always have to be in parent-mode. See? Being a parent is not always lame, you guys! Except for when it’s VIP day at school. Which it was today. I have a feeling there will be several bullet points devoted to that later on.
OK, you’re dismissed. Now go listen to music with someone you love today!
4 Responses to “I’m Stealing This Shirt: Music & Mom’ing”
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Hailey doesn’t really listen to the same music as I do, but she does listen to the music she really connects with, and that’s awesome for me to see. While I’m not a big dubstep fan, (it all sounds the same to me,) the fact that she feels comfortable enough to listen to what she likes without feeling pressured to listen to whatever we’re listening to, gives me hope that I’m doing something right. As much as I wish she would sit down and tear up over The Used or Sleeping With Sirens with me, at least she’s comfortable to do her own thing.
But Turbo? He likes The Used. I just know it.
I found myself smiling while reading this. I love that you are finding your niche with being a mom, and being an awesome mom at that! One the reasons why I decided not to have kids is because of the fear of being able to raise them. Between the messed up family background and depression genetics I didn’t think the kid would have a chance at happiness. You give me hope that great mom’s can come out of that mess and kids be raised to be happy. Thank you for showing that on your blog. Even the bad days because I feel that parents hide how bad it can get and then other parents feel like they are failing when they do have bad days.
Laura, this made me cry a little at work! I totally get where you’re coming from. That is one of the main reasons I had vowed not to have kids because I was so afraid of being incapable of loving a child, just like my mom. I think it’s so important to have something, at least one thing, that you can bond over with a kid. I mean, even though my mom and I don’t talk anymore, I at least have fond memories of haunted house hopping with her. She is 100% the reason why I love October so much.
Whether you change your stance on having kids or not, I totally get it. It’s a scary thing to think about!
A thousand times yes to this post.
“He asked me to put Spotify on his phone and now he finds himself falling into those magical wormholes and it makes me so excited for him because we all have those songs that we vividly remember discovering for the first time.”
I love that he even likes music at all, because some kids don’t. I love that you encourage his interest by putting Spotify on his phone and taking him to shows. It’s so important to have passion.
And it’s so important for bands to like your photos–I would die and puke and take screenshots if a band ever liked my shit.