Clair McFarland: Kids Are Cooler When No One’s Watching

My kids are cooler when I’m not looking. 

It’s a mind warp, like, “Does the refrigerator light actually go out when I close the door?” or, “If a tree falls in the woods, does it pose a useless hypothetical?”

Sure, my kids are cool. But they’re also my kids. I don’t secretly wish I could sit at their lunch table because I’m busy mashing a broom under it and wondering just how big are their feet anyway?

Now, the only way for a fussy little mama to hack the kids’ coolness trove is to find a way to observe them without them noticing. 

Yeah, it’s not a perfect replica of my starting hypothesis, but it’s a true enough theory that my kids are cooler when they think I’m not looking. 

We took them to the trampoline park in Casper on Sunday. 

That’s tougher than it sounds. We weathered their first-world appetites, pointless disagreements and random outrage on the drive to Casper.  

I moralized in Rudyard Kipling verses. The Husband turned up the radio. 

Those kids were not cool. 

We checked them in at the trampoline park and The Husband said the most romantic words I’ve ever heard: “Should we walk next door and get a coffee?”

I blushed. A coffee? A moment’s peace? A chic café with no pre-teen first-worlders in sight?

“Absolutely,” I said. 

The success of coffee shops isn’t due to how addictive and delicious coffee and sugar both are, but to the quaint escape they offer. 

If a kid says, “Hey, where are you off to?” and I say, “I’d like a 20 minute break from you,” everything gets awkward. There are scowls. The family law attorneys show up. 

But if I answer, rather, “Oh, I gotta grab a coffee,” everyone’s OK with that. 

This is fine, the boys reassure themselves: Mom’s only leaving us to feed her socially-acceptable and overpriced addiction. Carry on. 

The Husband and I returned to the trampoline park. Toddler moms had reserved all the tables by parking sippy cups on them. 

So we crept to the balcony, set our coffees on the ledge and watched the jumpers from afar. 

That’s when I saw them — the four coolest kids at the trampoline park. 

The big one — the Firstborn — cleared a bulkhead in one leap, side-jumped off a wall and somersaulted down the runway. He bounced to his feet and winked at his younger brother, the Middleborn. 

Middleborn shot into the air and did a full split, then spun back down. He long-jumped to a bench where, with one swift movement, he grabbed his stainless steel mug and took a swig of water. 

Then the twins — broad-shouldered already at the age of nearly-11 — raced across the trampoline runway and flipped simultaneously into the foam pit. 

An extra dimple appeared in the little twin’s cheek. The big twin’s eyes shone just one shade bluer. 

“What the crap,” I said. 

“Huh?” asked The Husband. 

“Those are OUR kids.”

The Husband nodded like the last human at the mutant lab. “Yes … ?”

“They’re, they’re, COOL,” I spluttered. 

“Well, yeah,” he agreed. 

The park’s sweaty atmosphere caught in my throat. “Woah.” 

Just then, Middleborn spotted me. He crashed into Firstborn, fell to the ground and glowered. He looked up at me and mouthed the words, “He tripped me.”

I looked at The Husband, who was guzzling his chocolate mocha like a sanity elixir. 

“Let’s find another hiding spot,” I said. 

He shot me a weird look. 

“What?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “Oh nothing, I was just wondering about refrigerator lights for some reason.” 

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.