This is not my first time here – This age of embarrassment.
With her as my fourth daughter to reach 5th grade, I was already prepared for how getting my 11-year-old, Paige, to this point would feel.
I knew to expect the hissing voice, telling me to PLEASE STOP when I sing in public, or the way one joke from me would have her slinking way down in her chair.
I could feel it coming a couple of months ago as we pulled into the bus circle of her school.
It’s weird how you can sense it coming.
The Mortification.
Like the arrival of the crisp days of Fall, you can feel it in the air.
I had the radio on the same station, at the same volume that I always do,
but for some reason she had chosen this as her moment. It was Go Time.
This is when embarrassment would begin.
With half-dollar eyes she whipped her head at me as we came around the bus circle bend,
and in a voice I can only describe as “threatening,” she turned the radio way down and said,
“Do NOT turn it back up until you’re far away. No one can hear this.”
I think I saw some ravens circle in my periphery, but I didn’t take my eyes off her.
When you’ve had three pre-teen daughters already, it’s scary to know it’s all starting again.
I tried to keep a straight face.
It’s important to not let them sense your fear.
It had just been a pop song she usually sang along with.
It’s not like it was gangster rap, but there’s no rhyme or reason for it. I know this.
This is a thing you learn as a seasoned veteran.
So, I obliged her. Scared to rile the beast, I turned it down.
I know how kids this age can get.
I drove off on my eggshells and did as I was told.
Not wanting to mortify her with music and bring on any paranormal activity as a result,
I’ve watched my radio volume at school drop off ever since;
And things have gone rather swimmingly.
We’ve worked out a rhythm where I act like I don’t know her at all in public, and she lets me live.
She’s seemed mostly #blessed.
I’m just trying to make it through this one last daughter, you guys.
There is a light at the end of my middle school parenting tunnel.
I can see it up ahead.
I’m not trying to bring on any more drama. I’ve had more than my share.
I think when my mother told me, “I pray one day you have a daughter just like you”
she turbo charged that prayer.
So I’ve been on my best behavior.
I promise. I really have.
Which is why I would like to enter into the record that -what happened the other day-
I really can’t be charged for it.
I was really tired that morning.
I hadn’t had my coffee yet.
I wasn’t planning to get out of the car at the school, so, “Who needs a bra?”
(I remember the fateful moment I said that in my head)
The shirt I chose read “Lattes and Lipstick” almost like a joke.
Anyone who’s ever seen me in the morning knows a slather of Burt’s Bees is as good as you are going to get, and there’s no way I’m up whistling with the woodland creatures like some morning person while I froth up some foam.
Paige rode along beside me, chattering the whole way to school.
My mind hadn’t yet turned on, which is why I wasn’t registering the extra chill that I was feeling as we neared the school.
I was just rounding the corner into the bus circle when I looked down and saw the source of the extra breeze:
“Lattes and Lipstick” had failed me and its loosey-goosey neckline had freed my entire right breast completely from my shirt.
Talk about a turn signal other cars can take notice of!
How is that for a kid’s embarrassment?
She doesn’t like my music at a nine?
Let’s see how she does with getting dropped off right in the front of the school by a mom who has shed half of her shirt.
Thankfully, Paige was looking out the far window as she talked, and she didn’t notice me panicking to adjust. She didn’t even see.
I can’t be completely sure about the office staff that was standing there.
I’m trying not to think too deeply about their lack of eye contact since then.
She hadn’t even noticed that on my arm’s way to turn down the music that morning, it made a short, but highly important detour to do a tuck, saving me from a horror she would never have lived down.
I thought having to turn down the radio was bad?!
I’m sure she would have requested a fellow onlooker call CPS for her.
But, I live to embarass another day.
My legacy goes on.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
