Baby it's cool outside....

So tonight was Meet the Teacher night at my son's high school.  You know the event.  First of the year...parents go to the school and get a chance to walk through their child's timetable, go class to class, walk the halls of a teenager for a night.  Meet face to face with the teachers who spend more time with my son than I do during the day, have a glimpse of the hallways where he hangs with his friends, check out where his locker is located, inhale the odour that is high school.  Old textbooks, gymnasium floors, hallway posters (Don't forget....September 23rd is the Terry Fox Run...BE there!), walls of fading grad class photos from the early eighties and onward, the main office with cheery fake flowers and motivational phrases (Just because you've lost doesn't mean you quit.....it means you try again).
High school in 2010 smells and looks the same as it did in 1984, although in the eighties the aroma was more about Love's Baby Soft for girls than Axe Body Spray for guys, and from where I stand the same rules apply.  Cool is cool no matter which generation defines it. 
I still have moments where I think I might be cool.  My friends think I'm cool but then....I happen to think I have cool friends so it would stand to reason they think the same of me.  I know my sixteen year old doesn't think I'm so cool, but then I'm pretty sure that's how it should be, because for my son to think I'm cool would probably mean I'm buying him alcohol and letting him stay out as late as he wants wherever he wants. 
But I do have moments where for a spit-second I notice him looking at me and realizing that I just might have been sixteen once.  But then his I-phone will blink a text at him and the moment passes....but I know I had that moment.  I'm sure of it.
Sitting in the quiet of the multi-purpose room tonight --I had snuck in before the principal, staff and other parents arrived for the official greeting--I found a peaceful and solitary spot to sit and nurse my five month old daughter and felt anything but cool.  She had been fussing in my arms as I stood in the hallway  chatting with my son's soccer coach and I had excused myself to find a quiet corner. 
I had just sat her up from my left side, her chubby cheeks pink and glowing, her eyes glassy and warmed, when the room started to fill and I quickly tucked everything back where it should be. 
One mother, her son graduating this year, rushed over from her seat on the other side of the room to sit beside me and breathe in my baby's face and smell. 
"I'm just drawn to her," she gushes to me. "She's just so beautiful."
Yes..she is...but then all babies are especially, I think, to anyone who has carried one, birthed one, raised one, and is now dwarfed by one.  My oldest baby is 6'2, my youngest can fit in the crook of my arm, my middle boy still holding my hand to cross the street.  My oldest gave me a hug tonight before heading up the stairs to bed, his colourful descriptions of his new Halo videogame scrambling around my brain, and my head fit perfectly under his chin.  His arms went around and over my shoulders and I was struck, as I often am these days, that this young man is my child. 
It used to make me sad, melancholy, achy for that little boy he used to be.  But I find myself shifting gears as he begins Grade 11, wishing him nothing but safety and joy, happy for him for the good times that lay ahead these last two years of high school. 
"I have no idea what I want to do," he worries out loud to me just yesterday. "All I know is I don't want to just wait around for something exciting to happen to me."
"Good for you," I hear myself answering because...really...I'm glad he feels that way.  I'm relieved he's not perfectly clear on what he wants to 'be'.  The world is a huge place, a wondrous place, and I wish for him, for all three of my children, nothing more than happiness and peace wherever and whatever he decides to do.  It's the best advice I can give him really.....find something you love to do and do it well.....and though it may sound like a cheesy Hallmark card guess what? 

I'm cool with that........
This week marks my little lad's first days of Preschool and I hear him talking to his big brother.
"I have a big-boy backpack like you Doh"," he says from his booster seat in the car.  'Doh' is the name my four year old uses for his big brother. He uses his real name too but 'Doh' is the name he came up with when he was just learning to talk so 'Doh' has stuck. 
'You DO?" my big lad gushes to his little brother. "Just like mine?"
"Yup," my wee lad nods.  "Just like you."
My big son's response is all I could hope for.
"Cool," he says.
Sure is............until next time....