Since I am a mom I often hear - for different reasons - the words "We were all kids".
Sometimes I believe I wasn't kid long enough and it might be that I am not the only one.
From my teenage years I remember observing parents of small children at some fair: they were riding the little apple trains, they were doing silly things and it was obvious that it was THEY having fun, not necessarily their offspring.
They didn't look like they had to save face, nor to care about the opinion of experts (real or do so experts).
Why do I talk about this?I hadn't thought about it for a while now...
It just became very obvious lately, after a birthday of one of my daughter's friends.
We were invited to a bounce party parlors (I like the word payground for those), versus which I have some sort of aversion.
My daughter, being almost five, was confident enough to run around the place climbing, sliding and bouncing by herself.
My son, instead, needed some aid, so I reluctantly gladly decided to climb with him a 15 feet tall slide and bounce inside the plastic jungle, hating that it felt like a military camp for toddlers at times.
Strangely, though, it didn't take long to swift to the more positive feeling of "I want to have a party like this for myself".
That was exhausting but FUN (and addictive!) because it turned out to be one those rare moments where I didn't care about anything else.
Just looking at the big smile on my kids' face was reason enough to forget about the last crumb of dignity.
And well, we all ended the day eating pizza and cake, following the rule of the bouncing party business, oh boy, what a trauma!
Anyway, this time, I should have worn the t-shirt that says
"do I look like I care?".
