I'm the embarrassing mom.  Most of my kids don't know this yet, but I think they're all at least starting to get a clue.  It's not a new development.  I've always been the embarrassing mom; they just haven't been old enough to care.  

But now,  when I stop to spit shine my 8-year-old as she gets out of the car, or call after my teenager, "Don't forget to turn in your absentee note!" I get either the irritated, "Ma-MA!" complete with eyeroll, or an "I'm gonna try to play it off like, even though my mom is a COMPLETE dork, I am still cool" sigh and a deceptively cheerful, yet obviously mocking, "I wo-on't :)" 

The thing is, she will.  That kid will forget to turn in that note every single time.  So, every single time, I will remind her.  And then she'll forget again.  and then I'll take it in to the office myself.  

Embarrassing!

But it's not just the spit shining and public parenting that makes me embarrassing.  I just am.  I'm up at the front with my camera at every school event.  I take way too many pictures.  I talk to their friends.  I stand up for my kids (even when they don't want me to).  I tell people all of the cute, witty, perceptive things they say (yeah, even the teenager).   I play the radio loud, and sing along, even when their friends are int he car.   I bring them sweaters and brush lint off their clothes and remind them to pull up their socks.  I still ask them if they'll need to take their blankies with them to sleepovers, or if they've remembered to brush their teeth.  In my defense, it really was just about a second ago that they were infants.  Now they're going off to high school parties and middle school dances, taking field trips, reading novels, growing and traveling in ever wider circles around me.  It's dizzying.  How's a mama supposed to keep up with all this action?

I guess I should have known I'd be the embarrassing mom. I mean, if it helps at all, I am probably embarrassing to people besides my children.  I laugh too loud, sometimes until I fall right off my chair.  I'm socially awkward.  I say things that don't need to be said.  I dance like a fool.  I'm clumsy.  Really, really clumsy.  I am likely to be the person at any given event who needs an extra chair to prop up some injured body part.  I knock over things, bump into people, spill stuff... 

Most of the time, I don't care how dorky I look.  I mean, I got used to being a dork a long time ago.  For instance, a couple of years ago, I went to school and helped set lighting for the Holiday Program with my broken nose taped up, just days after surgery, black eyes and all.  When some of my students asked what had happened, the principal and I told them that I had jumped out of an airplane and my parachute didn't deploy, but, luckily for me, I happened to land right on top of a skiing James Bond...

Oh.  And I make up stories.  Sometimes, I make up really outlandish stories.  

My kids have always liked these things about me.  I've always been the "fun mom" or the "quirky mom," but I am starting to see just the slightest shift in the weather as they age.  I might not care how dorky I look, but I am starting to think maybe my kids do.  Which leaves me in a tough position. I am fairly certain the "dork" is too deeply ingrained at this point for me to lose it entirely.  So, maybe I can be dorky, but try not to embarrass them quite so much.  I could cut the spit shining.  I mean, wet wipes aren't that expensive...and it is gross.  And, you know, what?  I know the kid's going to forget her note, so why shout it out the door, right?  I think I'll try, maybe just a little, to be slightly less publicly humiliating.  

I have a feeling that, no matter what I do, there are many, many days of eye-rolling and "Ma-MA!" ahead of us.  But, in the end, I hope they will have fond memories of their dorky, embarrassing mom, who came to all of their performances with her unusual hair, her combat boots, her great big camera and her proudest "That's my BA-BY!" face.  

Because, you know:

"That's my BA-BY!"